Posts Tagged ‘Broken Heart’

Why We Have What We Have or, Love As A Learned Behavior

Posted: February 19, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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When my wife presented her paper titled, “Learning To Be a Serial Killer” at a psychology conference, it was standing room only.  She was attempting to prove that serial murder was not, in fact, a result of an uncontrollable urge that one is born with or attributable to psychosis.  Her premise, which she argued in support of, was that serial killers learn to become killers in much the same way any other behavior is learned.

While she may have wanted to use that kind of learning on me at times during our marriage, thankfully killing was something she never developed an affinity for.

Unfortunately, just as many mistakenly assume that serial killers were born that way, can’t help themselves, have some defect in their brain, or buy into any other of a plethora of explanations, so are many equally clueless about marriage.  When couples have problems, many are quick to say they “married the wrong person,” they just “weren’t right for each other,” or the classic “it didn’t work out.”

Conversely, when a couple is happy or successful, the opinions swing the opposite way.  They “found their soul mate,” they “are so lucky,” yada, yada.  People are generally either jealous and believe that couple has something they wish for, but just haven’t found, or they are happy for them, but fail to understand that anyone can have the same thing if they are willing to work for it and learn what it takes to get it.

People look at our marriage now and don’t have a clue what it took to get to where we are.  We’re not just two people who are happy because we won the dating lottery by happening to meet and marry “the right one.”  We sure haven’t had it easy and we are most definitely not “lucky” to have what we have.  Blessed, fortunate, and grateful, yes.  Luck, however, has nothing to do with it.

To keep this at its simplest, we have what we have because of two words: work and learning.  It has taken a huge amount of work.  That’s mainly my fault and I’ll talk more about that later, but if we weren’t willing to do the work, we wouldn’t have what we have.  At the same time, if we hadn’t learned how real love works, all of my/our efforts might well have been in vain.

When we bought a large house in a small town in Western Kansas, it was in bad shape.  We could tell it had been a grand old home at one time, but years of neglect allowed us to buy it for a ridiculously low price.  Here’s the point, though.  The people who lived in it could have taken care of it and not let it get run down.  Even when it was run down, they could have gotten to work and fixed and restored it for themselves.  Instead they sold it “as is” and walked away from it.

So many people do the same thing with their marriages.  That’s the path I was once traveling.  My marriage was essentially that house in the Winter of 2009.  I was slowly moving toward putting up the proverbial “for sale” sign and letting my marriage go because I thought it had become nearly worthless.  I wasn’t willing to do the work and I didn’t know what to do anyway.

I could have kept my marriage from ever becoming that run down though.  I could have applied myself all along to learning about love and how to treat a woman.  Even when I had allowed the years to get the best of us, I could have gotten to work at any point and avoided so much grief and heartache.

The lesson from the house was that even though we were willing to do the work, we had a lot to learn.  It was by far the biggest project we had undertaken and was full of unexpected surprises.  We did a lot of learning on the fly and had to bring in help from time to time.  The work without the learning wouldn’t have been enough.  The learning without doing the work wouldn’t have mattered either.

As we did the work and began making that house beautiful and showy again, it wasn’t luck that caused it to come together.  When we could proudly entertain guests and enjoy the finished product, it was absolutely not because we were “so lucky” or because that house was “the right one.”  So it is with love.  It’s a learned behavior that takes work.  Either one by itself isn’t enough, but the two together can result in a “killer” love story.

Where are the heroes?

Posted: February 13, 2012 in Love and Marriage
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Les Miserables is undeniably one of the great stories of our time and today I was considering the juxtaposition of its message with a recent conversation I had.  The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t help but be inspired to write.

I couldn’t help wondering why honor is so absent from our society today, especially among men.  Who sold us a bill of goods that said “Live for yourself.  Look out for number one.  Get what you can.”  That’s the way to live life?  I couldn’t disagree more.

I’ll never forget a story I heard as a teen in which a woman was sharing how she and her husband had reconciled after he had had an affair.  She described the pain she felt, lying next to him in bed at night and thinking about what he had done.  She told how she knew she could have left him and been justified in doing so.

