This past weekend I performed a wedding on Long Beach Island, at the New Jersey Shore. It was a very tender, simple service at the Spray Beach Chapel, a quaint little wood frame building built in 1895, and just a block from the ocean. With the windows open you can hear the rolling waves.
It was the second marriage for both of them. As the bride put it, "we are not 22 anymore, we bring some history and a lot of hope for what will be."
I thought a great deal about this. Why do marriages end; and what can we do to keep them alive and well?
Some marriages need to end. Their continuance is destructive. However, through years of working with many couples, I have concluded that many marriages starve to death. They are not fed, watered, and cared for.
When you are married, it is no longer "me" thinking, it is "we" thinking. Every decision, every feeling, every thought, every action has a "we" dimension. Two people are impacted. We lose some autonomy; but we gain a loving support that holds us when things are tough; and makes every good experience a bit better.
Marriage is the opportunity to start our own traditions and to think through our own value system. It is a mistake when we take our parents traditions into our marriages. We do not go back; we need to go forward. Our parents traditions were right for them and become the foundation for our new traditions.
And it is important to keep romance alive. Some suggestions: a card every now and then that simply says "I love you". For Judy and me, roses are a very powerful symbol. Every now and then a rose in a bud vase appears on my desk and says "I love you" all day long. I encourage couples to have a date once every 14 days; and a weekend away every now and then to re connect. Every day there needs to be a minimum requirement of 4 hugs and 6 compliments. You see, we often expect our marriages to sustain us, but in fact we need to sustain the marriage.
This couple has come through some tough experiences of life and she put it well, "Our marriage is number one, more important than anything else in our lives." The Apostle Paul said it well, "The greatest of these is love." |