Forgiveness, A Weeks Worth Of Words In A Successful Marriage Pt.2

Welcome back. We are still on the subject of words that can and should change your life in marriage as well as your family. Our word for today is forgiveness.

When it comes to who has the right to forgive or not forgive can be a matter of great concern especially if you are trying your best to better yourself in your relationships.

When one takes or makes the choice to pronounce a decision upon someone else for reasons that seem to defy rationality, you have just made a judgment. And we all should remember that judgment is without mercy to the one who shows no mercy. Some would define that as receiving your just due. What goes around will eventually come around. These will be some great unhappy marriage tips for all.

Your best advice in this matter is to not keep track or keep a record when it comes to forgiveness. A one for one attitude towards the evil that your spouse seemingly heaps upon you in a fit of rage will only serve to cause more resentment and anger in your married life. It is not always easy to be the bigger person when you feel that you have been wronged…especially when you may not even know the why of it.

Unforgiveness is like a deadly disease in a successful marriage. One of the worst things you can encounter during your love life is that not meaning what you way. Parents play this game with children when to spout empty threats. Don’t make me come in there…and you don’t actually go in there…or if you do that one more time…and it’s already been the third-fourth-fifth time already. What is a child to think when they push that button and continually get away with it because they are using their little digital calculators to add up the times that you never carry out your mandates for their punishment.

Imagine living like that with your spouse. Always making empty promises.

You will be judged by the very standard that you yourself tend to judge others.

You need to here and now reverse that trend and become not only a better person, lover and friend to your mate, but to become a shinning example what it means to be in a successful marriage.

Forgiveness is not enabling, always helping someone in the opposite way that they need help. Forgiveness is not rescuing, saving someone from the consequences of their wrong doing or ill-will. Forgiveness is not risking or putting yourself or your spouse at risk.

It may seem like a real crisis when you have to choose to forgive, but it is the process that gets you through and leads to a successful marriage and family life.

Saying things that confirm your willingness to make the commitment work like …”I will not bring the problems of past up to you…or…I will not bring up our problems to others…and most important of all I will not keep bringing the past up to myself.”

You see, when you forgive, damaging emotions get eliminated, bitterness-wrath-anger-clamor-slander and malice are no longer a part of your life…and that makes for a very happy and successful marriage.

Be sure to come back as we continue looking at the weeks worth of words to a successful marriage.

-Lon-

Brain Cramps In A Successful Marriage

There are many things that go on or happen in a marriage that makes one wonder out loud sometimes just how the heck you got to where you are. When it is good, things can be really life affirming. But man oh man, when things go south, you can find yourself up the proverbial creek without any immediate means of locomotion. Having to act kindly let alone think kindly can cause quite a severe misfiring of the synapses…leading to brain cramps.

Take for instance words. They can be kind and loving in a relationship or they can be the axe that fells the mightiest of century old oak trees. When it comes to saying something out of character no matter the best of intentions, a slip of the tongue can really ruin your married life.
Even though a tongue has not the strength of bones…it is however strong enough to break a heart…so be a little more careful with your next words. No outrageous brain teaser there.

Before you get gone too far into the woods of holy matrimony and not be able to see the forest for the trees, I would like for you to consider this: An arrow can only be shot forward by pulling it backwards…so when you feel life is dragging you backwards with all of it emotions and difficulties, just imagine that someday, somewhere, somehow it is going to launch you into something much greater than just being flung into the throes living a lie in your marriage. A successful marriage comes with built in stresses that can bend like a bow to its near breaking point and yet have the strength and power to propel you to greater heights that you could ever have imagined.

You don’t have to be genius to exert a superior ideology in your relationship. Just remember, don’t spend or waste your time with people who tend to judge you without even knowing you. What comes to mind is the saying that even dogs will make noise and bark loudly if they do not know the person. A statement like that will certainly send you of towards getting a severe case of brain cramps.

It is so sad and such a shame that people tend to spend more time tearing one another down just to apparently build themselves up. No reason in particular. They just do not want you to have what you have or be what you are. Pretty amazing isn’t it.