But then she said that God showed her that while divorcing him would have been permissible, it wouldn’t have been the most honorable thing.  She chose to stay.  She chose to face her fears, her uncertainty, her pain, and she chose to take the risk for something higher than her feelings, her needs, or what she wanted.

In Les Miserables, the story is a picture of the law and grace, judgement and mercy.  The Bible tells us that mercy triumphs over judgement.  Main character Jean Valjean receives both mercy (not getting what he deserves) and grace (getting what he doesn’t deserve) and goes on to become a giver of both.  Time and again, he has the opportunity to set honor aside and do what would be best for him, but he won’t.  He lives by a different standard, because he was ransomed and redeemed and he is bound by a higher law.

It’s a powerful story of self-sacrifice.  Of living for others rather than self.  And I can’t help but wonder.  Where are all the men today who would risk it all to give of themselves, rather than taking?  Where are the men who would put honor above their pride, and would use what they’ve been given to be what someone else needs?  Where are the heroes?

There’s something more meaningful than success.  There’s something more powerful than winning.  There’s something stronger than justification.

That something is love.  Not the “love” of the pop culture variety.  Not the “if it makes me feel good, if it meets my needs, if it makes me happy, if I’m being fulfilled, etc. etc. gag me please.  Not that selfish, me, me, me attitude that has nothing to do with love.

Real love gives. Real love sacrifices.  Real love doesn’t take.  Real love says others are more important than me and true success is when I can give myself away without asking for anything in return purely for another person’s benefit.

The stories of great love and sacrifice throughout the ages ring true because they get at the heart of what life is really all about and way down inside, no matter how much we bury it or deny it, we know it.

So the choice is, run from it or embrace it.  What will you do with what you’ve been given?

Where are the heroes?

A Fair Question: Why Would God care?

Posted: August 28, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Throughout this blog, I have attempted, as honestly and truthfully as possible, to tell the story of how my marriage reached its apparent end and was then restored.  I have made many claims about God and His help throughout and now I would like to attempt to answer the question, “Why would God care?”  It’s a fair question, and one that deserves an answer.

After all, if God is the all-powerful, all-knowing deity that we think Him to be, why should He turn His attention to the marriage of two totally obscure individuals and work in miraculous fashion to save and heal their marriage?  It’s too much of a pat answer to say “It’s because He loves us.”  He does, but let’s get real here.  People are dying of hunger and disease all over the world today and everyday.  Dictators still deny entire people groups their human rights and natural disasters wreak death and destruction on a grand scale on a regular basis.

God would seem to have a lot on his plate, and if Ceecee and I had divorced, only a handful of people would have been directly affected, so what are we to conclude here?  First of all, it’s not my place to attempt to speak for how God does or doesn’t respond to all the evil in this world.  I don’t know why some prayers get answered and some don’t.  I do know that it would seem to many people that He could have been spending His time working on more important things than our marriage.

I would suggest, however, that taking such a position is to take a very narrow view of God.  If He is, in fact, all-powerful and all-knowing, then He can give His attention to as many things at a time as He needs to without losing sight of any of them.  He also has enough strength to deal with any and every problem that He chooses to with no possibility of over-extending Himself.  In other words, saving my marriage and changing my life didn’t take Him away from anything else that He needed to be doing.

Now, let’s cut to the chase and talk about God’s plan.  His plan, from before the foundation of the earth, was to reveal Himself through mankind, who He created in His own image.  Even at the time of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, He had a plan to restore all things.  He knew, even then, that His son, Jesus Christ, would one day come to earth to die on a cross for the sins of all mankind.  And He knew that one day, at the end of time, a great celebration would take place which the Bible calls “the marriage supper of the lamb,” or, in another translation, “the banquet at the wedding celebration of the Lamb.”

What God wants and what we imagine He should be concerned about are often two very different things.  God sent his His son into the world to save and redeem people who were cut off from, and separated from His love.  His primary concern is the condition of people’s eternal souls, and His primary work on earth is now being accomplished by people through whom He is attempting to reveal Himself.  He uses people to show His love and plan, so that others can come to Him and receive His love and forgiveness.

