If you are married, you should remember the first date.  Hopefully remember the excitement of first getting to know each other…and falling deeper in love.  After you married, you began the real journey of learning each other in a brand new light.  You learned the likes and dislikes.  You learned their strengths, stresses, and their habits (good or bad).  At first these things are “cute” or “just part of who they are.”  After some time these things are not as enduring as they were in the beginning.  This is where trouble often starts.  They honeymoon has worn off. The wedding gifts are all in use. The cars are breaking down. The rent is due.  Soon there is the pitter-patter of little feet.  Then…there is that budget thing.  At the end of the day you are tired and your spouse becomes a room-mate instead of the love of our life.

When you begin to look at your spouse this way, you need a check-up to bring you to reality.  You need to view your spouse in a brand new light.  Below are three thoughts I would like to offer. In the next post I will offer three more.

1-    Analyze yourself before you analyze your spouse.   We usually do not see ourselves in a true light. Being critical of our spouse is a self-absorbed way of taking the light off of us and placing it on someone else.  Before you see their physical or emotional imperfections, take a look in the mirror.  It might surprise you.

2-    Don’t compare them to someone else.  When you are using someone else as a comparison, you are assuming you know everything about them. We only see the “outside” of people.  We only know the “surface” of someone.  You do not know the “real” person until you live with them and become part of their lives.  We are all unique and special in some way.  See your spouse as a gift from God to you.

3-    Start where you are, not where you have been.  Every relationship goes through mountaintop and valley experiences.  No one is perfect.  If you and your spouse really want to have an awesome relationship, start where you are today.  Offer forgiveness based on accountability, and start building where you are today. The past will do nothing but destroy you if you let it.

Do you have something to add?

Read tomorrow for Part 2