Another simple test of faith in a successful marriage is being able to withstand the constant barrage of fault finding by one partner or the other.
When misunderstandings flare up in a successful marriage, and they will, it would be far better for us to focus on trimming back the ego…not the relationship. A bruised ego will no doubt heal given enough time, but a bruised relationship very seldom recovers fully intact from a senseless matter of negative pride.
Don’t sweat the small stuff…and it is all small stuff.

Whether you want to call these little idiosyncrasies brain cramps or not, they are the very things that so often get us into more hot water than we ever intended. More times than not it is a simple matter of open mouth and insert foot that without forethought that is the cause of our splits in marital reality.

If only we took the time to say those wonderful words of promise that mean so much in our married lives…I am sorry, please forgive me, I love you. That would be a great start as a guarantee to a most successful of marriage.

-Lon-

Ever Have One Of Those Days

In a successful Marriage, it is very often a miracle when two people can maintain an appreciation for one another and yet still manage to be as one for thirty plus years.
I know there are many many dynamics involved in such a scenario and that just makes it all the more worthwhile. Take for instance this little bit of insight that is floating around your neck of the woods in cyberville:

A newly married husband saved his wife’s number on his mobile phone as My life
After one year of marriage he changed the number to My Wife
After 2 years of marriage he changed the number to Home
After 5 years of marriage he changed the number to Attila The Hun
After 10 years of marriage he changed the number to Wrong Number

Obviously there are/were some communication issues that needed to be resolved in that household. But we won’t dwell on the negative. We are far beyond that. I know you are too, so we will dispense with the negative attitudes that keep those folks where they are, in a not so pleasant past. Attitudes.
Yep. Attitudes. Those little finicky devils can certainly ruin any relationship.

But for now, back to the communication issue in a successful marriage. When you decide to make it worth your while to have a lasting relationship, one of the first things you will discover is that you can actually say words to one another. The more words you speak the more open and easy it becomes to live and act as one mind one body with one purpose.
But more importantly, it is during this discovery phase of the relationship that it in fact begins to grow and blossom in the areas of genuine care and concern…and that my friend is where the rubber meets the road. You will become founded and well grounded in your married life.

Time spent together can surely cause a certain amount of wear and tear on any relationship, but like that saying about 99% perspiration to gain 1% of inspiration, it is a good measure of that exact wear and tear.
The more time you invest in any worthwhile relationship endeavor the more it will yield a significant gain to those concerned.

Remember when you were dating and you could never get enough of each other…the long hours spent on the telephone in the wee hours of the morning, the endless love notes (remember when people actually put pen to paper and wrote notes to one another), the many now seemingly trivial gifts you bestowed upon each other that at the time garnered sincere smiles of love and joy.

I especially remember fondly some of those long chats (not the texting kind either!) in the wee hours of the morning because of being the low man on the totem pole of being the new kid on the block early in my broadcasting career. Yep, with every new broadcast facility move to a new area, city or country, the new guy always seemed to get the overnight shift in radio or tv and that often meant that when you were not actually live spinning the stacks of wax ( I thoroughly realize that I just lost a couple of generations with that statement) we had to play pre-recorded shows from real celebrities in the business to make up the rest of our broadcast day. That of course left one to their own devices of getting all your work done after your live show and then having some free time so that you could call the love of your life in the middle of the night and continue to share that long distance romance with them.  In fact she loved me so much I could hear her snoring on the other end of the phone!

The next time we were together and I asked how could she fall asleep and just leave me hanging there like that, to which she just simply said something sweet like…”your voice was so calm an soothing that it just lead me off to dreamsville ….”
Yeah right!
And it was a crock like that that the stew of married life slow cooks in for years to become a seasoned successful marriage!

-Lon-

The Mantra And The Successful Marriage

Feelings…the more you have, the more you share the more you get. It is the circle of life. OK, so it is not the mantra of the masses. It is however one that I believe in and can relate to.
It does present an option to deliver a belief that a happy and a successful marriage is something worth striving for. I know that that almost sounds as if a successful marriage is something that you have to work at to achieve. Well Duh!
True it is not a 9 to 5 factory job, and you should not have to treat it like work, but the fact of the matter is that aside from a little loving ingenuity, one does need to put forth some effort to have growth and success in the relationship.