In chapter 5 of the book of Ephesians, there is a little understood verse that speaks right to the heart of not only this post, but this entire blog.  In the context, it is talking about how husbands and wives should treat each other, and the statement is made that they should love each other the same way that Christ loves.  Just as the writer is concluding these thoughts, he writes, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (verse 32)  Right in the context of talking about marriage and husbands and wives, he says he is really talking about Christ and the church.

Why does God care enough about my marriage to intervene in mighty ways when I called on Him in my time of need?  Because marriage was His plan, not mine.  God thought up the idea of love and marriage and happily ever after, not people.  God wants marriages between husbands and wives who truly love each other to show the world not only what real love is from a human perspective, but to show the world what kind of love He wants to share with the people He created and loves so deeply.  He wants people to see that true love never fails and that He will never abandon, forsake, or reject those He loves.

Moonlight Restoration

Posted: August 21, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Just because a calendar year went by doesn’t mean that everything that was ever to be completed as part of the restoration tour came to pass.  Like it is with a house, you’re never actually finished restoring it, because there will always be more that needs to be done.  You will always find things that you overlooked or that need your attention from time to time.  So it was yesterday.

Last night was the annual Moonlight Ride, a bike ride for Springfield’s Discovery Center.  Last August, it was the first organized ride that my wife and I had ever been in.  We had only started cycling in May of that year, when I got Ceecee her first road bike for her birthday.  The moonlight ride is a seven mile untimed ride that has groupings for advanced riders, leisure riders, and families with small children.  As beginners, we thought it would be fun to participate in something that wouldn’t be intimidating.

Unfortunately, earlier in the day of last year’s ride, we hit one of those bumps in the road that came with the early days of being back together.  We had been living together again for almost three weeks and we were very happy to be restoring our marriage, but we were still dealing with a lot of the junk that went along with having previously split up.  On this particular day, we had met for lunch at the mall (we were both still working our second jobs – Ceecee at Dillards and me at Macy’s) and the conversation had gone down a painful road.  We were both upset as we went back to work and it seemed that the ride wasn’t going to happen for us that evening.

She got off work earlier than I did, and when I called her, she was still angry about the way I had spoken to her and the things I had said at lunch.  I’m not sure how it ended up working out, but by the time I was off work, she had bought me a new headlight for my bike and gone and registered both of us for the ride.  All I had to do was change my clothes and grab my bike.  I was relieved and grateful, and we really enjoyed the ride.

Yesterday morning, as we were out running errands and I was thinking about the evening’s ride, I remembered all this.  Yes, August 6th came and went, and yes, the restoration tour concluded on that day as scheduled.  Beyond that, I saw an opportunity to add another to the list of restored memories.  Will there be more?  Maybe.  Will we ever stop working hard at love to make sure we never reach a place like that again?  Not as long as I live and breathe!

Taking The Tour To Big Cedar Lodge

Posted: July 31, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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365 days have passed since “the phone call” that changed everything and brought me back to my wife.  We now have just two final stops on the restoration tour.  Dreams do come true, and all things truly are possible to those who not only believe, but are willing to fight for what they believe in.

This year of restoration was all about healing and rebuilding.  It was a year of both of us saying up front, “I choose to forgive, and with God’s help, to forget.”  Either way, it was a choice that each of us made – to love unconditionally, even when it hurt – and with no guarantees of what the future would hold.  Love is always a choice, and if it really is love, it will stand through every test.

I can’t really imagine anything more appropriate than the fact that tomorrow, my wife and I will leave for Big Cedar Lodge for a second honeymoon.  We will be there during the exact period of time that I was moving back in and we were trying to figure out where we stood and what we were supposed to do last Summer.  At that time, both of us were wounded, fearful, and broken, but willing to take the chance that love really could not only save the day, but the rest of our lives.

That week, we tiptoed around and worried about all the unknowns, before ultimately talking everything through and beginning what has become known as the restoration tour.  This year, we will spend the week celebrating our reclaimed love, the healing of our hearts and minds, and everything that has become new and better in our marriage.  Yes, we are taking the honeymoon before the wedding, so to speak, but since we are already married, I don’t see a problem with that arrangement.

Big Cedar Lodge is a world-class resort near Branson, Missouri, where my wife used to work.  While in culinary school, she was hired to cook at one of their restaurants.  Eventually, she transferred to the bakery to pursue her real love, pastries.  She worked insane hours then, sometimes having to leave for work at 1:30AM and never really knowing when her shift might end.

