I always say to my husband, “You know Baby, I not only love you but I also like you.” I say that because it is true. I love and like him very much!
Loving someone and liking the same person you love are two different things. I mean, those two terms are related very closely but there is still a difference between them. For instance, you may love someone but you may not like them to the point of wanting to spend the whole day with them, savoring every moment.
Well, if you are “in-love,” you may say, “Are you kidding me? Lock me up with this person for eternity and I will be okay.”
Well, in that case, I will say, “You must be a single person, swimming in the sea of “I am in-love.” If so, forget it. I am not talking about that.
I am talking about liking the person you’re married to. And “liking” the person you are married to will be tested and proven to be true or false through the first seven or ten years of marriage. After seven years of marriage, if you find yourself liking the person you are married to (hoping that the feeling is mutual), you can say, with full confidence, “Yes, I love and like my spouse! And yes, go ahead, lock me up with my spouse in one room and I will be okay.”
But remember, for you to say, you love and like your spouse, you have to spend those “alone times”, together, at least from half an hour to an hour a day of the first seven years.
(I learn about this thing from Gary Thomas’ fantastic book called “Cherish,” if anybody is interested to read more.)
When my husband and I take a walk like for an hour or so, I always feel like we only had two minute walk. Why? We talk, and [I have to be honest here] I am the one who does almost all the talking and my honey-bun listens. I am telling you, this is a pure blessing from heaven for a woman to find a man who listens to her.
The thing is my husband and I, when we were dating (back in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), we used to enjoy being on the phone, talking for hours and hours (of course hiding the phone from our parents). Now after 22.5 years of marriage, we still talk on the phone as well as sitting next to each.
And if you ask me, I can honestly tell you that I don’t have a perfect marriage but with no pride in my heart, I say this, I have a happy marriage, and I praise God for that.
So, I agree that, “A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.”
If you are married, focus on the communication segment of your marriage and strive to improve it every day for your marriage stands or falls on that, means, your communication determines the health of your marriage. No communication means your marriage is dying or it is already dead. No healthy communication means no healthy marriage. On the other hand, if there is healthy and good communication in your marriage, that means, your marriage is a happy and thriving marriage.
But always remind yourself that there is no perfect marriage on this side of heaven however much you try to get it. That kind of truth sets us all “perfectionist” people free. ///