What did you get married for?\u00a0 Did you expect your partner would love you unconditionally for all time?\u00a0 That\u2019s what most of us planned on when we entered our marital contract.\u00a0 So what happens following the wedding day bliss that causes so much turmoil?<\/p>\n
What most of us don\u2019t realize is that the most common concept of love is a fairy tale.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that true love doesn\u2019t exist, I\u2019m saying that we have a fairy tale view of what love is . . . love is an exciting greeting every time you walk in the door, movie-worthy passionate kisses, instant forgiveness when you make mistakes, being oblivious to your flaws or unpleasant behaviors.\u00a0 That\u2019s the fairy tale view \u2013 and if we could only pull that off for the 65 years that we\u2019ve signed on for, we\u2019d be all set!<\/p>\n
Love in a marriage does not mean that you tell each other how good and special and wonderful you are at every given moment.\u00a0 You CAN\u2019T!\u00a0 If you did, you would be lying because a marriage contains two very imperfect beings who are NOT good and special and wonderful all the time!\u00a0 Love in a marriage says I am committed to you, I care about you, I have your best interest in mind, I want you to be happy, what matters to you also matters to me, AND I want to help you to be the best person you can be<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n In short, our spouse\u2019s job is not just to love and accept us as the flawed creatures that we are, but also to point out areas where we need improvement.\u00a0 Guess what?\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t always feel so hot!\u00a0 When my spouse is telling me all the good things about me, I like that A LOT!\u00a0 It makes me want to return the love.\u00a0 When my spouse is telling me that I have bad breath or I behaved inconsiderately or that I\u2019m kind of self-centered at times, that doesn\u2019t feel good \u2013 at all!\u00a0 It makes me want to withdraw from my spouse.\u00a0 And when it\u2019s being delivered in a critical, abusive, or reactive way, it is especially<\/em><\/strong> hard to hear!<\/p>\n If you want to get the most out of your marriage, you will stop fighting your spouse for not \u2018giving you the love\u2019 at all times and instead try to hear what they are saying about you.\u00a0 Maybe you are<\/em><\/strong> kind of angry, or cut-off, or victimy, or critical!\u00a0 Maybe you do<\/em><\/strong> need to pay more attention your kids, or be less self-focused or oblivious! \u00a0Maybe you do<\/em><\/strong> need to work on your personal hygiene, or to stop spending money on things you can\u2019t afford.\u00a0 Keep in mind, it hurts to hear the negative things about ourselves, so if this kind of feedback isn’t offered with love and compassion, that is an area where you and\/or your partner need to grow!<\/p>\n If the majority of the complaints in the marriage are about not feeling the love, perhaps you have the wrong definition of love.\u00a0 In a marriage where both partners are committed to loving each other in a healthy way, they will feel loved and accepted AND be learning and growing and becoming the best person they can be.\u00a0 Your spouse is a gift to you!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What did you get married for?\u00a0 Did you expect your partner would love you unconditionally for all time?\u00a0 That\u2019s what most of us planned on when we entered our marital contract.\u00a0 So what happens following the wedding day bliss that causes so much turmoil? What most of us don\u2019t realize is that the most common […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[394,500,719,700,720,721,722],"class_list":["post-3594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage","tag-abandonment","tag-marital-conflict","tag-not-in-love-anymore","tag-should-i-get-divorced","tag-what-is-marriage","tag-why-cant-he-just-love-me","tag-why-is-my-spouse-so-critical-of-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4221,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594\/revisions\/4221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}