Ferocious Flirting: Making Marriage Wonderful

Individuality , a photo by Batikart ... handicapped ... sorry for no comments on Flickr. Weeding makes me philosophical.  Maybe it is that so many parables are have their root in working the land.  Maybe it is the undistracted quiet or maybe there is just something deeper about getting my hands dirty.  I have a flower bed that has a lot of grass in it that I have to keep pulling out.  Early in the spring I can attack the grass with gusto.  As the flowers grow in I have to be more careful and take more time in order to pull the grass without harming the flower plants.  If I fail to weed at first, the rest of the summer becomes much harder. Weeding is like removing those little problems that happen during a marriage.  First, if you take care of them early on before they can really get a root, they are much easier to address.  Second, leaving them to grow often leads to more problems that are harder to extract. What are the weeds in a marriage?  The might be the little disagreem

In an article Be a Supportive Spouse there is a list of ways to show support for your spouse including: Respect your spouse's personal decisions. Don't be threatened by your spouse's accomplishments. Tell people, especially your partner, how proud you are of his/her talents and skills.  There are a lot of other ideas on being supportive of each other.  Having someone to celebrate with is just as important as having a shoulder to cry on.  

I was speaking with a couple the other day and the wife mentioned how much her husband liked to shop with her. The husband then gave us the thought for the day, "I do not love shopping, I love my wife."   He then went on to talk about how much he loved and appreciated the woman who is both his wife and the mother of his children.  All couples have interests they share, it is what brings us together in the first place.  It is also true that our spouses have interests we do not share.  The question is:  do we support, respect and encourage these healthy interests of our sweetheart?  Or do we make our spouse choice between spending time with us or doing the things they love? My friend went beyond just tolerating his wife's interest and instead choose to make time spent shopping as time they could both enjoy.  Move beyond the bored waiting around to an active participation.  Another example is a husband who loves sports.  A wife could see that as time wasted or as time t