Mantras are the sayings that people find and repeat to themselves on a daily basis so that it becomes a habit and you know that anything you practice consistently becomes a routine and that routine becomes the habit…one in which you need to become successful and without much notice or fanfare it sometimes appears like magic in the relationship. Find out more about successful habits when you join me at Legendary You.

A mantra is defined as a sound, a syllable, a word, or group of words that is considered capable of creating a transformation about or within you. That definition goes so far as to describe this transformation as being somewhat spiritual. It goes back in time and to a different culture and meanings that we will not be discussing here at this time. The point being that culture has given us a way of adding to our belief systems some good bad or indifferent terms and challenges to our supposed happiness in our married lives.

Chants, poems, riddles, rhymes…whatever it takes to get you through the day right. Simply pick a phrase you believe in and repeat it to yourself with feelings and you are good to go. You have a mantra.
You know if you were to do the same thing with real and actual words with feelings to your spouse while looking them in the eye on that daily basis, you might just be surprised as to how happy you can be and how extremely happy your spouse will be.

In a successful marriage it comes down to saying everyday, several times a day both to yourself and to your mate the things that positively identify your and their uniqueness. When you feel it deep inside, that abundance of love and security that surrounds you, you will not have to work at anything. Success can be as much of a surety in life as that of your successful marriage.

Here is one of my favorite sayings… “Mantras are energy which can be likened to fire. Fire can cook your lunch or burn down the forest.” – Unknown

Remember that in your daily life as well as your married life, words are powerful, but you have the power to pick and choose the very words that you speak to yourself to begin or conquer the success that you are looking for.

Interestingly, Mantras are sometimes mainly delivered into a mirror so that you can see yourself actually speaking the words and to make sure that you really believe what you are saying.
Imagine doing that face to face with and to the person you love.

Of course my absolute favorite mantra about having a successful marriage comes from me and my time at Legendary You: If the ocean were loving and I were a duck…I would dive to the bottom and never come up.

-Lon-

Extreme Situations Require Extreme Solutions

In our little venue toward looking at your life in a successful marriage, I hope this serves as just a reminder that this applies to each and every person you and I know for their state of well being and happiness. My thoughts on the subject are formed on the many years and many associations with my spouse as we have lived and loved through those years together.

I definitely do not want to leave any of you out in this little scenario of life. It is my sincere desire that you know that my feelings, joys, pains and loves apply to you and whatever situation you find yourself in and that you are indeed content. That situation may or may not be an extreme situation which requires an extreme solution.
You do not have to always be happy in life’s trials, I just want you to better understand that the choice you made in your relationship and where you are right now.

Yes, you made a choice. Without blame or finger pointing, you may have a lot of other descriptive terms to try and explain the current state of your being…nevertheless, it was or is your decision that indeed brought you to the place you are right now. You can find out how to cope with these and many other decisions by joining me at Legendary you.

Extreme situations require extreme solutions. This is a plan by which you and your married life take on some very deep and sometimes very expensive lessons in life.
First and foremost as a positive step to learning to deal with and have a successful marriage, you must change your thought processes…your way of thinking. You absolutely have to get rid of your “stinking thinking”. The negative thoughts that you have about you, your spouse and practically everyone you come in contact with. Not everyone is out to get you!

So many people miss out on so many joys not only in everyday life, but especially in the one’s concerning their relationships in married life. When you are constantly fighting a perceived battle for love or finances or personalities, you will become quite the loser in the eyes of your partner, your family and your friends. If this is the state you find yourself, then yes, this would be classified an extreme situation in need of an extreme solution.

But that is the point of my point. It does not have to be. Remember that you can attract more flies (flies being whatever the good things in your life and relationships that you desire) with honey than you can with vinegar. Be kind. Be sweet. Be sympathetic. Be loyal. Be true. Be a better you.

