Becoming Celestial Soul Mates (Honor & Cherish)

• 2 Important Questions

1. Is your spouse the most important person in your life?

2. Does he or she know it?

• Honor & Cherish

"To honor and cherish your spouse means to make that person your number one priority and to communicate that through words and behavior so that he is convinced of this... Too often a spouse's complaint of the other spouse is that he has made someone else or something else more important than their relationship...When you make your career more important than your mate, you will lose her. When you make your child more important than your spouse, you will lose him...When your own selfish desires are more important than your relationship with your spouse, you will lose him." He asks you to think back to when you and your spouse first met and wants to know why you felt loved?

 I took the time to stop and answer this question. When my spouse and I were dating we did not have our children yet and we were attending a college out of state from either of our families. When we were dating, I feel we really cleaved unto one another and we spent a lot of time together. We constantly went on dates, eating out at nice sit-down restaurants,  grabbing lunch together at fast food restaurants, cheap snow cone and rental movie dates. Even though we both had jobs and school, we made time for each other. Everything felt pretty balanced during that time of our lives. 

I also stopped to see why this has changed in some ways. Fast forward: Date nights since having children are a little more challenging and less frequent since it requires us to find a babysitter and then coordinate our schedules with each other and the babysitter. And just leaving young children with a babysitter is not always easy, especially if you are breastfeeding and may not have a child that is willing to take a bottle or just cries while you are gone. So date nights every day, or 2-3x a week are no longer realistic as our lives have gotten busier with work, education, and our children's needs, wants, and activities.

• Reasons You Fell In Love With Your Spouse

He asks you to list a few reasons you fell madly in love with your spouse. One of the reasons I fell in love with my spouse is I had certain traits I was looking for in a partner. One, I was looking for a man who belonged to the same religion as I did and was active in that religion. Not just someone who was a member, but did not practice or really associate with the religion. Two, I was also looking for a man who served God in a religious mission. Now I know that seems generic, but my spouse met those two areas and exceeded them, because of how passionate and knowledgeable he was about God and our religion. We also had a connection, because he served a religious mission in the same place I am from, so we had a love for the same place, the culture, and the people. Third, I was looking for a serious relationship. I did not want a man who was just looking for a good time, someone to call up for a date occasionally when they got lonely or needed a date for an event. He had similar feelings as I did as wanting a relationship that could become serious and possibly lead to marriage. Fourth, I liked that he wanted to have children and also had his own desires for adoption. Fifth, I found it easy to make plans for our future together, because of how much we wanted the same things and we really seemed to cleave unto each other as we were dating. At one time, I had this big notebook where I kept all our hopes, dreams, and plans for the future. It held our future baby names, traditions, parenting ideas and so forth. Sixth, talking to each other about our wants, needs, hopes and ideas was also easy. I felt like he wanted to hear what I had to say and cared. I didn't feel like everything I said was going to be rejected. My 6 reasons fall into these 5 categories: 1) God, 2) Commitment, 3) Children, 4) Similar Goals and 5) Love.

This exercise is followed by the question when was the last time you told your spouse you appreciated them? And then encouragement to tell your spouse that you appreciate them, followed by doing something to show them and to make it a daily behavior.        

- Bibliography -

Cole, Trafford R. Becoming Celestial Soul Mates: Ten Golden Rules for a Richer Relationship. Springville, UT: CFI, 2006. Print. Pages 10-15.