The Greatest Gift: Stay Together

Angela’s welcome party was a happy event for many of her parents’ friends and family. While everyone was celebrating her arrival into the world, Angela was asleep in her baby carriage, wearing the most beautiful angel outfit.The pile of presents next to her baby carriage was huge and at the end of the evening, Sam, the old manager at the event hall, helped her dad, Ian, put all the gifts in the car.
“Bless her. She has so many gifts”, the old manager said to Angela’s dad while helping him to load a big pink box with curly ribbons.

“Yes, she does”, said Ian excitedly.

Ian had been a bit worried before Angela’s arrival. He had been looking forward to the delivery day but at the same time worried about providing for his family. The list of things a baby needs had been so big that during the party, he kept looking at the gifts and was happy to see them piling high.

“We really need all the gifts”, Ian said to the old manager.

“Not really”, smiled Sam, “What you need is something that can’t be packed with ribbons”, and he held up a toy that made a funny noise.

Ian looked at the old man, not really understanding. He stopped and looked at him in surprise, “What do you mean? What do we need?”

“One more toy, another nice dress or furniture will make you happy, but she needs something that cannot be bought with money”, said Sam and handed Ian an envelope with a greeting card.

“This is your invoice. Thank you for choosing our venue”, he shook Ian’s hand, smiled and went back into the building, passing by Angela’s mom, Louise, at the entrance.

Ian opened the envelope and took out a greeting card with a photo of a large golden gift box. He opened the card. The invoice was folded inside it. Ian took out the invoice and read the greeting, which was written in pink.

Congratulations!

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My Psychic Mom

I suspected that my mom was psychic when I visited my late grandparents’ house and saw a photo of an old man, with a long gray beard and a special turban on his head. It was a black and white photo that stood proudly on top of my grandparents’ TV.

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Nagging Singles into Marriage

Being single is no fun when people around you nag. Many times, family members believe that all people should get married and that nagging will “encourage” singles to find a partner. In fact, this is the same whatever you nag your kids to do.

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In the Hearts of Kids

Being grownups, parents are often busy with grownup things. Being kids, parents often assume their children are busy with kid things. So when something happens that we classify as “a grownup thing”, we may assume our kids will simply ignore it or perhaps not fully comprehend it. Sometimes, we are so wrong.

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Relationship Between Two Onions

Many couples in crisis get to this situation because they do not know each other well. Knowing each other is the first step in overcoming conflicts. In this part of “Save Your Marriage”, I am going to write about the importance of knowing your partner and teach you how to learn all there is to know about your partner. Getting to know your partner’s fears, joys, history and attitude are the first step of any relationship.

Think of marriage as a relationship between two onions. For a couple to get closer, they have to peel the layers of the onion one by one. In the beginning, when you meet a potential partner, you peel the thin external layers. As the relationship deepens, you need to peel more and more layers to discover the beautiful person hiding inside.

To understand, respect and love each other in our marriage, we must truly get to know the person sharing out life. Sometimes, just knowing what their fears are or their joys can change a whole life. I remember the first time Gal gave me his list of “50 things that make me happy” and I was surprised to find out he was happy about very little things. It was surprising, because we had lived together for over 15 years.

Assuming that if you live together you know everything is a bad idea. Even if we knew out partner well at some point, we still need to update ourselves and keep learning about them because, just like us, our partner changes with every event in their life.

If you ever go on a TV show of the “best married couple” type, they will ask how much you know about each other.

Why?

Because everyone assumes that knowing things about each other is essential to your success as a married couple.

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See What Love Can Do

This week, I received this inspiring movie about a father, who participated in the “Iron Man” (triathlon) competition with his son. I watched it with tears of inspiration, tears of excitement and joy for the glory of parenting and the essence of love. Love can help us carry heavy loads and push through enormous difficulties, and then it can inspire others too.

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Be Your Partner’s Best Friend

True friends are forever. It is amazing how long we keep true friendships. From primary school age and across oceans, we take a feeling of belonging and connectedness with us and maintain friendships.

Divorcing is actually the end of a very special friendship. It is a friendship between partners and lovers. If we remember to treat our partners like we treat those special friends, it would probably make life much easier.

Friends are God’s way of taking care of us

We may have misunderstandings, disagreements and conflicts with friends, but we never forget the bond we have between us and we are always willing to work out our problems. Just like any friendship, marriage is a way for two people to complete each other.

In order for marriage to work, the couple needs to master the three functions of marriage: partnership, love and friendship. These three functions are fundamental to the success of every marriage. We talk a lot about sharing responsibilities, we talk about increasing the love, but it seems that often, the friendship is a little neglected. In fact, surveys reveal that if there is one thing that will enable a couple to weather even the toughest of times, it is friendship.

If you want to stay married for a long time, find a way to be your partner’s best friend.

The first step to success of the friendship in any marriage is to make sure you align your definitions with your partner’s. Here are some questions couples should ask themselves and then discuss with each other if they want to grow their relationship.

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Lean on Me

Once upon a time, there was a princess in a far away kingdom. When the princess was born, she cried a lot. Her parents, the king and queen, called all their advisors for help. Some said she was cold, others said she was tired, some said she was hungry and others said she was wet, but one old advisor said, “The princess is in the middle of a fight”.

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Just the Two of Us

Here is a question I have received from Prudence, one of my readers. I am posting my reply here, because I think that my answer may help other people.

Prudence asked, “We are almost at our 2nd year anniversary. We have two foster children, 14 and 10. Our marriage is happy, fun and exciting, but sometimes I feel we don’t have enough time just the two of us… how do you do it with two kids?”

I guess that becoming a parent to a big kid is not the same as growing together with your kids since they are babies. Kids want all the attention on them all of the time, which we give them at first. Along the way, we gradually learn to use our time better: to complete things a bit better, a bit faster or just to get rid of some time consuming habits.

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When Two Do Not Become One

In many cultures, marriage is considered a union of souls, not to mention the union of bodies. Therefore, many people have the notion that when they get married, “two become one” and even the Spice Girls sang about it, so it must be true.

However, as much as the beautiful concept of becoming one seems appealing at the beginning of a relationship, especially during the wedding ceremony, the expectation to become one can be the cause of many challenges in a marriage.

We can be united and fly to the same destination, but in doing so, we need two wings – two opposite wings – a right wing and a left wing. When we walk, we need to opposite legs & feet to keep us balanced. We would have a hard time walking with only one leg, however thick, or with two right feet. In the same way, a married couple can never truly be one (or two of the same).

The fine line between connection and uniqueness

The need for love and connection that marriage fulfils awakens another need – the need for significance. During adolescence, this need reaches its peak and teens go to extremes to be unique. Being with Gal for so many years (28 years this Thursday) has often made me wonder about my individuality within our relationship. The biggest question is “Where do ‘we’ stop and ‘I’ begin?” or “How much of myself should I compromise for our relationship?”

While coaching couples, I have found that this question is common to every marriage. The desire to be one means that you may risk your uniqueness and this can be one of the causes for divorce. “Why do I have to go with you to this movie just because you like it?” or “Why do we always do what you want?” are examples of the sentences married couples say to each other that are a sign they have not yet found the right balance between connection and uniqueness.

Remember, when you get married, it is not the end of who you were before, but a part of who you are now.

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