CHOOSE TO LOVE YOUR MARRIAGE
"CHOOSE YOUR LOVE, LOVE YOUR CHOICE"
In the end, it’s up to you to have a happy, lasting millennial marriage. It is your choice to make your marriage work. Marriage can be difficult. It takes time to create your new family. Be patient and willing to work for your marriage. In marriage, we as spouses need to be willing to make sacrifices. We need to take care of ourselves, make time for our spouse, learn to communicate, parent together and create your own life together. What are you willing to change or to sacrifice to make your marriage work? How are you going to better show your spouse you love them? In this lesson we will discuss how to always love your spouse.
Showing Your Spouse You Love Them
“True love, the kind of love that keeps a couple together for a lifetime, is not a feeling but an attitude… This attitude leads to words and actions that are beneficial to your spouse and often stimulate warm emotions inside the spouse's heart,” says Dr. Gary Chapman. It is essential that we are doing those little things daily that show our spouse we love them. I try to do little things throughout the day to make sure my husband knows how much I love him. I make him his favorite meal for dinner, do his laundry, write little love notes or bake him his favorite treat. The little things may seem so insignificant, but they make such a difference. They tell your spouse that you were thinking about them that day. If your attitude is not in the right place to show your spouse how much you love him/her, then change yourself.
Expressing Gratitude
Creating the attitude of love for your spouse can be hard, especially when there is a history of challenges. Expressing gratitude for your spouse is a great start on the path to truly loving your spouse. Make sure your spouse knows that you are grateful and appreciative of him/her. It can be as easy as saying thank you for something your spouse did for you. You can also ask your spouse what makes them feel appreciated. Do something each day that lets your spouse know that you were thinking about them.
Showing gratitude doesn’t take much, but when your spouse feels appreciated or knows that you are grateful for them you will become more united. You will know that you are on the same page and have the same goal of a lasting marriage.
Becoming One
As husband and wife you’ll never be exactly the same, and that’s okay. No one is literally “perfect” for their spouse. Men and women are made differently, but not only that, each individual is completely and totally unique! It doesn’t matter who you marry, there will be differences. You’ve come from different families and you each have different talents. Marriage isn’t about finding the person that is most like you. To be honest, if I (Olivia) married someone who was just like me then we wouldn’t last an hour together. My husband, Hunter, is an amazing guy. We get along great, but we still have many differences. Over the past couple years as a married couple, we’ve each changed in wonderful ways. An example would be that instead of taking home every cat and dog that needs help (as I would do), we’ve settled with fostering some kittens over the summer and having just two cats and one dog. It’s more than Hunter would have, but it’s less than I would. We found a middle ground for us.
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I mentioned above that no one is perfect for their spouse. That is because in all honesty, you probably could have gotten along well enough with any number of people as your partner. Many Millennials focus way too much on trying to find their “soulmate” or their “one-and-only”. The truth is, there’s no such thing as a “soulmate”. No matter how hard you look, if you are looking for the perfect soulmate - you know, the guy or girl with the perfect hair, perfect voice, the exact personality you want - you will always be disappointed to realize that whoever you with just literally cannot live up to those expectations. So what do you do then? It all comes down to choosing your love, and loving your choice. Those are words to live by. If we teach you anything in these lessons, it should be that your marriage can work out if you commit to love your choice for the rest of your life.
Conclusion
Marriage is never easy, but there are things you can do to make it great. As mentioned in Dr. Chapman’s quote, true love is not a feeling but an attitude. You can start generating this attitude by expressing gratitude for your spouse. Take the time to think about why you are grateful for him or her and then tell them. No matter what you do, though, in the end you and your spouse are different people. You will have to learn how to work with those differences and choose to love your spouse no matter what. This is easier said than done, especially when you have high expectations for what your spouse should be like, but it can be done.
Below are two amazing videos. The first is by Mufti Menk, a Muslim cleric who is speaking about why we need to appreciate our spouses. The second is from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and shows a beautiful story of an old couple nearing the end of their lives and looking back at their adventures together, still enjoying the time they have.