In the winter, because of the remote location and the terrain, the employees sometimes got snowed in and had to stay overnight in one of the rooms.  During the terrible ice storm that we experienced while she was working there, there was a night when I thought perhaps I had lost her, even though this was long before she actually did leave me.

We had been without electricity for weeks and times were extremely difficult.  One night, my wife never called or came home.  Because of the road conditions, there was no way for me to go looking for her, and the highway patrol had no information, so I had to assume that she was ok, but not calling for whatever reason.  I figured that she was tired of living the way we had been and maybe some wealthy person at the resort had offered her an escape from it all.

I wouldn’t have blamed her had that been the case.  I wasn’t treating her right at the time, but she has far too much character to have done something like that.  The truth was, she had worked long past quitting time and then been sent to a room that was already occupied by other women who were also being made to stay.  There was no cell service and the room’s phone was unavailable, and she fell asleep without having the opportunity to call.

We went to Big Cedar as guests on two occasions once she was no longer employed there.  Both times, they were supposed to be really great, but didn’t quite turn out the way I hoped.  The first was over Mother’s Day and my wife’s birthday, and we got a two bedroom suite so that the kids could come.  We had fun, but there was also an edginess that betrayed the truth about where our relationship stood.

The second time, it was just the two of us, and it was supposed to be a very romantic getaway.  We brought lots of old musicals to watch and we actually got snowed in while we were there.  The rooms have kitchens and we cooked some great meals and watched the dvd’s while the snow piled up outside, but there was something missing between us.  We just didn’t have the closeness that two people who love each other should.

This time, it will be different.  This time, our dreams are all coming true, and when we return, we will say our new vows and rejoice with family and friends as the restoration tour arrives at its final destination.

Wonderland Is Just A Week Away

Posted: July 30, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Today I am simply in awe, and marveling at what God has done in our marriage.  To use a worn out cliché, “What a difference a year makes!”  Even as I sit here typing, with my wife curled up on the couch across the room, I understand what a miracle this is.  There are things I haven’t shared in this blog, either because they are outside the scope of what I am trying to do here, or too private and personal to put on the web for all to read, but I know in the deepest part of my heart that this is a gift I will never take for granted.

Today we ran some errands to try to find some last-minute things for our ceremony, which is now only a week away.  Next Saturday, we will renew our vows in a way that will probably only make sense to us, but this is our marriage, and we are the only ones who will ever really know what it means.  To paraphrase Alice in the new Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, “This is our path, and we will decide where it goes.”

The path that we often take while running or cycling is called the South Creek Trail, and it passes through a place called Nathaniel Greene Park.  It’s a very beautiful park and it has become quite meaningful to us, since fitness was one of the only things that we shared during our separation. It has continued to be a place we often find ourselves, and it is the site we chose for our renewal ceremony.

On the back side of the man-made lake, there are a series of playgrounds/picnic areas, and one of them has a cement table and chairs that are painted to look like colorful mushrooms.  We were playing there one day (yes, after our runs/rides, we sometimes play on the playgrounds) and the inspiration hit us.  It was as if we were sitting in wonderland.  My wife had already bought a huge, sparkly, orange dress to wear just for the fun of it, and there the idea of using the Mad Hatter’s tea party as the theme for our ceremony was birthed.

You see, this is not going to be a wedding.  This is going to be a celebration.  No one will give away the bride, and no minister will need to sign a marriage license, because we are already married.  We will say vows, which we are writing ourselves, and people will speak, but they will be a few people who were close enough to the situation to know and appreciate what this means.  We have also chosen a few songs that became important and meaningful to us during this year of restoration.

So there will be wedding-like elements, but without the tradition and formality of a wedding.  The people who speak will be people who stood firm with us when all seemed lost.  The songs that are played will be songs whose lyrics touch the heart of who we are and where we’ve been.  And the vows are necessary to replace the ones we have broken.

Mostly it is to be a party to celebrate our love with the people who are closest to us and understand how much this means.  Likewise, it is to be the culminating event of the restoration tour.  The entire past year has been leading to this.  All of the places we’ve been, the things we’ve shared and worked through, the tears we’ve cried, and the joys we’ve discovered will come together, and we will demonstrate, before God and those who gather to witness, that we choose each another again, both now and for always.

