Do you remember being in love with your spouse? If you’ve fallen out of love and are close to divorce you HAVE to read this right now…
Marriage can bring incredible joy and happiness to a couple. It can also bring deep wounds and pain. Do you daydream about how your relationship “used to be?” It’s good to remember the old days but you also have to be committed to saving your relationship today. I call it the “remember us” effect!
I’ll admit it — there were times that I felt that things could never get better than they used to be. Now, I feel much different about that. How can I say that, simple: — I remember how we used to be together. And, that helps me to realize that even when things feel so hard, that we can have that sense of harmony again.
The beginning of every effort to Save Your Marriage
We all have expectations of how we want our lives to turn out, and when we decide to marry someone the stakes are raised and our perception of the future becomes a lot more complicated. Remembering how the good times felt can be the beginning of a winning streak of making the relationship feel even better than it ever had felt before.
Try to make it the first thing you do
Even when difficulties and relational strains enter into a great marriage relationship, those difficulties may cause big problems. Do you ever experience the feeling of fight or flight? When that happens to you… the very first thing to do is to Re-Remember.
- Take one second to remember that person you married and first remember the commitment of “till death do us part”.
- Then remember the feelings of love and appreciation you had for your spouse on that wedding day.
- Remember the vows of “oneness” that you took together. This does not have to take long to do.
The power of appreciative thoughts!
There are several steps to take to resolve conflict “no matter how great” within a marriage relationship and they will be addressed throughout the many articles on this site. I believe the first thing to do is to calm down by thinking appreciative thoughts about your spouse and your marriage to ground you to the foundation of your marriage before taking further steps to manage relationship issues.
Try it out and see if it does not help you to appreciate the best qualities of your spouse and see if it will work wonders in sparking up the interest you have for your spouse for who they are as a person now.
Then when things calm down, share those memories with your spouse. Find the wedding album, make a family scrapbook and ask your spouse, “Remember us when we….?
Then drive it on home asking, “Do you feel that way now about us”?
See if during a time of truce or a lull in any conflicts within the marriage if asking him or her if he or she remembers — if that does not bring the same thoughts of nostalgic appreciation. Simple memories of the wedding day, the birth of your child or any other joyous memories, that can be introduced by asking “do you remember when?”
My Personal Story
We started by talking to one another and telling our own “remember when” stories…
“I love to illustrate, paint, and write!”
Sometimes, if I am adventurous, I mesh all three together in
a big work of art.
It turns out that an art buddy of mine was the girlhood best
friend of Sarah, the woman who is now my wife.
I still remember that fateful day like it was yesterday!
Just looking at how my wife has retained her pristine beauty
makes it easy to do this.
When I was introduced to Sarah, I was totally floored by how sweet, and beautiful she was. I
could not help myself.
She became a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark period
of my life. As we became friends, I soon became a very tardy
student. I was always late to so many classes, because I would
wait for her to get out of a class, and then walk her to her
next class before racing to get to my own class.
We talked on the phone every day, and became new best friends.
As our friendship grew my love for her grew as well.
The Vision I Had
One night I had a vision of our future. In the vision, I was in
the Army,and then later in the vision, Sarah & I were a married
couple together while being missionaries to some far off country.
She and I were sitting across from each other — face-to-face
with a glowing fire between us. I saw this fire as the glowing
fire of the unity candle that newly married couples light together
on their wedding day.
From that night on, I became a man of vision with a purpose
to pursue. I pursued that vision.
I joined the US Army, it was easy to do because
one of my uncles was an Army recruiter out of Brooksville,
Florida. I joined through a local recruiter and was off to
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Do not get me wrong. This was very tough!
I started out sort of like a clueless idealist! I was not
a well trained soldier in the beginning. Few really are.
In fact, I work real hard to become well trained and able
to do something I set my mind to! Things in life do not come
easily for me. It takes an extra helping of pure heart to
persevere and master something!
Eventually, I made 1 of my Drill Sergeants Proud! That
other Drill Sergeant still thought most of us were pieces of
s#*t! Go figure!
The fact I know for certain that I will work hard at
whatever I find important is very important in deed. It is
one of the keys for the success of my marriage!
Three years pass and in all that time, Sarah and I
remained the closest of long distance friends. I never let
go of my love for her that started that day I met her and
kissed her hand.
The Best Christmas Present I Ever Got
Picking up where I left off, One Christmas shortly before
I would be promoted to the rank of Sergeant, I visited my family
and most importantly I answered a call to visit Sarah at her
request. I did what any man who is madly in love with the
woman of his dreams would do, I borrowed my grandparent’s car.
One that subsequently had a bad radiator, which caused the car
to overheat repeatedly on the way to her house.
I finally get to her house, we talk for the night. We go
out to eat. We go back to her house, and then in her back yard,
she tells me that she loves me!!! I was so dense then that I
said in reply, “I know Sarah, I love you too, Merry Christmas”!
She Confesses Her Love To Me!
She pulled me closer and said, “No James, you don’t get it.
My heart has changed for you. I no longer think of you as a
friend or brother. I LOVE YOU!”
I could not believe my ears. Five years as best friends,
while I felt so much desperate love for her. Of course, she
knew I loved her and that I had waited for her!
Now all of the waiting culminated in the turning point of
my life with those 4 words, “James, I love you!”
Now this is just the beginning of our story. We discussed
marriage that very night. It was certain in our minds!
However…, We did not know just how hard a road it would be
to get to the alter!
Keep Marriage Alive
This was the birth of “Keep Marriage Alive“, in Sarah’s
and my heart at least. The beginning of “Keep Marriage Alive”
was the first step in realizing that we could “Live” out the
beginning of that vision of “Us”! I had that vision three
and half years before any of this ever happened.
And it would be another two and a half years before I
would even tell Sarah about the vision that I had about “Us.”
Much was still to be recognized about ourselves. And, we
did not even have a clue of all of the things we would have
to come to grips with.
Becoming Man & Wife
For that day. We were in love and someday, we would be
man and wife! That was all that mattered to us. This was also
the beginning of the end of my Army “coming of age” experience.
You see, it was the growing up that I did in the Army, while
still reaching out to touch her heart that changed the way
she felt about me.
Thousands of miles distance between us over the course of
3 years made no difference. What made the difference was a change
in my character in her eyes.
Use your story as a point of reference for falling back in love… if you drifting apart.
So, I recommend that both of you have memory-moments as much as possible.
Think back. Use any opportunity to have a memory-moment to reflect about all of your accomplishments together… what you did to fall in love.
Hold on to that! Remind each other often. Perhaps, it can be the beginning of the rest of your marriage!”