Keeping The Romance Alive

“I would have rummaged, ransacked at the word; those old corners of an empty heart; for remnants of dim love the long disused, and dusty crumbling of romance!”

Robert Browning

As Valentine’s Day quickly approaches I think it’s a good time for a quick romance checkup.  Ask yourself; are you eagerly anticipating the romantic celebration of your love, or are you once again dreading your all too regular disappointment with the lack of passion in your relationship?

It’s an all-too-common scenario.  In the beginning it’s flowers, intimate dinners for two, breakfast in bed, and sexy lingerie.  But as the passion of courtship cools, it’s more like ESPN, takeout, sleeping in with our backs to one-another, and sweatpants.  But listen carefully, your love life doesn’t have to be humdrum, and it certainly doesn’t take mammoth effort to rekindle the flames of romance all over again.

Romance starts by getting our priorities straight. The busyness and routine of daily life can be romance killers if you allow them to be, but only if you allow them to be. While the tasks of everyday life are important, e.g. the kids, jobs, and chores, it is crucial to make time for your relationship!  It’s too easy to put our marriages on the bottom of our priority list, on the proverbial “back burner.”  For some reason we allow ourselves to take our spouses for granted by believing they will be the ones that will always be there, the ones we can cherish last, when everything else is done. Unfortunately you may wake one day, like so many others, to discover your marriage is done, long before you got around to making your spouse your priority!  It takes more effort and mindfulness to keep our priorities straight—God first, our marriage second, children third, then work, others, etc.—but so very worth it!

If you want to put romance back in your relationship spoil your spouse and not your children.  Find some way to make your husband or wife to feel special every single day. Romantic gestures are a great way to nurture your relationship.  Take a few minutes to let your spouse know how much you care and appreciate them.  Leaving little love notes around for your spouse to find or texting/emailing romantic messages can really brighten their day.  Helping out with little things like doing the dishes, making the bed, or running the vacuum—especially when it’s not your responsibility—go a long way in demonstrating your love.  Of course, don’t forget to speak the words “I love you.”

It’s been said that you should always give those you love something to look forward to.  Take the effort to make that happen.  It doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming, just give of yourself.  Having daily devotional time together, setting date nights for just the two of you, giving yourselves a weekend to get away by yourselves, and even just taking the time to enjoy sit-down meals together at home can provide the quality time necessary to grow your relationship and in turn kindle romance.  Be sure to share hugs, kisses, and affectionate touches.  Recall the early days of your relationship and make plans to do those things that were fun and brought the two of you together in the first place.

Taking pride in your appearance also shows that you care about yourself and your spouse.  Keeping your body in shape and staying current with hairstyle and fashion trends demonstrates that you still care about the relationship and staying attractive to your spouse.  Look for ways to pamper your beloved like letting them sleep in while you care for the kids, giving them a massage, cleaning up after dinner while they relax, or bringing them a special treat or gift that you know they’ll love “just because.”

Keep the lines of communication open in your relationship.  If you feel you’ve dropped to the bottom of your partner’s priority list, speak up. If you feel like your love life has gone from “hot” to “not,” share your feelings with your spouse.  Don’t blame or criticize, but rather focus on creating the relationship you both want.  Talking in front of your spouse to someone else about your partner’s good points is romantic, too.  Bragging on your spouse within their earshot will certainly bring a smile to their face!

Every marriage needs healthy doses of romance to add spice, delight, and fun to the relationship.  You have to find ways to keep the sizzle going as the months and years go by.  If you don’t, you can quickly go from being lovers to relating only as friends, siblings, or “business partners.”

Romance stays alive by keeping our figurative “crock pot of love” simmering everyday.  When it’s time for a special romantic occasion like Valentine’s Day, just add a little heat, just add a little spice, and look out world…

Janet’s Recommended Reading For This Post

Forgiveness Without Limit…

My pastor’s message this weekend was based on Jesus’ parable of The Unforgiving Servant. Don’t you just love Jesus’ parables? This one was taken from Matthew 18: 23-35, (just in case you would like to read up on it yourself). I’ve included the passage at the end of this post.

Anyhow, to refresh your memory, this parable was about the servant who owed his king what would be the equivalent today to many, many millions of dollars. The servant could not repay the debt and begged his king for mercy. With profound compassion the king forgave him the entirety of the debt owed and sent him on his way. This very same servant who had just been forgiven such a huge debt was owed just a little money by a fellow servant. The amount this fellow owed was about a day’s wage, or maybe $100 to $200 in today’s money. The fellow servant could not repay the debt and got down on his knees and begged for mercy of his own. Unwilling to show any compassion or forgiveness whatsoever, the servant had his fellow servant thrown into prison until such a time he could repay the debt!  Obviously, Jesus was pointing out, that when compared to what the first servant had been forgiven, this debt was very, very, tiny indeed.

The quintessential principle here is, the one who is forgiven much not only should forgive much, but must forgive much. The role of forgiveness in marriage is that grace and mercy shown to our spouse goes way beyond a mere system of quid pro quo, but must be absolutely without limit. Marriage is not a place for counting offenses and the number of times we forgive in some sort of game of tit for tat. Rather, as the parable teaches, we are to forgive much because God has already forgiven us of so much.