Checking The Details As The Restoration Nears Completion

Posted: July 29, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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So I guess it’s time to take a walk-through of the restoration project.  We’ve reached the point where the “house” is almost finished, and there isn’t much left to do except double-check everything to make sure we haven’t missed anything and that all is complete and in good working order.  Before we put the finishing touches on it and consider it good, let’s see what we have.

We started in the Spring of 2010, where we found a once proud and beautiful home completely run down by years of neglect.  The wife was figuring out how to get out, while the husband was figuring out how to get to work.  We started with the broken wedding ring and began fixing and repairing from there.  The above mentioned husband (yours truly) continued to build love where it had fallen down and build himself up so that he was fit for the task.  That allowed him to begin to build his damaged wife back up, so that they together could eventually rebuild the proverbial house known as their relationship.

Just like there is a lot of ripping out of damaged wood, tearing off of old roofing materials, scraping paint, and sanding floors, so there were a lot of things that had to go from our marriage, and much of it was painful.  The “making new” process involves removing the old, and no matter how difficult or unpleasant, it must be done if the final product is going to actually be better than the old one, as opposed to only looking better.  Covering up the problems would never have saved or restored our marriage.

Just like that wedding ring, our new “house” is much stronger than the old one.  In California, where we recently spent some time, we found out that when older buildings change hands, they have to be retrofitted with building materials and techniques to help them withstand earthquakes.  These aren’t necessarily visible in the final product, nor do they inherently make the structure more aesthetically pleasing, but when destructive forces come against those structures, they have a far greater likelihood of remaining standing.  In some ways, I’m sure our marriage doesn’t look as bright and new as it did in 1996, but now it’s prepared to last for the long haul, no matter what the future may bring.

Exactly one year ago today, the final phase of tearing down and destroying the old was taking place.  As soon as that was done, the day forever known as “the phone call” ushered in the phase of building together.  Instead of me doing the restorative work alone for the purpose of saving the marriage, my wife and I began to restore our marriage together.  About a week into that process, the concept of the restoration tour was conceived and is now nearly complete.

Our lives, both together and as individuals, have been overhauled and now we have a newly restored marriage built on the basis of the original one.  It’s the same foundation, but nearly everything from the ground up has been redone to be better and stronger.  We’ve taken a year to focus, very intentionally, on that single purpose, with this blog serving as a type of documentation of the journey.

Some of the smaller, subtle changes don’t rate an entire blog entry, but are very significant to us nonetheless.  One of the early ones was when my wife began changing her logins on some of her online activity to reflect her new feelings about out marriage.  We also began using new nicknames and endearments for each other.  These just happened naturally, which was much more meaningful than if they had been something forced.

We’ve also become much more protective of each other.  One morning we were riding our bikes and an approaching car got too near my wife.  I yelled at the driver and my wife had never heard that type of fierce tone to my voice before.  She said it was kind of nice to know that I was that determined to protect her.  When we went to my daughter’s graduation, there was a moment where someone approached me while I was upset, and my wife spoke out that I needed a minute and she told the person to back off.  With all we’ve been through, and knowing what it means to have temporarily lost each other, we both have a fierce determination that no one and nothing is going to get too near us if it’s not good for us.

Moving Into “Our” Home – A Different Kind of Restoration

Posted: July 28, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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So, it happened… our California trip got too busy and I missed a couple of days of blogging.  I knew it was a possibility, but now we’re home again and about to finish up with the restoration tour.  We have one more major tour stop and that will take place next week.

It seems like the past year has gone by both really quickly and really slowly at the same time.  When I realize that the year of restoration is almost up, I can hardly believe it.  It seems like only yesterday that I was moving back in and we were putting the pieces of our lives back together.  At the same time, it seems like some of this happened so long ago that it just blends in with all the rest of our past that we share.

So much has changed and so much has remained the same.  The changes have been good and so very necessary.  They haven’t been changes for the sake of change, but they have severed the very roots of some deep-seated issues that we have battled, both as individuals and as a married couple, for much of our lives.  What has remained the same is the fact that we are still the same couple who married way back when, we still have the same memories and history from that marriage, and we are still creating the same legacy, although I believe it will now be even stronger than it would have been, had all of this not taken place.

