Since a lot of Jill and my lives are spent thinking about marriage, you might think that we watch a lot of romantic movies. Wrong. We tend to prefer romantic comedies, probably because they’re much more similar to our life together.

Think about it, how many times in your marriage have you had that perfect romantic experience? Has your spouse held a boombox over his/her head playing Peter Gabriel a la Say Anything (actually, we do love that movie)? Have the curtains billowed in the breeze as you make love like in Top Gun? Has your spouse recently forced a cabbie to blow through stop lights in a mad dash to get to the airport so he/she could yell “I love you” to you, only to arrive a moment too late? Or, try this one on for size… ever had your spouse belch like Will Farrell in Elf during a romantic dinner? Yeah, I thought so.

Years ago the comedian Richard Lewis used to say, “If I wrote a sex book, it would be called, ‘Ow, you’re on my hair!’” And he was right. Most romantic evenings are closer to romantic comedies. But who says that romance in marriage needs to consist of deep, passionate glances, bear rugs in front of fire places, dancing on a beach, or other scenes that mimic some Hollywood writer’s conception of romance? Maybe there’s something even more special about a date night that is reflective the lighthearted silliness of two people who enjoy living life together. And let’s face it ladies, if you expect the latter rather than the former, you’ll be far less likely to be let down!

“Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.” – Montaigne

Jill and I have reached that point in our relationship at which we’ve become aware of how quickly time is slipping by. It seems like just a few years ago we were talking about having kids and now we’re talking about the best choice of high school for them. I occasionally glance at our wedding picture in our living room and realize how quickly the years are passing. As that old Wallflowers song goes, “Man I ain’t changed, but I know I ain’t the same.”

When time begins moving quicker than we’d like, we must focus on living in the present. While this might sound cliche, we’ve found that many couples can’t seem to move beyond their past, while others consume themselves with the future (“Scarlett O’Hara syndrome”). Either problem can cloud our ability to enjoy the present.

To make the most of the present we need to rediscover the overlooked moments that are hidden in the “in-between” times of our lives. Our schedules are ruled by a combination of routine events (work, church, shopping, gym) and life events (holidays, birthday parties, anniversaries, vacations), but the idyllic moments are often found in the in-between spaces, during those rare moments of calm.

We usually waste these precious opportunities by turning on the TV, hopping on a laptop, busying ourselves with work, and finding other ways of tuning out. Or, we can begin to tune in. We can quiet the distractions, open up our eyes, and observe life’s moments as they happen. It’s when we soak in these seemingly banal scenes… a spouse cooking dinner or folding laundry, a child playing the piano or doing homework, a baby studying their favorite toy… that we can appreciate the million little moments that constitute the gift of the time that we’ve been given.

This post is part of a new series, Taking Your Marriage From Fine to Fabulous, in which we are partnering with a few other awesome bloggers to encourage you to take your good marriage and make it great. We will be promoting their posts on our Facebook page and will be sharing all the posts with you here in a few weeks!

Tonight the devotional I (Jill) did with our daughter was one of my favorite stories. It is in Exodus when the Israelites, lead by Joshua, are fighting the Amalekites. The quick summary is that Moses stands holding the “staff of God” above his head as the battle rages on. When Moses’ arms stay raised, Joshua was successful during the battle. When Moses lowered his arms the Amalekites started winning the battle.

Now, the cool part about this story is that Moses’ arms, as can be expected, get super tired as the battle goes on. So his friends come and hold up his arms for him.

When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up–one on one side, one on the other–so that his hands remained steady till sunset.- Exodus 17:12

What does this possibly have to do marriage? Does it mean when we fight in marriage we should keep our hands in the air? You could try it. I would love to hear how it goes.

There are probably many applications for marriage in this story, but here is what struck me tonight. Marriage is an awesome relationship between two people. But when things get tough sometimes it just seems easiest to bail. And sometimes it isn’t even an issue of fighting with your spouse, but taking on all that the world is throwing our way.

What if when we wanted to bail we had people in our lives who came and “held our arms up” and encouraged us not to give up? I am not suggesting we let people get in the middle of our marriage problems, but simply suggesting that we surround ourselves with people who are pro-marriage and are invested in seeing your marriage succeed.

Confession – Jill and I really like the movie Anchorman. Some of our fave quotes from it include, “Milk was a bad idea”, “I immediately regret this decision”, and the one pictured above, when Brick yells “I don’t know what we’re yelling about.”

In the course of our marriage prep classes, we focus a significant amount of time on conflict resolution. While conflict is normal, we talk with a lot of couples that have not yet established healthy ways of fighting. In fact, beyond being normal, conflict can be a very positive thing for a couple if they use the conflict as a means of addressing an issue and can move beyond it. However, for many couples, arguments quickly move beyond the root issue and escalate into something far more personal. For some, fighting has simply become a “normal” state of communications for them, which can quickly erode the trust that makes marriages thrive.

The real goal of healthy conflict resolution is understand and address the root issue, and couples should prevent arguments from escalating in order to stay focused on the issue. That requires self discipline – an intentional decision early in the conflict to not take the focus off of the issue and onto the other person in an effort to help you “win.”

We have found that one powerful question that keeps arguments from escalating (not unlike Brick’s quote above) is “What are we really fighting about?” When asked, that question can immediately redirect the focus of an argument back to the source of conflict. Over time, couples can learn to pause when they sense a fight escalating and ask themselves what the root of their fight really is. Only then can couples direct their energies at attacking the issue itself rather than their spouse.

We have a good friend who always used to say that marriage is bootcamp for holiness. When she first uttered that statement, we were in the starry-eyed beginning stages of marriage. I think we nodded politely and thought little of it.

