Loving someone and liking the same person you love are two totally different things. I mean those two terms are related but they are not synonymous. For instance, you may love someone but you may not like them to the point of spending the whole day and the whole night with them, savoring every moment. For example, you may love your dad but you may not want to spend the whole day with him.

Well, if you are “in-love,” you may say, “Are you joking? Lock me up with this person for eternity and I will be okay.”

Well, in that case, I 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 as they say, “liking” the person you are married to might be tested, proven and found to be authentic after you celebrate your seven or ten years of marriage anniversary. If you like the person you are married to after ten years of marriage, 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 for the whole day 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.

(I learn about this thing from Gary Thomas’ fantastic book called “Cherish.” Bought this book from amazon)

Whenever my husband and I take a walk, we walk for like an hour or so but when we come back, I feel like we only had two-minute long 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 hubby and I, when we were dating (back in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 100 years ago), we used to enjoy being on the phone, talking for hours and hours (of course hiding the phone from our parents). Now after almost 25-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 at the same time, with no pride in my heart, I can 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 it is mainly your communication that 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. And if there is a healthy and good communication among you and your spouse, it means, your marriage is a happy and thriving marriage.

But remember, 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” free. ///