The two days that we spent moving into our new loft were among the most blessed of all the restoration tour.  When my wife moved into the old loft, it began the most gut-wrenching, heart-tearing episode I’ve ever been through.  The restoration of that phase of our marriage meant as much to me as any part could have.  We had dreamed of having a loft apartment for years, but I never thought that we would end up with one the way that we did.

We spent quite a bit of time looking when we decided to move, and we considered numerous options.  When we walked through the one that is now ours, we both felt it, but it was my wife who leaned over and whispered, “I think this is the one.”  That was all I needed to hear and I told the agent we would take it.  Then, of course, there was the agonized waiting to see if we would be approved, but we were and we decided to move in early, since it was ready.

Our home

We reserved the moving truck, recruited people to help, and everything was all set.  The morning before, we went to a downtown breakfast cafe that we really enjoy and had a leisurely breakfast.  Then we went to the utility company to have the power switched over to the new place.  It sounds silly, but I can’t tell you what a joy it was, and how much it meant to my heart when we stood at the same counter where she had set up utilities only in her name less than a year before and I heard her say, “my husband” when the lady asked her if anyone else would be living at the new address.

We picked up the keys together and started taking some things over in the car that afternoon and evening.  We mainly wanted to get in and take some measurements and kind of get an idea of where things would go when we brought the furniture the next day. We also brought some of the very fragile things and items that might not do well in the moving  truck.

The next morning, we got the truck and did the main moving.  It went really quickly and we were pretty much done by lunch time.  My wife is amazing at unpacking and organizing, and she almost had everything put away where it belonged by the time the truck was empty.  She just stayed in the loft, told everyone where to put things as they came in the door, and started opening boxes and putting things up.

After it was all wrapped up and I had taken the truck back, I picked up a bottle of Champagne and some strawberries, the same things we had shared when she moved into the old loft.  This time, there was no hidden heartbreak underneath the smile, and no fear of what the future would look like.  Champagne has always been a celebratory drink, and we had so much to celebrate and be thankful for.

Vacationing In Wine Country

Posted: July 21, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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My wife and I are currently vacationing in California wine country.  I will make every effort not to miss a day with the blog (it ends August 6th), but the posts may be shorter and less direct over the next several over days.

It’s been a dream of mine to take my wife to wine country for a few years now.  She’s never been to California, while I’ve been many, many times.  As a kid who grew up in Phoenix, California was always just a few hours away, and it was almost always Southern California that my family visited.

As an adult, it has been northern California, and specifically Napa and Sonoma counties that have caught most of my attention.   I’ve been a wine writer as well as a teacher since the early 2000’s, so in recent years, I’ve had the opportunity to take press trips to wine country, not only in California, but overseas as well.  My wife has never been able to accompany me on any of these trips, and that has led to some of the dichotomy of feelings that both of us experienced during the time leading up to, and including, our separation.

What I mean is this.  When I wasn’t completely sure that I wanted to continue to be married, I still cared about my wife very much.  She had been my best friend and partner for many years, and I valued her company.  When I would spend time away from her on these trips, I always wished she could be there.  I wanted her to be meeting the people I was meeting, tasting the food and wine that I was tasting, and experiencing the lifestyle that I was living.  As great as these trips could be, something was always missing, and that something was her.

On the other hand, there was a part of me that wondered what it would be like if we didn’t stay together.  A part of me thought that maybe I would be able to move to another part of the country and live a whole new life on my own, and these trips also had the effect of reinforcing that notion.  When I was traveling with other writers, I was known to them only as myself, not as one half of a couple, and this part of my life seemed totally separate from the part that had a wife and family and a full-time teaching career.

I was never unfaithful to my wife while I travelled, although I know she worried at times.  What I mostly wanted was for her to be there.  Nevertheless, my life had two contradictory parts competing, and only one could win out.  When my wife was exploring the idea of making a new life without me, she was experiencing many of these same emotions and thought patterns.  She was testing out a future that would require her to leave her current life behind, but still clinging to the wish that it would be me that she would experience true love and companionship with.

