25,550 First Dates

I talk to so many couples that are ready to throw in the towel because they dont see light at the end of the tunnel and feel like they just married the wrong person. That is one of Satans biggest lies and yet its amazing how many of us fall for that one (including me). The fact is when we grow up thinking of marriage we want and see the fairytale. Everything we read and watch is a story ending in a fairytale and when we feel like we are living in a nightmare instead of a fairytale, we just assume and believe we married the wrong person and instead of making your own fairytale, you opt for divorce or thoughts of divorce (which are just as damaging). Ive said it before and Ill say it until the day that I die, "Love is a choice" and to go one step further, "Happiness is a choice". Ever heard the saying. "The grass is greener on the other side, until you step in the poop"? Its true, we see other marriages or our single friends and just think that they have the best life ever and we begin to get bitter and resentful of what we have instead of choosing to make things better. Do you ever wonder why every marriage or relationship you have starts so great and ends in disaster or makes you miserable? People literally have a chemical high when they first start dating someone that makes them feel amazing and some people live for that high and when it wears off then they go to the next person looking for the right person instead of doing the work of what it takes that actually makes the relationship. When a relationship begins to be work or complicated then we must have the wrong person because its not a fairytale anymore is a very selfish and dangerous way to live. I have to tell you that a relationship is work, if I could change laws, I would mandate at least a two year engagement period as well as a year of pre marriage counseling to see if the couple can make it past bad days, sickness, hormones, finances, reality and life in general. The people that get married right away have a much bigger disappointment because the very person who was the hero becomes tired, stressed and taken forgranted in most cases before you even get to one year. Dont you remember your dating days? Maybe you are still there....Your home is always perfectly clean, you go out of your way to make this person feel special, you shave and are always done up looking your best, you send giggles and lols all day, you make sure each time you meet that its the most incredible experience ever and then you get married. The excitement of marriage and new family, the new gifts, new home all the excitement with starting a new life and then it happens.....we get exhausted and start to relax. Heres the problem with relaxing, it creeps up very sudden and begins as no big deal you'll fix things or do things later. Once it slips by then we go to the next, the next and the next. Each party starts getting a little more annoyed until someone snaps. You have a heart to heart and things will get better for awhile and then something else and so on. Guys think she must know I love her, I married her didnt I? Girls think he used to love me and now I must have done something wrong because he doesnt treat me or look at me the same anymore, so she will put in some extra effort until its not changing anything then the bitterness and resentfulness comes in and he thinks, she used to love me but every since I married her she has changed. Nothing I do makes him/her happy anymore and then you look back and say "how did we get here", I must have married the wrong person because this isnt fun anymore and they arent making me happy. Something is missing, lets have a baby. After the baby another void is there and you fill in with something temporary and it keeps going until you are both miserable and hating each other. Until you change the way you do "relationship" your outcome will always be the same. I tell people it doesnt matter if you want to stay together or get divorced, just make a decision and deal with it. That might sound cruel but let me explain. People that stay together and dont bother putting in the work that are unhappy and choosing to stay in that unhappiness, but yet continue to make themselves, spouse, children, families and friends miserable by always being negative and thinking if they were divorced then things would be great....then do it and get it over with OR choose to be happy and put in the work it takes to fix it and move on. Everybody has the same ups and downs you do, you are not alone...its just that outcomes are different by the amount of work each couple chooses to put in. I talked to several people over the last couple years who were ready for divorce because they were tired of trying and nothing ever changing. It was amazing to them to see that I could either finish all their sentences of what was wrong with their marriage or I could tell them exactly what they were going through and after reciting it over and over, you should see the looks and heads turn like really....how did you know? The truth is that I have been there and I have chosen both paths. Ive thrown in the towel and chose to make each day a first date. Have you seen the move "50 First Dates"? Adam Sandler falls for a local girl which he usually steers away from because he likes to have one nighters with the tourist so he doesnt have to do the relationship thing. He meets Drew Barrymores character and falls head over heels only to find that she has a brain injury and loses her short term memory every night when she sleeps. He then decides to spend the rest of his life making her fall in love with him everyday. She is in different moods and at first some days he wasnt so lucky, but he tried something new everyday hoping that she would fall in love with him. WOW, what if we did the same thing in our relationships? What if we dated each other every single day as if it were our first because we never know when it will be our last. If both people in a relationship never stopped dating then can you imagine the fairytale life that you would lead? Why do we take people we love the most forgranted and push the buttons we learn to push and pull wires we learn to pull? If you have never watched the movie "Fireproof" , I would suggest that you do, it is one example of how even the hardest of hearts can change. Imagine if both spouses did it all the time and not just when they wanted something? Yes, we learn how to manipulate when we want something, but cant seem to live that way to be happy all the time. "The love dare" is the book that was in the movie and if you havent done it, then I encourage you to go through it. Its work, dont get me wrong especially when the other person isnt accepting of what you are doing for them, but give it time and most important...dont stop after 40 days. If the other party is as hard as I was then your gonna need to do it longer that 40 days just to prove you mean it and not just doing it to change them. Its important that you arent here trying to change your spouse to who you want them to be, but taking this time to change you and how you react to things, your attitudes and motivations. Leave notes around and go out of your way to do things to make your spouse feel helped, needed and special. Choose to be happy regardless of how you feel and choose to work out these bumps. One day looking back, you will be so glad you did. I heard this story once and it stuck with me. An elderly couple had been married over 65 years and every Saturday the husband would bring donuts home to his wife and they would have breakfast. The husband got ill and passed away. Her children came over and on Saturday brought her "favorite donuts". She told them "thank you", but that they didnt have to do that anymore. You see she never cared for donuts, but because her husband took the time to go out and get them, she got to spend that precious time with her husband and ate them anyway with a smile on her face. Thats unselfish love folks and if we put that much effort into our actions and attitudes everyday we could make every day a first date and have the fairytale we always dreamed of.