Two Becomes Three

Last Sunday, hubby and I went out without the baby for the first time. Of course we've been out with her several times, but this was different. This time, we left her with a childminder and had a proper date where it was just the two of us, and she was not the centre of attention. It felt great, kinda like the old days where we were just a couple and we didn't have to pause mid-conversation to keep checking on a baby. I realised something that I had heard over and over again, but hadn't experienced until now - a couple need to spend time together away from the kids. 

As much as I love my daughter and I enjoy playing with her, I now know that it's necessary for me to take a break from being a mother once in a while, and just be friend and lover to hubby. Being a new parent can be overwhelming, and the past six months have felt like a huge learning curve. And I'm still learning. I spent the first two months in a daze of pain (c-section), sleepless nights, milk and endless nappies. Slowly, baby and I settled into a routine and the nights became bearable. Now she's grown a bit and I can start to contemplate my life getting back to normal - but with a new twist. I guess the right word to use here would be - adjusting. My life has changed and while I'm enjoying it, I have to adjust my expectations, and I have to rearrange my priorities. I now have to juggle more roles and more responsibilities. (Now I feel like a proper grown-up, lol). It's not easy, but I know that I have God's grace to help me every day. 

And speaking of my relationship with God, I feel like I need Him more than ever. It's amazing the sense of responsibility you get when you're faced with a helpless little baby, and it hits you that a lot of what happens to this child depends on you. So who else can I ask for help? I pray to God everyday to make me the best mother I can be to my daughter. I need to get this right, because from experience, the mother-daughter relationship can be a tricky one and I want to have a wonderful relationship with my daughter everyday. I pray to God to help me because if I succeed in everything but fail at being a parent, then it's not worth it. I pray to God for more and more wisdom. I need God's wisdom every single day.

So anyway, the point I was trying to make was that, while being a mother requires a lot of self-sacrifice, one thing I must try to do is to keep my relationship with hubby going. I now know how easy it can be to let things slide when there's a major shift in the dynamics of our relationship. I can see it's not always going to be easy, but I'm sure the benefits will always be worth the effort. After all, it's for the good of the baby too if her parents can model a loving, healthy marriage for her to see!

As always, stay blessed and favoured,

FG

Lasting Marriage: Friendship

I don't know about you, but before I got married I loved observing happy couples. I liked it when I saw a couple who looked very comfortable, smiling, joking and playful with each other, regardless of how long they have been married. I've seen enough miserable-looking married couples and I never wanted my marriage to be like those. So whenever I saw a happy couple, it often felt like a breath of fresh air. I would look at them and wonder what makes them tick. I wanted to know what they are doing right that is sustaining their level of friendship and enthusiasm for enjoying each other's company. And I wanted to emulate that in my own life when I got married. I wanted to retain that freshness and excitement in my marriage whether I was a newly-wed or an old married woman at the age of sixty. So I started to ask questions. I observed even more couples. I read loads of good books on the joys of a happy life-long marriage and how to achieve it. I prayed and asked God to help me to be wise. And I listened to advice from people who had got it right.

In other words, I did something very deliberate.

About a week ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who is getting married soon. He said he was looking forward to marriage, but dreading the inevitable.

I asked what was inevitable?

He said something like: "You know that after the first two years, everything goes downhill. Love and happiness doesn't last for so long once a couple get married."

I was a bit sad to hear that and I told him: "That's not true. I've been married for five years and I'm happier and more in love with my hubby than ever before, and enjoying my marriage more now, than I was in the earlier years. And I'm sure he will say the same too."

The next thing my friend said was: "Well you know you are not normal, you might just be lucky, so I'm not going to raise my expectations based on your own experience."

I was quite shocked. I thought; is that really what most people think about marriage? That after two years, the joy and happiness fades away and you are left with nothing but a miserable existence? That except for the "lucky few" who somehow stumble into lasting happiness, the rest of us are doomed into living in a boring prison for the rest of our lives? So what happens to the fun and excitement after a while? It goes away and can never be recaptured?

I think that's such a sad and pessimistic view of marriage, and it's not helped by the statistics and things we see around us. Many people have this wrong view of marriage because they are not prepared to see things in a long-term view. We have swallowed the hype of "hollywood romance" and "fairy-tale happily ever after" that lets us believe that once we have fallen in love, the euphoria of the early days will continue endlessly and we would never have to make the effort to keep it going. However the reality is, those feelings of euphoria are terribly unreliable and they tend to come and go. So when the euphoria dies down, Hollywood leads us to believe that we are now doomed to be unhappy forever, unless we can recapture those feelings with a new person.

Nowadays, we have this "throw-away" mentality, that is, if something is broken or not working, we would prefer to throw it away and buy a new one rather than trying to fix it. Sometimes we carry over this attitude into marriage and so when things start getting a bit boring, instead of thinking of creative ways to spice things up and rekindle our romance, we can fall into the trap of thinking that there's nothing we can do, apart from quitting or putting up with it. This mentality is what leads to broken marriages and affairs.

I once saw this status on somebody’s profile on Facebook: If we see a smile on a newly-wed man’s face, we all know why. But if we see a smile on a man who has been married for ten years, we all wonder why.