Rather than me (or anyone else) telling you that I have the answer to avoiding all the bumps in the road of a successful marriage and having you come across something that has not been explained, defined or at least served as a warning for you, I hope you see these writings as just a cursory look at what has kept my/our relationship in tact for 30 plus years.

Believe me now and hear me later that, extreme situations requiring extreme solutions can be some of the best and fun times a couple can have in a relationship. Remember, that that does not kill you serves to makes you stronger.
Take a look at some of the many other things you can learn about relationships when you join me at Legendary You. Shameless advertising, you betcha! I do not want you to miss out on any more that life has to offer and all the great sharing’s that you could be passing along to make others happy in your life and theirs.

-Lon-

The Morning The Goat Came To breakfast

It was a beautiful and uncommonly bright, sunny and warm winter’s day for the occasion for which we were all assembled and amid the fun time reminiscing over a family member taken from this life much too soon, our morning meal turned somehow to the subject of the goat.

No, I don’t have a poignant tale to relay concerning our gathering, just an interesting observation about out little conclave of personalities. It has a lot to do with the makeup of families and of course that begins with successful relationships.

We have been relating here on the posts for the most part about love, truth, honesty and security in said relationships. To that end we tend to discover just how much of a family we really are when one of us falters in life whether it be in good, bad or in the sad times.
It is that coming together where we can cry and or laugh together and be as one with one another. Unfortunately it is far too often more the case that these gatherings come to be because of family losses. You can learn more about family at Legendary You.
There are not nearly enough of the old time family outings these days where the passions of self-preservation weigh in against the fires of those old back yard picnic and bar-b-ques.

The story of the goat that came to breakfast was formed in the minds of a pair of cousins, that like a lot of other siblings, are alike in that they laugh and enjoy life sometimes at the expense of those in the immediate area…this time around, we happened to be at the breakfast table. You have to understand that we had already been torturing each other and the rest of the family with barbs and jibs and jibes about everything from hair-dos to long lost items of jewelry and clothing found in a back closet during this down home visit. But, that is another story for another time. Back to the goat coming to breakfast.

The morning the goat came to breakfast was when the special person in my life played hostess to our immediate family by setting out a spread that consisted some usual and yet some customary items such as bread, jam, eggs, breakfast meat and various fruits…and right in the middle of that platter of goodies was a hunk of goat cheese with cranberries.
Most of the time you cannot mess up a meal like breakfast, I mean you can put leaves on the table and dress up a meal pretty good!

But, goat cheese and more importantly, goat cheese with cranberries.
This my friend is why we have had a successful marriage of 30 plus years…ours has not been a movie where life is like a box of chocolates! You just (well, almost) never know what you are going to get at our house for breakfast or any other meal for that matter. Come on, join me in sharing the in the fun. It has been said that the strength and character of a man lies in the adventures he is willing (or unwilling ) to be a part of.

For some families in some areas of the world, sure, the morning the goat came to breakfast caused more than a few eyebrows to be raised, but who knew that a creamy sweet spread of goat cheese and cranberries would further unite a family in a time of sadness and make it a more joyful occasion.

All of this was due in part to the legacy of a mother’s dearly departed son, a sister’s brother and my cousin whose infectious smile and demeanor is to be a forever a living testament to our family and the kinds of things that while we may make light of them, we are always among the willing to try something new.
Knowing my cousin the way I did, I can assuredly say that if we had broken out the goat cheese a while back, he would have been the first instigator of all the fun and joy we shared as a family unit that morning coming together to share and celebrate such a wonderful life.

In Loving Memory of Robert B. Roland, Jr.

Finger Pointing In A Successful Marriage

When you or someone you know pronounces judgment on a situation, it is usually done by pointing a finger to indicate guilt.

It is a tough balance to not be the one to point a finger in a successful marriage or in married life in general. There are those that want to tell us in the name of compassion, open-mindedness and in today’s social tolerance, we should never be mean to one another. We have more info on this topic and others at Legendary You.

As they say…the grass may appear to be greener on the other side of the fence…but you still have to mow it! That is to say, you still have to maintain or up-keep the relationship with due diligence, patience and sometimes hard work.

