Put your marriage front and center again with a Weekend to Remember event. What are you waiting for? Take some time for your marriage. It’s what it needs more than anything.
Maybe it’s in the aftermath of a wild argument. Or in the middle of a dull season of marriage. Or maybe there’s no reason at all.
But you glance across the room and a thought pops into your head: He’s not the man I married anymore.
And because your mind wanders much more readily down the path of discontent rather than the one of gratitude, you begin pondering the what-ifs, the roads not taken, and the could-have-beens. You back your mind up to that day at the altar and start to think if only I’d have known…
Instead of embracing for better or for worse, you entertain it’s not fair.
It’s not fair that he doesn’t bring you flowers, that you don’t talk for hours, that the butterflies are gone, and that you don’t get that look anymore. You reflect on the freedom and adventure of your courtship and you begin to get angry that you thought you were signing up for a life of happiness with your soul mate, but were somehow deceived into a life of monotony.
“He’s not the man that I married anymore. It’s not fair,” you think to yourself.
And you know what? It’s true. He’s not the same man that you married.
But dear wife, hold on. Because you aren’t the same woman he married, either.
Think about it. It’s true, isn’t it?
Admit it, you’ve changed too.
We are all shaped by this life every day. We’re each individually burdened by the battles, strengthened by the weight we have to carry, and renewed by the victories. And even though we’re bound to another and walking the same road, we were each still uniquely created to respond differently to the adversities and blessings of this life.
Which is why staying intentional about staying together is so important. Because we’re both becoming different people every day, but we’re still in the same marriage.
Several years ago my husband and I went to a weekend marriage retreat called Weekend to Remember, and we still say that it was the best thing we ever did for our marriage. It was a fun, hilarious, and amazingly deep weekend of reconnecting and prioritizing our relationship, and recommitting ourselves to each other. Because we weren’t the same people who had gotten married just a few years before.
It wasn’t about trying to re-become our pre-married selves. It was about cherishing the journey and accepting our spouse for who they had become as the years shaped them.
It’s time to stop lamenting that the person you’re married to isn’t the same one who was at the altar. Instead, it’s learn about and appreciate who your spouse has become. Fall in love with them for who they are today, rather than who you wish they were.
Release those thoughts of it’s not fair.
Replace them with I still choose you.
Put your marriage front and center again with a Weekend to Remember event. What are you waiting for? Take some time for your marriage. It’s what it needs more than anything.
