A new bride - somewhat embarrassed to be known as a honeymooner - asked the groom, as they pulled up to their hotel, if there was any way he could help make it appear that they had been married a long time. He thought a moment and said, " Sure, you carry the suitcase!"
Signs of deteriorating love are neither hard to find nor imagine. When we're out in public places, my wife and I like to watch people relate. We have noticed how many couples, dining together at restaurants, hardly exchange a sentence during their meal, except as it would relate to their food order. This is in stark contrast to young couples, obviously out on a date. Why does the passion of romantic love so often get lost? Can it be preserved? Can it be recovered, if it has been lost?
Kathy and I say, "It can." We don't say, "It is effortless." Our own 28 years of marriage prove that romantic love does not have to die a slow death; it can be preserved. Our years of ministry to struggling couples prove that romantic love can be restored, even when completely lost. In our first couple of years of marriage, a lady in our church, commenting to Kathy about our purposely sitting together at a fellowship dinner, said, "Enjoy it while you can; in a few years you won't be sitting together like this." She was mistaken.
We are not "joined at the hip", living with a separation anxiety disorder. Though exceptions certainly exist, as a rule we choose to experience life together. We have both worked and cooperated to maintain closeness, to not allow temporary distance to become permanent. Temporary emotional distance visits our relationship occasionally due to hurt, anger, and neglect. Neither of us is perfect; thus, we both do things that irritate or hurt the other. These, however, are not the killers of love. What kills romantic love is the failure to rightly respond to circumstances of neglectful or hurtful behavior.
Jesus offers a key for keeping our love alive or reviving it if it has become weak and lifeless. Though His words were about restoring eroded love between His followers and Himself, the principle works in our romantic relationships powerfully, too. In the book of Revelation, speaking to the Church in Ephesus (chapter two), He says, "You have forsaken your first love." Then He prescribes this remedial medicine: "Repent and do the things you did at first." If you need to restore your first love, restore your first acts. If you want to feel like you felt at first, do what you did at first.
Our reasons for ceasing may be many, but the simple fact is that our love deteriorates when we stop doing the things people "in love" naturally do. When the "honeymoon stage" is over, what we previously did almost effortlessly, we must choose to do with varying degrees of effort required. We must exert the effort to resolve conflict between us. We must exert the effort to overcome pride and make the first move. We must exert the effort to be thoughtful, show courtesy, and to go out of our way to serve.
Doing this work can maintain closeness in our relationships. We don't have to grow apart over time. We can, in fact, grow even closer. Even if you have grown so far apart you can't remember being close, that great distance can be closed. Change must begin, however, with you. Forget how you feel right now, and just begin doing the things you did when you felt better. Think of something nice to say and do; then say it and do it! Think of something else; say it and do it, too. Keep doing it until you get the response you got at first.
Skeptical? I understand. Do it faithfully for thirty days. What do you have to lose? What might you gain?
Dane Tyner is founder and director of Home Improvement Ministry, a Christian family counseling service in Tulsa, OK.The ministry website is http://www.forhim.org.
» left by Creative Blogger(8,040) Creative Blogger (240 days 9 hours ago.)
Hi Dane, great article and very valid points, but a part of me also thinks that those couples not talking are perhaps the couples who never really talked much to begin with.
We have relationships, not just romantic ones, but friendships too with many people for many reasons and the bond that ties us may not be about what we have in common or what we talk about. Certainly I have friends for whom there are awakward silences and others where we fight to get a word in.
Yet I value both friendships equally as they have different merits. Perhaps loyalty, kindness, trust.
In terms of romantic love, the man who stops helping a woman with her bags is one who never intended to do so in the beginning. He just lulled her into a false pretense, and act of chilvary where non existed.
The attractive qualities that can help to sustain relationships are not lost, but they can be fabricated when courting.
» left by Dane Tyner(421) Dane Tyner (240 days 8 hours ago.)
Leah, you're right. The dynamics of every relationship are different because we are relating with another unique being. The chemistry is always, at least slightly, different. This is a delight of life. It would be boring if we were all alike. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
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