When it comes to finger pointing in a successful marriage, here are a few simple things you might want to jot down to help you remember the true intent of your relationship as you go down the road to happiness in a successful marriage. You don’t always have to be the one that is self-righteous, the one with a mean or critical spirit. Learn to share, to become as one as the mystics say. It is when you participate in and with one another that you discover some real true insights to the heart of your life partner.

Whatever you do, do not assume your opinions are always the correct and right ones. Remember how your mind works. Remember it can be very easy to criticize your spouse for the very same things that you tend to do out of an unintentional habit. That’s when you turn right around and point the finger at someone else…that just tricks you into feeling rather haughty and smug which leads to your being self-satisfied.

Do not be the one in the relationship to pronounce condemnation on the other person. You are not the high and all-mighty. You may be the king or queen of your castle, but there just might be an uprising stirring in the land that you so call rule with an iron hand. Remember, there is a time and a place for everything.

Do not blame the other person by pointing out their faults when you have just as many, if not more. At Legendary You you can find out more about where finger pointing usually begins in a relationship. Easier said than done…but it needs to be said…be the bigger person.

And of course, do not have what I like to call an unloving attitude towards your mate. It definitely take a strong measure of wisdom to maintain the balance between marital discernment and judgmental criticism.

When it comes to pointing fingers in a great and successful marriage just take heed to the story of how when it come to heating up quickly, you are to be the one to be slow to speak and of course slow to become angry. You most certainly do want to keep in mind that much of our irritation and criticism comes about because we don’t often all the time have all the facts and therefore we point a finger without respect to noticing how many fingers we have pointing back at us.

By the by, that also applies to those other little innuendos you toss out like clicking your tongue, forming opinions instantly and permanently, you are quick to jump to conclusions or where you begin your sentences with…”if you ask me…”

Nothing productive comes of finger pointing. In reality, finger pointing only points to the fault lines in our hearts.

Wishing you much greatness in your successful marriage,

-Lon-

The Great Faults of A Great Marriage

As long as we are just talking here and being blunt with one another, let me ask you a question. Have you noticed that there seems to be a part of our fallen human nature that we more and more tend to blame others for our actions?

In a successful marriage, a great or even a good one, we need to own up to who we are to make it last.

This observation is not about the faults that lead to a not so great marriage, but more about the life affirming thoughts and ideas that result from the caring for one another in our daily lives.

It becomes a real sad situation when too many people take a fault attitude toward the faults in their own lives. That is to say that if they have behavioral, emotional or even personality traits that can consistently and continually erupt in displays of what we see as negative energy to the point of hurting themselves and others, it always seems to come out to where they say something like ,,,”hey, that’s just me, that’s just the way I am.”

Instead of taking that personal responsibility for their faults in their life before or during marriage, they get into a situation to where they tend to blame everyone else or their environment or their education or even their social and economic standing…you know…everything and everybody but themselves. That my friend will not lead to a successful marriage.

Using something like the Greek word diabolos from which we get the term diabolical, is not justification for your behavior or attitude towards your spouse! Saying the devil made me do it will certainly bring down the relationship and bring about a ruin that you may not be able to overcome.

Faults or not, what we are striving for here is to not violate our will. We are looking for the will to have a successful married life. When we fall or seemingly fail in our marriage, blaming someone else is not the answer. We do not need a scapegoat to defend our actions. We simply need to ‘fess-up. That is the winning strategy for a Great and very Good successful marriage.

Here is what I would consider a wonderful tip for you, your spouse or someone you may know that may need a little help in the area of improving their relationship. Get into the habit of looking into the eyes of your loved one and confessing your heart to them. Not just make a promise to do or not to do something…but a heartfelt I am doing or not doing this for you…for us. Sincerity goes a long way towards bringing people closer together at the most appropriate time in the relationship.

Why is it that the most simple thing we tend to overlook turns out often times to be the hardest. A simple taking of responsibility for our actions does not come easy. But it most certainly can be fixed with a simple…I’m sorry…I was wrong…I love you…Please forgive me.