Then shortly after I (Jill) read the book Sacred Marriage where the premise is this:

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy. – Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage

Wait what? Marriage isn’t here to make me happy? I thought my spouse was supposed to “complete me” a la Jerry Maguire. What about that whole “If mama isn’t happy, ain’t nobody happy thing”? Isn’t it his job to make sure I am happy??!!! Isn’t it her job to great my at the door with my robe and slippers??!!!

Now, the bulk of our married life IS happy. We laugh a ton together and know each other so well that sometimes it only takes a look to set us off into fits of giggles. Parenting these crazy kids side-by-side brings huge amounts of joy to life. But if we look to a person to bring our lives meaning and completeness and joy then we are setting ourselves up for failure. And setting our spouses up for a lifetime of being compared and resented.

If the bible is full of verses about us dying to self, submitting to him, sacrificing of ourselves for others, offering forgiveness when we don’t want to, practicing humility and loving those who are difficult to love then I think marriage fits the bill of bootcamp. We have to practice those things daily in marriage. Sometimes hourly.

And perhaps you have had the experience of inwardly railing against something your spouse has done to offend you (or maybe you are more holy than that and go to God to pray about your frustration) only to have God whisper back to you, “Yes, child, but let’s talk about your sin.” Or worse, “Yes child, you treat me the same way.”

While marriage has certainly taught me a lot about who God wants me to be, marriage is also a place that can point us to Jesus. When our spouses sacrifice themselves for our family, forgives us for our offenses even when we stubbornly refuse to admit we have done anything wrong and love us when we are most unlovable, they are the picture of Jesus in our lives which leads us to be more Christ-like in the process.

If God designed marriage to be a reflection of Christ and the Church then isn’t this exactly how it should work? But pursuing holiness is hard and sometimes chasing after happiness is so much easier. in our marriage nothing has been clearer than this- happiness can change on a dime and  we are building a marriage that lasts a lifetime.

I love this honest look at the simple moments of marriage::: Love in Azerbaijan

Love Amy’s view of her grandparent’s marriage::: To my grandparents on their 65th wedding anniversary

Who knew French fries could teach us so much about marriage?::: A Tale of Two French Fries

this post is linked up to Saturday Stumbles at Simply Staci

One of the greatest blessings that can happen within marriage is to have kids. But couples should be aware that for all of the blessings of parenthood, it can challenge their relationship in new ways.  The primary risk, which is rarely appreciated by newly married couples, is that couples can neglect what made their marriage successful – investing time with one another. For our readers that have been parents for awhile, perhaps you’ve experienced months (or even years) when you’ve inadvertently neglected one another in a sincere effort to be good parents.

We believe that couples should re-frame their concept of parenting to consider how they model marriage to their kids. While kids deserve copious amounts of our love and quality time, but we should guard against relegating our spouses to second-class status for their sake as well as ours. Our goal as parents should be to invest in the health of our entire families. We need quality time together with our kids, and we need quality time together as a couple. This way, children will observe the manner in which their parents care for one another, they’ll feel the deep security of their parent’s marriage, and they’ll learn the importance of maintaining a devoted marriage. In what greater way could we as parents bless our kids?

It’s Wednesday night…. you know what that means……

How do you know it is “business time”?

Recently Jill and I spotted yet another article (here) citing Facebook and other social media sites as a causes of divorce. This has been a consistent theme in a wide variety of articles this past year. And while it might be an overstatement to say that social media is a cause, it is without question a powerful enabler of infidelity.

Social media – as well as other forms of digital communication such as texting and email – has ushered in a new era of extra-marital affairs. Consider the risk that it took to cheat on a spouse twenty years ago.  If a person wanted to flirt with a coworker, they’d need to walk down the hall at work and stand in their cubicle, hoping not to be noticed by coworkers. Or, to locate an ex, they’d need to locate their phone number and call their home, hoping to not have the person’s spouse answer. The web wasn’t there to enable these connections; they had to be done the old way.  Today, a person can conduct an affair using social media or texting while sitting next to their spouse watching television. It appears that social media and digital communications has accomplished what we hoped they would, enabling us to instantly connect with others.

For this reason, we must make transparency a core value in our marriages. Transparency has, of course, always been an important value in healthy relationships, but being transparent takes on new dimensions in an age of digital communications. It means being honest about who is in our networks. It means sharing our passwords with our spouse and being trustworthy with our spouse’s passwords. And it means immediately sharing any contact from others that might be construed as inappropriate.

The next era that we’re all kicking off – the era of social media-enabled relationships –  will need to be defined by an unprecedented discipline of transparency.

Today I (Jill) read an interesting post over at Deeper Story. One of their contributing authors, Seth Haines, decided to write a letter to his wife thirty-four years in the future. It is a touching letter you really should read, but it got me thinking.

I want to grow old with my husband. In the movies, people who fall in love are also saying the same. “I want to grow old with you.” I think few people get married and think “I want to make it for the next 5 years with  you.” I mean, don’t we all picture ourselves as the 85 year old couple sitting next to each other in rocking chairs when we get married?

Here is what we forget when we picture ourselves old, gray, and in-love: what we do today effects that happy ending. That snide remark… that selfish choice… that moment of neglect… while these may not spell an immediate end to a marriage, they can poison our dreams of making it to “happily ever after.”

So if you’re in need of few ideas for keeping on track to “happily ever after”, consider telling your wife today that you’ll clean up after dinner while she puts up her feet. Or, give your hubby a little back rub after work. Or perhaps send a text in the day letting your spouse know you are thinking of them (better yet, make it a little spicy!).

A marriage that lasts 50 years takes thousands of days and millions of moments to build. Why not start building it today?