Advice

It was a rough weekend with my little Children not feeling their best. Yet, Monday dawned sunny and bright this morning and the house is back to its usual chipper feel.
 

The end of a January means one thing in our house and that is: marriage retreat is two weeks away! This is an important time for my husband and I who put other evening activities on hold to spend time writing and reading and praying for the divine inspiration necessary for what we have coming. We have been teaching at our Church’s marriage retreat for, I think seven years now; having started back when we were shocked and humbled to be asked, given our limited experience. We still feel the compliment in being asked as well as the immense responsibility.

 

We take this really seriously.
Since I am still participating in the Blogathon with Jolly Little Life for the remainder of this week and the prompt for today is share some great advice you have been given, I will take the opportunity to share marriage advice.

Years ago when my dad was offering my husband and I pre marriage advice, he said the words that have since rocked our world, so to speak; the words: “just be nice”. Simple advice but pointed. Only when you have lived with a person day in and day out, you are tired or irritated or just plain mad, do you realize that the simple words: just be nice, are not always so easy. However, that phrase has helped us over the years shape a marriage that is solid, that can take whatever comes and overcome.....together. Looking back I realize that some of the most trying times in our lives, could also have been some of the most damaging to our marriage if we had taken the stress and intensity out on each other, the very thing we were tempted to do. Those words ring in our heads, and the strength of our commitment, regardless of the strength of negative feelings in the moment, have helped us to fight the battles side by side instead of in opposition. Kindness is a gift we give, a gift that in it’s giving is all the more valuable when feelings are hurt or emotions are blazing. It has been a ten year exercise in self control that has kept us from those precipices that so many marriages get to when they realize they have gone too far and forgiveness and reconciliation is a hope of yesterday. Kindness is not easy but it can change ones course, having, for us, countless times defused potentially explosive situations.

These words of advice did not seem much on the outset, words that you nod at in agreement and wait for more, but these words have been remembered and played over and over in our heads as year after year we realize their full implication.  I guess my dad was just summing up what it says in the scriptures: "A gentle answer turns away wrath but harsh words stir up anger."
Marriages would last longer if we just put a fraction of the effort normally put into fighting and defending ones position, into simple yet powerful tactics of relational warfare, like: "just be nice".

My Jolly Little Life Blogathon