But let's go back to the original design for marriage. Whose idea was it? Marriage was God's idea. And He designed it to be a long-lasting lifelong and secure commitment where two people become one, until death parts them. So if the world’s view is that two years into the marriage, there is no more fun, excitement, love and happiness, does that mean that God’s plan was for us to live miserably for the rest of our married time on earth? I would say a resounding "NO!". Of course not. It is we who need to re-align ourselves with the truth - marriage is meant to be fun and joyful all the days of our lives. And we need to make sure that we constantly put the effort into our relationships to keep them strong, happy and beautiful. But how?

I'll talk about three important things: friendship, quality time and forgiveness.

Friendship: I know that in these days of social networking, the term "friendship" has taken on different meanings. But I want us to think about friendship in a true sense of mutual trust, closeness, openness, kindness, acceptance, caring and love for each other. Friendship is one of the most basic needs that we have as human beings. We were created to need companionship, support and encouragement from other people. And this is one of the reasons why God ordained marriage in the first place - for companionship. We marry so that we can have at least one person in the world that we can call a friend. 

Now most of us have many acquaintances but very few true friends. But the few friendships we have, we know that we have to nurture them to keep them going. If you have a friend you don't see, you don't speak to, you don't hang out with or keep in touch with, what's going to happen? Sooner or later, that friendship will wither and suffer and probably die a slow death. And it's the same with marriage. 

I know many couples who work long hours outside of the home, have to raise young kids and look after so many other responsibilities that their marriage inevitably suffers for it. By the time they get home at night, they are too tired to do anything apart from having dinner in front of the TV and falling asleep. If all you do with your husband or wife is see them first thing in the morning on your way out and last thing at night before you sleep, what will that do to your friendship? It will be choked to death! The fact that you live in the same house doesn't mean anything - even enemies can live under the same roof. You have to be very deliberate about talking to them (and not just about who paid the last water bill), listening to them and having fun with them without the distractions of everyday living. Basically, you have to rearrange your priorities so that your marriage doesn’t suffer due to neglect.

Friends never run out of things to say to each other, and it should be the same between husband and wife. Some couples talk to their friends and colleagues at work more than they talk to each other! I heard of a woman who said she’s dreading retirement because she doesn’t know how she'll cope with being at home with her husband all the time. Over the years, they didn’t maintain their friendship and now they don’t have anything to say to each other anymore. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I think it’s very important for couples to keep the lines of communication open all the time. Make conversation an essential part of your day. Talk, talk, talk and keep talking. You can talk about any topic – politics, world affairs, your plans for the future, a book one of you is reading, what happened in the office today – anything. Just don’t let a single day pass by without having an interesting conversation with your spouse. It is surprising how much bonding takes place over a stimulating conversation.

But this sounds easy in theory. In practice, sometimes you have to make hard choices: like you may have to choose between attending a friend’s wedding and spending the only free weekend you’ve got at home with your spouse. Sometimes it may mean missing your favourite TV show and going for a walk/drive/quick meal outside with your spouse instead. It may mean banning the laptop/TV/long telephone calls for a while so that you can enjoy some time together without interruptions. But those little acts add up to something far more rewarding. I think it's better to miss a TV show than have a neglected spouse. That closeness and connection with your spouse will more than make up for the effort you put into maintaining your friendship.

For me, recently I was reminded of an episode. It was a Saturday night, the end of a very busy day. Hubby and I had been out all day running errands, shopping, visiting relatives and all that. We didn’t get home until very late, and we were both tired. As soon as we got in, he wanted to unwind and spend some time gisting with me in the living room before we retired to bed. But as soon as I stepped in, all I saw were the pile of chores I hadn’t done, and I immediately went into the kitchen to start washing the dishes. Hubby called me several times to leave the sink to come and relax with him and I kept saying – give me 5 minutes. In the end, I didn’t stop my chores until the kitchen was spick and span but by then I was too tired to spend any time with him and I just went straight to bed.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I realised how selfish my attitude was. The dishes could wait – of course they could. But I had made them a priority, instead of time with my husband. All too easily, I took it for granted that he would still be there no matter what, and that was wrong. If I put myself in his shoes, I would have been quite upset if I wanted to spend time with him but he preferred to devote time to his own chores instead. I have since made a note of this, and resolved that I would re-order my priorities. House chores can wait, hubby comes first.

So to sum up, we have to continually work on keeping the friendship with our spouse alive by making sure we put them first in our minds, with our words and the activities we do together. The rewards are soooo worth it!

That’s all for now, I’ll talk about the other two points in my next post. I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Staying together in marriage is not by accident, and it’s not luck. The harder you work at your marriage, the luckier you get.”

Have a great week!

FG

Date Ideas for Couples

It's the long Easter weekend! While we remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we should also remember the message of sacrifice and love behind it. And remember to integrate them into our daily lives.

Last week, hubby and I were having a discussion on how we spend our "quality time" together. He had been very busy lately with his work, and as a result we were spending less time together as a couple. Also, even when we had some time together, we had more or less gotten into a rut, doing the same things over and over again. Not good, I thought. So I went to look for some more ideas to give us a breath of fresh air. I found a few on the internet and I'm happy to share them with you guys!

