Socrates said, By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
Recently, I had Pastor Joane order me “Top Five Needs” by Robert and April Jones. They pastor in McAllen, Texas. In my opinion, it is a challenging book for couples who want to take their marriage to a higher level. I found several things that I believe are helpful, when truly adhered to. I wish to look at three things I believe are vital to a growing, healthy marriage.
Comfort – For any relationship to function properly, whether it is a marriage or even a friendship, I believe the top ingredient must be comfort. When I found Joane, we began as friends – attending church together. Later, we worked together, in fact, she taught me the mortgage banking business. After almost two years, when she had moved on and I had moved to Port O’Connor, our friendship changed to romance. We both should have bought stock in AT&T because our phone bills were exceptionally large since she still lived in Houston.
The one thing that made our lives go together so we could create a family unit was that friendship. I find far too many people who rush into a physical relationship without establishing an emotional relationship through friendship. Because of distance and time, we did not date very often, but our nightly calls – and sometimes they took all night – allowed us the opportunity to explore each other’s personality. I found her to be exceptionally talented, disciplined, and charming. She found I had several “warts” and still said, “I Do!”
Comfort is established by trust and trust is always earned. I find many people who really mess up a relationship and then, by saying, “I’m sorry,” expect that trust is immediately restored! How foolish! Trust takes many weeks, but most often many months, and can be lost with one dumb act. “I’m sorry” means exactly that – you were a sorry person to make such an untrusting move. Some believe that saying, “I’m sorry” is a signal of repentance and should be met with total forgiveness – as if we had done nothing wrong. But repentance simply means to change one’s mind; it is not “regret,” which means being “sorry I got caught.” Nor is is “remorse,” which is a hopeless attitude that leads to despair. Repentance is a change of mind that results in an action of the will – when one truly repents, their activities will change from wrong to right. It takes time to prove exactly what one’s activities are and to be measured as changed!
Respect – There is an old adage that says men demand respect and women demand security. To a large extent I agree that men need respect and women need security, but I believed these blankets come by mutual respect. Men must respect the boundaries placed by ladies, no acting like cave men – demanding! When a sarcastic tone is detected during conversation, when a person ignores those around them while watching television, especially when a meaningful interaction is supposed to be happening, or when someone is constantly on their phone and ignoring those around them, these actions will be interpreted as disrespectful and the respect that is purported to be taking place is ruined!
Guys, “No” always means “No!” Even if the lady is in a habit of being coy and says “no” when they mean, “please,” we must, for the sake of respect, never go ahead as if we heard “yes!” Ladies, it is disrespectful for one to say “No” hoping that the guy understands that “please” is being said. When one does not articulate their feelings accurately, disrespect will be encouraged to continue. Be careful that we never send such mixed signals that those around us can not understand what is being said!
Consistency – Consistency is quite possibly the single most important reason couples break apart. All of us realize that we have different personalties for different occasions. When we first meet, we have a “dater’s persona”. After a while, we feel more comfortable and can “pass gas” in front of friends. We act differently around old friends than we do with people that we have just met. We have a business personality and a party personality. But, most everything we do or wish to accomplish is judged by our consistency. Our credit scores say more that just how much we owe and how much we have in savings; it reports how consistent we are in making our monthly obligations. We know those who have won the lottery when are rejected for a loan because of lack of making their payments in a timely manner. My doctor instructed me to get a “pill box” because she could tell that I was not as consistent in taking my prescriptions as she had instructed. How did she know? She noted how often I reordered my medications!
I know almost no one who makes promises with the full intentions of breaking them, but I know several people who can most often not be counted on even after they had promised! How do we know? We have the record of their consistency in other matters, and we understand it will carry into most every other area of their life! We need to return to the days when our word was our bond, when a handshake was more valuable than a contract, and when people acted upon the “Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”
Simple concepts equal important relationship principles. We need trust, respect and consistency for a lifetime of bliss!