Stay well my friend. Until next we talk, remember, take it one day at a time…no fault, no blame.

 A friend in Business and Life…Always,

-Lon-

Marriage and a New Year…When The 40 Days Are Up

Whether it is a successful marriage or a new diet plan or a wandering in the eternal desert of your social life, what happens when the 40 days are up?
Is that the end of your suffering …the end of your problems…the end of your stress, trials and tribulations?

By no means. You just take it a simple 40 days at a time.
After all, it is a new year and many days are forthcoming for you to make some changes in your marriage as a new life for the better.

This new thought was brought about by reading the newspaper today (yeah I know, pretty archaic in these digital times, but you never know about discovering those little gems or pearls of wisdom you may find when reading newspaper or magazine stories) and came across an article about losing a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time.
Interestingly the amount of time to lose this weight was listed as 40 days.

That took me back in my thoughts to a certain person we all have know from those childhood stories in the Great Book, who spent 40 years on the back side of the wilderness in the desert having a little time to gather his thoughts, but to his and our utter amazement he found much more to his existence that saved not only his life but ended up saving the lives of many many millions more in the future to come.

But I digress…

In a successful marriage there are far many more than a certain 40 days that seem to plague people and their relationships.
Far be it from me to be a self proclaimed judge of you and your married life.
I am merely stating my story here to perhaps better help you understand and achieve a healthier attitude about that relationship. Sort of helping you clean up the state of obesity in your married life that has become just so much fat.

I would certainly hope that breaking down the healthy attitude of how to be a better person towards your mate in your special marital relationship certainly can be done in less than 40 days… but what happens when the 40 days are up?

I recently heard someone say “never assume or accept motionlessness for inactivity – crocodiles get most of their meals that way.”

If you find yourself becoming too idle in your marriage, sports, exercises or even your business or studies…just commit to take some time out to put together a plan of your own and choose a time best suited for your pace of accomplishment.

40 days, like the years that follow birthdays, is just a number. The 40 day is nothing magical or special, it is just a reference point, a starting gauge for you to spend some quality time and make yours a successful marriage.

We hope you have a wonderful year and that you find your 40 days of bliss. Peace be with you.

 Respectfully Submitted,

-Lon-

Faith makes all things possible…love makes all things easy

We live in a day when in the blink of an eye, the success of a marriage can be looked back upon as an almost infinite speck in the grand scheme of life.

Married life begins with a lot of pre-planning for a future that really never comes. It is almost always a day to day adventure of living and sharing a faith of the unknown and looking for a love to make it all easy and worthwhile.

“… A life which is empty of purpose until age 65 will not suddenly become filled upon retirement.”

Faith makes all thins possible and love makes all things easy in a successful marriage.

It is days like this when I just have to scratch my head at the state of the world we now live in by asking myself how can this be true…am I just feeling that the world of relationships stranger than fiction?

When love and marriage transcends the national and geographic borders and boundaries of relationships and the speed of light, everything becomes very different.

Faith is the belief and trust in things unseen, love is what makes it call come together, even in these head scratching times. If you were to look back on your marriage as compared to the state of the world of wars, genocides, the in-humanity of man to man, financial disasters in global economics, storms, floods and other kinds of havoc…you only have to look at and be comforted by the person who has stood by you through all of this and what seems like a lot more.

Consider some of these facts that may or may not affect your relationship.

- There literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of of individual blogs on the internet today.

- There are nearly 150 million Twitter message sent per day.

- Nearly 12% of the world’s population has a Facebook account…and still growing.

- Almost 60 hours of new video content is uploaded to You Tube from around the world every minute.
- …and nearly 9 out of 10 people in the worlds seemingly less than vast expanse have a mobile phone.

Is it any wonder that faith makes all things possible…love makes all things easy. You can’t do a lot about the rest of the world, but for you and yours to have a successful marriage and a long lasting relationship, you have the urgency and opportunity to find the answers to those little problems for yourself (and others) during times of stress to find that faith and enjoy the love that comes from it.

Enjoy yourself.

-Lon-