God expects us to extend mercy and forgiveness to one another, end of discussion.  If we don’t, we as the one who refuses to forgive, ends up in an emotional prison of our own making.  If you read the end of Jesus’ parable of the Unforgiving Servant, you will see that the king finds out about the servants lack of mercy for his fellow servant and “turned him over to the jailers to be tortured”.

In marriage as well as any relationship, our unwillingness to forgive keeps us in our own prison of hurt, anger, resentment, and even revenge.  Being unforgiving is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.  In the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, Jesus is presenting a principle similar to the forgiveness command for believers found in Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind to one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” If we refuse to forgive, we miss out on so much joy, happiness and love that exists in the fresh air just outside the walls of our self-made torturing, unforgiving prison.

Robert Quillen, the famed journalist of the 1930’s Saturday Evening Post wrote, “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” No matter how much a couple has in common, or how polished their communication skills, or how loving, caring and thoughtful they may be to one another, offenses still happen.  It’s part of the human condition.  If spouses can assume positive intent on the part of the other, seek understanding, be quick to apologize and quick to forgive, they add vital ingredients to the recipe of a great marriage. Therefore, because we have received much grace, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), we are commanded to give that same grace to others.  Why not try that on your spouse today.

When a couple’s life is changed by God’s love, they are able, out of the overflow of His love, to attach high value to one another and love each other.  Instead of riding each other about various problems, they will find ways to build up and encourage each other.  When thoughts and feelings can be expressed without anger and hate, but rather with understanding and validation, miraculous changes can take place in the couple and their marriage.

No two marriages are exactly alike, but know that God’s call to forgiveness can free you and your spouse to take the next step towards a fulfilling and God-honoring marriage.

The Parable Of The Unforgiving Servant

Matthew 18:23-35 (New International Version)

^23”Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. ²⁵Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. ²⁶The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. ²⁸But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. ²⁹His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ ³⁰But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. ³²Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. ³⁵This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Janet’s Recommended Reading For This Post:

How Couples Can Resolve Conflict…

Hi, It’s Me, Janet Kester, The Christian Marriage Counselor.

I must confess that I have wanted to write a blog for a very long time now, but I have struggled for weeks with how to get started.  Then it dawned on me today that it wasn’t how I wrote the blog, but why I was writing it.  So welcome, I sure do appreciate you stopping by to take a look, but most of all I’m trusting that you’ll gain something insightful and useful!

I’ve been a therapist for many years now and have worked with countless couples with just about every marital issue you can imagine.  A veritable “A to Z” or “Soup to Nuts” list of marriage strife has walked through my door.  So please trust me when I tell you, that you are not alone, no matter what situation you may be facing!

I love what I do, and my passion is helping couples work through issues that are barriers to enjoying the marriage that God intended.  Through this blog I hope to expand the walls of my office to encompass the web community and provide help to all couples living in less than optimal marriages.  The goal of my blog is to talk about the issues most commonly presented to me by couples and the various ways to resolve them.

The first issue I want to discuss is one of the most common reasons couples come to see me, and perhaps it may be a matter of contention for you as well. That issue is simply the inability to find resolution to problems.  It’s painful to see couple after couple that seemingly have so much going for them, destroy their relationship because of unresolved conflict.

Many couples approach conflict resolution like two generals squaring off in a battlefield engagement, or perhaps like two rival coaches locked in a hard fought sports game of some sort.  Their way of thinking is that there can only be one “winner” and one “loser.”  “Somebody is right, and somebody is wrong.”  Of course no one wants to be the loser, and no one wants to be wrong.  Unfortunately, you have to understand that if this is the current way you are trying to resolve your issues, everyone loses!  If you are a spouse that does give in to your partner, you often end up harboring resentment, am I right?  This resentment in turn negatively affects the emotional temperature of the entire relationship and the entire household.  It creates a trickle down effect or “catch 22” scenario that becomes oh so destructive to any marriage relationship.

The key to resolving your conflicts is to find a way to get “on the same page” as your spouse as much as possible.  When you focus all of your emotional energy on your conflicts, you often lose sight of your common goals and values as a couple, and as a family.  You very often want the same thing, but often have conflict about the means to accomplish it.  Good questions for you to ask yourselves are “How can we each get what we want?” and  “How can we come out of this situation with a win-win?”  Asking these questions will redefine your conflicts in terms of wants and needs instead of winners and losers.  This will reveal options where before there seemed to be none, and encourage cooperation so husband, wife, and family all can win.  It will bring you together as a team and help you view your conflict or problem as the “enemy”, and not each other.  When you as a couple work together to solve a problem in a way where you both win, it creates an atmosphere where neither of you ever wants to see the other lose.

Yes, conflict is a reality in all marriages!  How you deal with conflict is the ultimate test of your ability to communicate as a couple.  It is vital that both wife and husband approach each other with kindness and concern thus creating a trusting atmosphere that is conducive to effective communication and problem solving.  Resentment, rejection, and fear create a threatening environment that destroys communication.  God provides us with meaningful insights into effectively resolving conflict.  His Word says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for the building up of others according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen.  (Ephesians 4:29)  We are to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave us” and to “clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:12).

Remember, every marriage encounters conflict.  It’s how you deal with it that matters.  In conflict we have an opportunity to choose to trust God and His principles that lead to restoration and resolution, or we can follow our own human nature that leads to continued pain and destruction.

Janet’s Recommended Reading For This Post: