Remember Love

March is officially over and a new month brings new resolutions. Overall, March was generally fun. I will admit, spending a rare sunny day in my basement hauling out items for trash or donation, wasn't fun at the time. But not dodging random Rubbermaid containers filled with anonymous camping gear on my way to the treadmill is extremely satisfying. I anticipate April will be more challenging... Marriage.

APRIL

Remember Love

Marriage


Resolutions:

Quit Nagging.
Don't expect Praise or Appreciation.
Fight Right.
No dumping.
Give Proofs of Love.

As I reread Gretchen Rubin's chapter on Marriage in her book "The Happiness Project" this morning, I felt renewed. Making a "project" out of my marriage seems bizarre to me and I admit, a bit of a daunting task. A marriage takes two people, and as the Happiness Project is about changing myself, not my husband, it seems unfair that I need to be the only one to change. I just didn't want to do the work. She writes, "My marriage was the foundation for all the other important choices in my life: where I lived, having kids, my friends, my work, my leisure. The atmosphere for my marriage set the weather for my whole life". Okay... I get it. It's amazing how the most important relationship in your life is often the one that suffers the most neglect. I know from talking to other women (it's what I do for a living) that I am not the only one. Your partner is supposed to love you for better or worse, but that doesn't give anyone the excuse to behave badly. And for those of you with small kids, it's even harder to make time for each other. For my month's challenges, I've decided to tackle the exact resolutions that Gretchen did. They won't be easy by any means, especially (if you have read my earlier posts) I have issues with things always being "fair". Sometimes drastic change is helpful to kick a bad habit. I have friends who swear by cleanses to kick start a diet, and many people go "cold turkey" when quitting smoking. With this idea in mind, I'm going cold turkey for a week, which happens to be the amount of time it takes to kick a habit. As Gretchen called it, a Week of Extreme Nice that "stretched me beyond my ordinary efforts, that showed me new depths within myself". I'm heading to the library this week as well to pick up some material on bettering your marriage. I think every relationship, no matter how great it is, can always use some improvement. Dylan and I are coming up on our 7 year wedding anniversary (where did the time go?) and although Dylan has some amazing qualities (he's an incredible dad, works hard, does ALL the cooking, cleans, etc) the bad qualities are the ones that I often focus on. My hope for this month, is that my good behavior will trigger him to give me the things that I need from our marriage. Because as I've discovered... nagging him to be more dependable, supportive, etc just doesn't work! I remember watching Seal and Heidi Klum on Oprah (I know they just split up, but the advice is still great) as he offered up some advice on marriage. He said that if you treat your spouse the way you treat your best friend, your marriage will flourish. It's okay to have disagreements, but name calling, swearing and overreacting are unacceptable behaviors. So here goes... month two. A new set of tasks while still maintaining my resolutions from last month. Wish me luck!