Marriage Care Meets Tonight! (And some sound advice...)

Just a reminder that our Marriage Care Group meets tonight and each of the next two Thursdays following at 7:00 p.m. at St. John's.  We chat a little, think a little...it's a good time for married couples and a chance to re-focus on some of the things that make marriage great.

As a part of getting ready for this group I've been thinking about some of the things that keep marriages strong. Every relationship has ups and downs.  You get to see the best and worst in your spouse.  Some days you can't believe how lucky you are getting to spend your life with this person.  Other days you have to stick Krazy Glue in your eyes to keep them from constantly rolling.

Every marriage gets both kinds of moments and many in between.  The secret to a lasting marriage isn't avoiding one kind or holding on to the other.  It's all about how you round.

There are basically two kinds of people in the world.  Some look at all their partner's good qualities and round up the flaws to meet them, calling it good.  Others look at all their partner's flaws and round down the good parts to match.  Either way you end up with a fairly consistent assessment of a complex person, and by extension a fairly consistent assessment of your relationship.  No matter how many things happen in between ultimately it's either going to be good or bad for you, depending on how you round it.

Folks who have been married 50+ years know their partner's faults better than anyone.  They've had the fights. They've experienced the tests and crises.  Ironically enough, those are also the people who are going to tell you, "I have few complaints.  It's been good.  I'm glad I married my spouse."  This isn't ignoring the faults.  It just tells you that you're going to have a hard time staying married for a long time without being a rounder-upper.  People who look for and hold onto the negative just don't make it.  They find exactly what they were looking for...as they would with any human being around whom they spent that much time.

That's not to say that all marriage are a matter of attitude.  Some of our relationships do contain major problems that need to be healed or gotten away from.  No amount of positive thinking will change that.  But when you're talking day-to-day difficulties, you'll have a lot easier time handling them if you remember what's great about your spouse and then round up the other things to meet those good qualities.  Usually the things that are bothersome don't end up being as significant as the positive things.

7:00 tonight.  See you there!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)