Love & Marriage, Love & Marriage go together like....

I haven't written in a while and I apologize to anyone who might look at this site with any regularity.  I got really sick.  I tried to brush it off thinking it was just allergies but alas I was truly coming down with a cold.  I am better now. 

I've been seeing and hearing a lot about relationships lately (being  laid out flat I watched a lot of TV and surfed the net a bit more than usual, okay a lot more than usual) some of it good, and some not, so I felt compelled to write about that today.  Please don't think that I've got all the answers or that my marriage is perfect, neither of these would be true.  I do have some answers though and while there are peaks and valleys, we do have a good marriage. 

I have a wonderful friend that I have mentioned before, though not by name.  She's been in my life since just after my oldest was born.  I'll refer to her as Molly from here on out.  I had always planned on using that name for a little girl, since that probably isn't going to occur in my lifetime, it's a wonderful alias for a good friend.  Anyway I digress, Molly has always been a really great friend, full of knowledge and good advice.  One of the areas that she seems to have great advice in is marriage.  I am lucky enough then to pass some of this info on to other people in my life.  She introduced me to two of the three books that I'm about to tell you about.

So when it comes to relationships while some are good and some are bad and lets face it the bad ones are really bad.  For those of us in the so-so to good range, we all know there can always be some improvement.  Here are a few resources for those of us looking to improve.  This list is short but sweet;  "The Five Love Languages" by  Gary Chapman, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" by Dr. Laura Schlessinger,   and "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey.  For those of you who don't read, I believe each of these books is also available on CD. 

The first book that Molly recommended to me was The Five Love Languages.   This book is all about people learning how to speak their spouses love language for a more fulfilling marriage.  If your love language is being spoken frequently then your "love tank" (analogous to a gas tank) is full more often and other areas of your marriage are more smooth.   I've seen this work not only in my marriage but in Molly's and a few other people's marriages.  Other things (work, bills, children, in-laws, etc.) seem workable when you're feeling loved.

The next book is The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.  While guys will say, "Yeah, this is a book about how she's gonna wait on me hand and foot."  They'd be wrong in many ways.  It's much more a book about how wives act once they've gotten married and have settled into the routine of being married.  It's a wonderful eye opener about how we as wives have ignored what our husbands want and need.  Certainly this book isn't for everyone, but I sure found myself in it more than once.  It's a good reminder tool to keep him happy and wanting to be here vs. somewhere else.  You and I both know we don't want to go there.

Since most couples fight over time spent together, sex, and money I figured we'd cover all the bases.  Dave Ramsey has saved our marriage from many a money fight.  Again Molly introduced us to this financial guru.  His "baby steps" are doable and when you're both on the same page when it comes to money it takes so much of the emotional garbage out of the situation.  We even adopted the program so much that at one point I was teaching the classes to our church community.  I must admit that we have slacked off a bit, due to laziness, but we are still doing fine.  We have a 3 month emergency fund, no debt except for our house and we have some money set aside for retirement.  I'd say we're better off than a lot of 36 and 37 year old couples in America these days.

While there are still minor miscommunications... we had one in the middle of this blog being written.  We are better able to get to the other side of them and with less mess and fewer casualties.  We even make up better, which we should go do now....

Kidsisme