Marriage
Marriage
"Tomorrow morning, get your eyes off the toast . . . long enough to
look at your spouse. . . . Look at his or her hands. Do you remember
when just to look at those hands made your heart lift? Well, LOOK . .
. and remember. Then loose your tongue and tell him or her how you
feel. . . . Ask the Lord to give you a sentimental, romantic, physical,
in-love kind of love for your spouse. God will do this. His love in
us can change the actual physical quality of our love for our spouses."
Ed Wheat
"A healthy [sexual] relationship is one in which the two partners are
engaged in the ongoing process of attracting and luring one another to
bed." Andrew Greely
"There is an old story about a man who gave a simple formula for a long
and happy marriage: "I always treated her in a way that meant she
couldn't replace me with a hot-water bottle when I died." Jeanette and
Robert Lauer
"Listening to my spouse is one of the most significant ways to say "I
love you." All too often I listen with the intent to reply, or I allow
my presence to be there, but my thoughts are tuned elsewhere, or my
mind has already formed some opinion, or I think my spouse wants an
answer that includes solutions. But I find that often, the only thing
my spouse really needs is to feel heard and understood." Bill and
Nancie Carmichael
" If you move a train east from Des Moines toward Chicago, two changes
have to happen. You become closer to Chicago but farther away from Des
Moines. You cannot become closer to Chicago and remain close to Des
Moines at the same time. The same fact exists in marriage. An
intimate relationship with my new partner will change the close
relationships with my old friends." William Coleman
"Place me like a seal over your heart, or like a seal on your arm. For
love is as strong as death, and its jealousy is as enduring as the
grave. Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame. Many
waters cannot quench love; neither can rivers drown it. If a man tried
to buy love with everything he owned, his offer would be utterly
despised." Song of Songs 8:6-7.
"To view our spouses from the lens of glory is to be overwhelmed by the
privilege of being face-to-face with a creature who mirrors God." Dan
B. Allender and Tremper Longman
"There is no relationship between human beings so close as that of
husband and wife, if they are united as they ought to be. . . . The
power of this love is truly stronger than any passion; other desires
may be strong, but this one alone never fades. . . . Can you see now
how close this union is, and how God providentially created it from a
single nature? . . . God caused the entire human race to proceed from
this one point of origin. He did not, on the one hand, fashion woman
independently from man; otherwise man would think of her as essentially
different from himself. Nor did He enable woman to bear children
without man; if this were the case she would be self-sufficient. . . .
He made it impossible for men and women to be self-sufficient." St.
John Chrysostom
"Express appreciation for each other. Accepting each other makes a
stable marriage. Appreciating each other, however, makes a sensational
marriage." Brett Selby
"If couples would put half the effort into marriage that they put into
courtship, they would be surprised how things will brighten up." Billy
Graham
"In marriage, each partner is to be an encourager rather than a critic,
a forgiver rather than a collector of hurts, an enabler rather than a
reformer." H. Norman Wright and Gary J. Oliver
"More romance in your marriage may depend on your choice to accept and
treasure your husband for who he is. If he doesn't sense acceptance
and feels you're pushing him to change, he may become more resistant.
Your husband needs to feel love unconditionally." Jean Lush
"One of the most empowering qualities of good marriages is trust. To
trust someone also means to trust their judgment in making good
decisions. Some people don't trust their mate with the checkbook, some
constantly attack their spouse's daily decisions, some fight constantly
over trivial things like who's right about the shortest route to a
friend's house. Some who are emotionally insecure incessantly challenge
their spouse with a do-you-really-love me question. All of these have
to do with trust. Good relationships have trust as a cornerstone."
Bill and Nancie Carmichael
"Once you marry, you're not to stop all the attentive responses.
They're to increase. It's a continual attitude. Keeping the romance
alive is a matter of little daily acts. It means that your spouse is
on your mind, not just: `On no, it's Valentine's Day again. I better
go buy something and do something romantic." H. Norman Wright
"One of the highest functions of a wife is to console her husband for
all the blows he receives in life. Yet, in order to console, there is
no need to say very much. It is enough to listen, to understand, to
love. Look at that mother whose child runs crying to her knees. She
utters no word, and yet in a moment the tears have disappeared, the
child jumps down, smiles all over his face, and heads out into the
world once more where he will receive new blows. In every man, even
the most eminent and the apparently strongest, there remains something
of the child who needs to be consoled." Paul Tournier
"If you have needs which are unmet, instead of making demands or
accusations, try to meet the needs of your marriage partner. Love
begets love; resentment begets hostility; rejection begets rejection."
Cecil Osborne
"Married life . . . isn't a time for settling down but for growth, for
doing new things. With each passing year a growing couple will
actively look for new and different things they can do together." Dale
Evans Rogers
"It is impossible for two human beings to be one while
scrupulously
respecting the distance that separates them, unless God is present in
each of them. The point where parallels meet is infinity."
Simone
Weil
"The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the
ballroom or church or synagogue. It's a choice you make -- not just
on your wedding day, but over and over again -- and that choice is
reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife."
Barbara De Angelis
American Expert on Relationship & Love, Author
"I believe that if I should die
and you were to walk near my grave,
from the very depths of the earth
I would hear your footsteps."
Benito Perez Galdos
"A happy home is one in which each spouse grants the possibility that
the other may be right, though neither believes it."
-- Don Fraser, 1946-1985
"To marry a second time represents the triumph of hope over
experience."
-- Samuel Johnson
Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the
independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation
reciprocal.
-- Louis K. Anspacher
"The secret to getting my wife to be less inhibited had more to do
with me than her. It wasn't until I started listening to what she
wanted from me outside the bedroom that changes happened inside the
bedroom. I needed to show that I loved her by talking to her and
treating her as my equal in all aspects of life. Once she became
secure and felt deeply loved by me, all her inhibitions disappeared.
Damn, I wish I had figured that out sooner."
-- Danny G, 58, accountant, husband for 24 years