Now that we are well on our way to happily ever after, I got the chance to share this part fo my life with her.  My parents bought us plane tickets to California so we could spend some time with my brother and his family.  Since we were coming to the state anyway, I set up some winery tours and visits through some of the people I have worked with.  We are spending the first few days in Sonoma County and the Napa Valley, and my wife is having a wonderful time, as am I.  It’s another little dream coming true for us, and I couldn’t be more proud to introduce her to everyone and have her share this time with me.

Love Is A Verb

Posted: July 18, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Love is a verb.  Yes, that can be a cliché, but there’s a lot of truth where that statement comes from.  To paraphrase a speaker I once heard, love makes a much better verb than noun.  Love as a noun is something people have never quite been able to grasp.  What is it?  It’s too mysterious and too abstract to function well as a noun.

As a verb, love becomes visible and tangible.  You can see it, feel it, experience it, and do it.  In fact, you have to, if your “love” is ever going to be anything more than a feeling.  Hear me on this; love is something you make, and to make something requires action.

Mort Fertel’s “marriage fitness” concept was one of the things I used to save my marriage.  It was a powerful idea to me, being a fitness person, that you can “make love” by doing actions like giving gifts, using kind words, spending fun time together, and building another person up.  When my wife said she only felt friendship toward me, but didn’t feel love anymore, I “made love” where there was no feeling.  I built those feelings in the same way an athlete builds muscle or stamina.

It took time and it took committment.  It was a day after day, week after week, month after month process.  A 90 pound weakling doesn’t go to the gym two or three times and expect to look in the mirror and see a muscular physique.  It takes work, but that person can and will build muscle if he stays with it and does what it takes.

I know lots of people who talk about wanting to be more fit, but they don’t do the things you have to do to be fit.  They make excuses instead of dong the work.  No one has time, but some people make the time.  When they start, they don’t stick with it.  They fail to follow through either because they aren’t seeing results, other things interfere, they don’t want to spend the money, or they perceive it as being just too difficult.

It’s the same way with a failing relationship.  I didn’t see results from my wife for a long time, but I kept doing the actions.  I got discouraged and distracted at times, but I kept doing the actions.  I made a decision that I wanted my wife’s love more than I wanted any other thing this world had to offer, and I stuck with it, no matter what.  Too many people say, “I tried, but it didn’t work,” when they weren’t in it for the long haul.  They wanted the quick fix, but fizzled when it was going to take much more time and work than they bargained for.

Now, my reality is this:  Once in shape doesn’t mean always in shape.  A person who is physically fit will begin to decline after only 72 hours of no physical exercise.  Once I had built up that love and had my wife securely in my heart and life once again, the work wasn’t finished.  In fact, if I want a happy love life, it will never be finished.  Just like if I want to stay in shape, I can never quit exercising.

When I get up in the morning, I very rarely feel like going to the gym, or getting on my bike, or hitting the running trail.  If I only worked out when I felt like it, I rarely ever would, and I wouldn’t be in shape.  I go and do it anyway, because I’m committed to the results, and that requires me to go through the process, because you don’t get one without the other.  So it is with my marriage.  I’m committed to doing the same things now that I did to save my marriage, because if I don’t, my marriage fitness will begin to decline, just like my physical fitness will decline if I stop working out.

People want more love in their marriage.  They want more romance, more spontaneity, more fun.  Do the actions.  That’s how it works.  It’s simple.  It’s not easy, but it is simple.  You won’t always feel like it.  Do it anyway.  Your spouse won’t always respond the way you hope for. Keep doing it.  Commit to the results if it’s the results you want.

It doesn’t have to be big things.  It doesn’t need to be fancy restaurants, expensive gifts, elaborate dates, or the like, although those things have their place.  It can be the little things, like really listening when your spouse needs to talk, remembering what he or she likes and showing up with it as a surprise, choosing to say words that build up and never tear down, and lending a helping hand at the right moment.

I’m committed to results, and that means doing what it takes.  Here’s the best part.  It’s so much more than worth it.  I never knew that our love could be this good.  It wouldn’t be without the work and the actions that have built it up and made it what it now is.  That’s why love is best understood as a verb.

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