Maintaining Freshness in Marriage
By Kurai and
Lena Chitima
How do you
keep your heart beating a 'little faster' than usual for your spouse? A story is
told of a priest who saw a man crying bitterly next to a grave. On listening carefully,
the priest discovered the man kept repeating, ‘Why did you leave us so soon!’ Out of concern, the priest asked who it was
that had died. ‘My wife’s first husband’, was the reply. While many wish they were married, paradoxically,
many wish they had not married. The assumption that spouses are happily and
fondly affectionate can be wrong. The man at the graveside was regretting why
he got married. You can be sure this man
had not always felt that way. At one time, he delighted in seeing and being
with his wife. Then he was blind to everyone
else of the opposite sex, but now he only sees everyone else. The couple lived
in each other’s loving arms, but now they give their backs to each other.
For the fire
to go out, all you need to do is do nothing. To ignite and keep a fire burning, you
have to do something. You create a fireplace. You bring the firewood. You get the firelighter. You arrange the wood and light the fire. You attend to the
fire. You fan, rearrange, or add wood as necessary. For fire to keep burning, there must be a free flow of air that supplies the oxygen. Sometimes you may need
to push the pieces of wood close to each other. In marriage, you may need to
get closer to your spouse for the fire to burn. You remove ashes of suspicions,
unforgiveness, ill feelings, negative thoughts/attitudes that slowly kill the
fire. Spouses inevitably disagree and sometimes sharply or even hurt each
other. Someone comes late to pick you up. Someone forgets your birthday, etc. However,
the fire will keep burning if you allow the air of grace, keeping short
accounts, to flow freely, along with encouragement, humor, and room for mistakes and gender differences.
Communication
is vital to maintaining fresh fire. Fan the relationship into flame with frequent words and attitudes that affirm love, trust, and value. Here are more suggestions on how to maintain
fresh fire in your marriage relationship.
Do
not be overly serious.
Do not always take the worst
interpretation of what the other says. In a burst of emotion, a wife said, ‘I
will go to my parents’. That brought a tsunami into the marriage because the
husband insisted that she carry out what she said. He said something like,
‘You said it, so I say go now. ’ She explained that she was only trying to
express that what had happened had badly affected her. He, however, picked the
worst interpretation. You have to learn to forgive each other and move on. The injunction not to let the sun go down in
your anger does not mean finish him/her off before sunset.
Some are even ‘so serious’ that they cannot
give any gifts until they can afford the best they imagine. What you give is, after all, a token to express the immeasurable love you have. The gift takes the
size of the love. Do not wait to provide a
jet in heaven.
Be generous with laughter. Even the serious people with little allowance
for fun can stretch themselves a little more and see the magic.
Break
monotony
The same thing done the same way all the
time can become boring. Doing and saying a thing differently has a way of giving newness and an element of pleasant surprise. You could vary how you address
each other. You can also vary appearance, menu, places, positions, and times. Adopt
a learning attitude with your spouse.
Be
realistic
Much influence has come from some
fiction or ideal that you read in a book, heard from somewhere, saw in a movie,
etc. You cannot expect perfection because you are not perfect. Your
relationship will be human-tinted because you both bring with you humanity’s
gems and germs. The fire will go out very fast if you do not allow for each other’s differences, mistakes, and shortcomings. Work together to manage the situation, and for what you cannot change, you
may have to change. Realistically, there are times the other is tired or not
well enough to do what you expect. They will not always be wearing or looking
their best. Watch out for little nothings that threaten to become big
somethings suddenly.
Make
the time
Time is an inevitable ingredient of
healthy growing relationships. Making quality time for each other in marriage is
a topmost challenge in the 21st Century. It is not easy to find holiday
and family time, because TVs, laptops, and other electronic gadgets have taken
it away. In many cases, both spouses are going out to earn money and become too
busy to find quality time for each other. As a result, many when the nest becomes
empty, and they have retired, do not know what to do with each other. The
solution to the time dilemma is to first allocate time to your most important relationship
after God, your relationship with your spouse.
Respond
graciously
Being responsive is keeping an attitude
of not taking the other for granted. Familiarity tends to breed contempt. Some
have become warm with everyone else and cold with their spouse. They are no
longer careful to be kind and gentle with each other. They no longer take care to be attractive and winsome to the other. They no longer accept a mere ‘I am sorry,’ but
now require that the other say it on their knees and in some cultures, even say out
their totem.
Pray together
Moreover, always remember that being madly
in love means maintaining fire for God
and for your spouse. Praying together is an unsung romantic essential tip you need
to apply. Those who pray together stay
together. Marriage is God’s idea, and he gives sufficient grace for his ideas.
Ecclesiastes 9:9 Live happily with the woman you love through the fleeting days of life, for the wife God gives you is your best reward down here for all your earthly toil.
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Reflection: How is your fire? Do you act like an ideal
couple in public and tear each other’s hearts to shreds in private? If you do,
you are simply setting yourself up because private realities will spill over
into the public before long. Your situation can be different. Go ahead and take action now to maintain or even rekindle the fire in your marriage.
