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As a part of my efforts to spruce things up for the New Year – I’ve decided to add a new category to this blog:  Marriage Mondays.  Every Monday I will feature a post that focuses on marriage and family.  I encourage you to comment or add a link to a related post of your own.  I’ve add the new MckLinky feature to make it easy for you to link up to this post.

Focusing on the Good

As cliche as “focus on the good” may sound, people are gung-ho about it until they’re asked to focus on the good in their marriage. Why is it so easy to see the good in everything else?  Why are we so quick to complain about what our spouse don’t do; what they did lastnight, last week, last year?  We let everything else slide.  We see the good in our jobs, even though we really hate it; we see the good in other people who blatantly try to take advantage of our kindness, but when it comes to our husband or wife, we tend to be much more critical and nit-picky.

I’m guilty – the crazy part is, I didn’t even realize I was doing this.  I thought my hubby was just tripping. I thought he should be proud of the things I’d go out of my way to do for members of his family and mine.  I didn’t realize it was driving him nuts because it took away from the time I spent with him.  By the time I got finished running around, I was too tired to cook, much less clean, or anything else.

Then when I was home, I’d nag, because I was so easily irritated by things he hadn’t fixed, socks he left laying around, that I couldn’t enjoy our rare moments together.  Why hadn’t he mowed the lawn?  Why did he leave his toolbox in the middle of the floor?  I could probably contruct a list a mile long of complaints.  But when it came to others, I had only good things to say – it was totally unbalanced.  Why did I do that?

It took a 3-year separation before I realized what I’d been doing to him. When we were apart, I remembered the good things that I missed terribly – the way he could make me laugh until I cried, the wonderful meals he used to cook, and countless other talents of his that I hated living without.  When we decided to work things out, I finally started focusing on those good things that I missed in our marriage and in him.

Now, when I find myself getting irritated about something, I think about how miserable life was without him and I realize the good outweighs the bad.  I redirect my focus on something positive – I think about that bear hug I’ve been waiting all day to get or that silly joke that makes me laugh until my stomach hurts.  I no longer want anything to taint the rare quality time we spend together.  I want to enjoy the good in my marriage because we never know how much time we have left – like life, marriage is too precious to waste on anger, resentment, or bitterness.

Are you focusing on the good in your marriage?

Whenever you find yourself  honing in on the negative – stop and redirect your thoughts to the good:

• think of the day you met
• think of your first kiss
• think of the day you got engaged/married
• think of your favorite thing about your husband or wife
• think about your honeymoon or last family vacation
• think about what life would be like without them…then choose not to let anything steal another moment of your precious time together.

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