Put a Little Heet in Your Marriage

We are about to enter our second round of frigid below zero temps this winter. Up north here it isn’t uncommon to have cold weather. Cold meaning 20 below, not 40 degrees above zero. I know we all have our difference of opinion on what “cold” actually means.

So, we’re used to an occasional day of super cold weather. We’re more used to being dumped on with snow, but that’s not what Mother Nature is giving us this year. This year is the year of Frozen.

The last time the frigid temps came (-50) everyone was running around getting prepared; filling up gas tanks, taking precautions in our homes and finding ways to protect our faucets and other piping, putting Heet in our tanks, making sure our shelves and fridges were stocked for a few days of being stuck inside.

I ended up having to go to 3 different places to find Heet for our cars. Everyone was out. And not just of Heet. The shelves were fairly empty. It seemed we were all preparing for the Apocalypse.

This was just a great reminder for me that our marriages require maintenance. Sometimes things get out of whack or we are hit with a “winter” we didn’t see coming and we have to prepare and determine how we’re going to make it through to the other side.

I think there are two things that successful couples do that allow them to make it through the tough times:

1)   They are willing to do the work. I could have sat back and said, “It’s so cold out already. It’s so much work to go out and search for Heet. Maybe my car will be okay. I think I’ll just chance it.” And when I got to the first store and they were sold out I could have given up and not kept searching. But successful couples are willing to do the hard work of keeping their marriages thriving. They are willing to learn new means of communicating, they are willing to change up how they do things, they are willing to admit the need for counseling, they are willing to find accountability. And when they hit a bump in the road, they don’t give up; they find a new way to meet the challenges they are facing head on.

2)   They are prepared. One of the things that might have made the last frozen vortex from the North Pole easier to handle would have been being better prepared. It’s not like we didn’t see the news telling us for days ahead that the frigid temps were coming. I didn’t need to wait until the last minute to buy gas and Heet and extra food. I could have had the foresight to get those things ahead of time. Sometimes in marriage we live out of a place of re-action rather than pro-action which means we’re continually responding to crisis rather than planning ahead for that potential crisis. In marriage this means, taking time alone to reconnect through things like date nights. It means talking things through with a trusted friend, counselor or pastor before things get bad. It means praying continually without ceasing for your spouse and your marriage. It means being aware of and honest about the direction your marriage is headed and doing something about it. Now. Not hours before the temps go frigid. Now, today. It means walking through my marriage with eyes wide open; not brushing things under the rug or pretending they’re not there until I end up tripping over them.

Marriage is hard work. It takes continual preparation and maintenance. If we’re not willing to do that we’re going to end up out in the cold. Or constantly running around like crazies putting out fires. Putting the hard work and prep in at the onset is so much easier. It may seem harder. But its not. The more hard work we intentionally pour into our marriage the easier our marriage runs.

We regularly link up to these wonderful sites! Check them out!