Happy marriages come when you grow your love after marriage

Happy marriages come when you grow your love after marriage-Ken Johnson


After reading "What is Love?," you know that real love is a collection of memories of positive experiences connected to your partner. You start your marriage with a vast bundle of feelings connected to the memories. We call this bundle "real love." If you haven't read that, please stop now to read the whole story on what is real love, then come back here. What is Love?

Remembering and reliving a memory

Memories fade over time, unless they are remembered and relived. If you are terrifically organized, you might make a list of your top 100 memories of you and your partner. Then, you could start at the top of your list and remember and relive each experience that made you happy.

Photos, scrapbooks, diaries all contain links to those memories. Even without those links, you can remember many, many times when you shared a connection to your partner.

By remembering and reliving the memories, you keep them fresh and you keep them close. Each time you refresh a memory you're adding to your bundle of love.

Sharing a memory with someone else

Every time you share a memory with your partner or a friend, you are reliving it and refreshing it. You are adding to your bundle.

Each telling brings the memory more alive. You get to experience the good feelings attached to that memory again and again.

Writing about a memory

You bring a memory to life when you write it down. You could start a diary of loving memories. You could begin a journal of your memories. You could start a blog and share your happy, loving memories with anyone who happens on it.

One wonderful woman told me, "Because of the war, he shipped out soon after our marriage. I kept my love alive by remembering and reliving the happy experiences we shared before we were parted. I wrote him daily, recounting my memories and the love I felt. When he returned, our love was stronger than when he left."

Create New Happy Memories

You add to your bundle of love by adding positive shared experiences throughout your marriage. You sometimes have to fight all of the other demands on your time to make sure you put aside time to do something with your partner that you both enjoy.

If you keep the romance alive in your marriage, you can have regular dates, you can dance, you can do the things that lovers and loving couples do to keep the fires of love alive. Keep adding new memories and your love bundle will keep growing.

Rewrite History — Turn Bad Memories Into Good

Studies of the happiest people show clearly that they have the ability to take bad memories and find the good in them.

If you have any bad memories of shared experiences with your partner, find some good in each one. Something you learned. Something that made you better or stronger. Something that helped make you more resilient.

Anytime one of the bad memories comes to mind, pair it with the good you found in it, and with time and practice you'll only have good memories associated with your partner.

Cope immediately with any bad feelings about your partner

Coping takes the sting out of a fight, harsh words, or other marriage-damaging event. Coping switches immediately away from the strong negative emotions and uses questions and reason to handle bad experiences.

The opposite of coping is reliving or re-experiencing the bad experience. Every time you mentally replay the harsh words or damaging actions by your partner, you are eroding your bundle of love. Your goal is to grow your love. Mental replays of bad experiences don't do that. The goal is to protect your love. Coping helps to do that. (Be sure to read all the Coping articles: click on "How to Cope.")

The goal is to protect your love. Coping helps to do that. (More later on how to cope.)

Practice Accepting, Forgiving, and Forgetting

Accepting, Forgiving, and Forgetting are the strongest tools in your arsenal. They will help you grow your bundle and keep it from eroding.

As Ruth Graham Bell said, "A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

A happy marriage — that lasts — is built on an ever-growing bundle of love. Sometimes it takes distorting history, accepting the unacceptable, forgiving the unforgivable, and forgetting the unforgettable. All of these are a small price to pay for the genuine joy that comes from a happy loving marriage that lasts.

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"Love and Marriage: The Ten Marriage Killers"
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Labels: Happy marriages come when you grow your love after marriage

posted by Robert Heard at 7:02 AM