So on that note, if you are blessed to have the whole Easter break to spend with your significant other, and you are struggling to think of what to do, here are some inexpensive date ideas for you.

STAYING IN

Cook a low budget meal together. If you choose dishes and ingredients wisely, it costs a lot less than going out to dinner. In addition, the act of cooking together will add romance and creativity to the night.

Have a board game night at your home. Monopoly is always a favourite, or you can try a new one. The winner gets a "prize" that you predetermine.

Have a sensual evening. Soak in the bathtub, and take turns giving each other massages afterwards.

Put on a CD of your favourite music and dance in your living room. Or you can make your own compilations, choose a nice mix so that you can have a funky dance and well as a slow, romantic one.

Set up a scavenger hunt for your love around your house. Give them clues to where you have hidden a small gift for them.

Bake a huge chocolate chip cookie and put a romantic message on it with icing, like "I'm sweet on you" or "You're my sweetie." Then have fun eating your treat!

Have a dinner at home where all the food and decorations are the same color. That should get your creative and digestive juices going.

Read the Guinness Book of World Records together, and find something the two of you could potentially achieve as a couple.

Have a movie night in, challenging each other to bring a flick within the allotted theme of the night – such as worst movie of all time or the best classic you’ve never heard of. You could even go so far as to make a weekend out of it and create your own personal Oscars screening or private themed film festival.

Write a poem or compose a song together.

Gather some information on a skill you always wanted to learn and spend a day practicing it together. It could be a day of learning card tricks or learning how to juggle. Any skill you have always wanted to try can make a fun and interesting date.

Make life lists together. This activity is fun in and of itself but it lets you brainstorm ideas for future low-cost dates. You’ll get to know yourselves and each other better and you’ll get new ideas for things to do together in the months to come.

GOING OUT

Take dancing lessons together. It could be salsa, swing dancing or any other, and it is a lot of fun. Frequently you can get a discount for couples. In addition, you learn something new together and have a new skill you can employ on future date nights!

The park is a great place for good dates. Alternatively, spend some time playing around on the playground for a nostalgic good time.

Go to an amusement park together or with a group of friends. It is exciting and you’ll really feel the rush of adrenaline.

Concerts are expensive but there are many small venues that have live music for free. Find the places in your area that offer this because it makes for a great low-cost date.

Spend a day together at the beach. It is a low-cost date and a good way to find out about the other person. You can snorkel and explore sea life, collect sea shells and driftwood, go for a swim, or have a rock skipping contest.

Coffee shops and bars around the nation host weekly open mic poetry nights that are fun to attend. Be a good date and write a love poem to read to the person that you’re taking to this event.

Get active. Exercise is good for your body and it gives you those good feelings. Go for activities like swimming, jogging, hiking, and cycling together.

Skip the big dinner out and just get dessert, coffee or ice cream and happy hour dates.

Go to the theatre and see a play. You can always get better seats if you ring up in advance and tell them it's a first date, or even better, tell them you are on your honey moon.

Go ice-skating together. This is a great date idea, especially if you are both beginners.

If you both are avid readers, go to a book signing, attend a poetry or book reading together. Most of these events are free, and you’ll learn something new to discuss over coffee later.

Take a class together of any kind. E.g. cooking, painting, crafts, music, ceramics etc.

Take your camera and pretend you are professional photographers. Make a day out of taking photos together. Make a theme for the day if you want or just take any crazy photo that comes to mind. Once finished create a memory album together for the day that will live on forever.

Go bowling together. You don't have to be good at bowling (or any sport) to have fun with your sweetheart doing it.

Go on a tour of a local industry. There are plenty of great tours to suit just about anyone, from wine and cheese tasting to chocolate making and of course, eating!

Go to a roof top or revolving restaurant. Eating outdoors always makes things more memorable, just remember to make a booking first.

If you know how to ride a motorbike, take your date for a ride somewhere scenic or at night time in the city.

Go to your local jazz club and relax. Everyone loves jazz.

Go to the zoo. Most zoo's have nigh time exhibits or exhibits out of the norm for people to see.

Go canoeing and have a picnic lunch somewhere, by the waterfront or park. Find out what your date likes to eat and bring all their favourite foods.

Go window shopping in a trendy part of town, just don't buy anything expensive!

Go for a bike ride (get a bike built for two for something special).

Go on a "progressive dinner" date (Starters at one place, dinner at another, and dessert at still another place.)

Go to Starbucks, grab a latte and have a conversation. Take a pack of cards with you for added fun. One of the best date ideas there is.

Dress up all fancy and go to a play, opera, symphony or just a nice place for dinner. Alternatively, you could go to a photo studio to have your pictures taken. Then you can choose the best prints.


Hope these ideas would get us excited about holidays and times that we spend together with our spouse. It's important to remember to create time for each other to reconnect often, after the busyness and routines of our daily lives.

Have a wonderful Easter, try not to overdose on the hot cross buns and chocolate eggs!

FG

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