Tag: NFLWife

The 3 C’s of a Loving, Lasting, Happy Marriage: Commitment

Raina Birden8 Comments

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The three C’s of a loving, lasting, happy marriage; commitment, communication and consistency. Not all of these come easy and sometimes they can be downright hard. I know from my 25-year marriage to my college sweetheart. I think that these three C’s are essential to marriage, no, let’s make that vital to a marriage. Yes, I do believe that there are principles in the Bible that can play a major role in a lasting, loving, happy marriage. In my blog, I am going to focus on the three C’s. I will break them up in a set of three blogs.

First Commitment, Websters dictionary says commitment is: a promise to be loyal to someone or something. How do you define commitment in a marriage? Many feel it comes from a sense of duty. Some people are afraid of the word commitment. Some compare it to a ball and chain that binds you to a wrong decision. And some don’t understand what real commitment is. I think of it more like an anchor. An anchor keeps a boat steady; commitment keeps a marriage steady. To be happy in your marriage, you need to feel more than just a sense of obligation to your spouse. Becoming best friends with your mate will help commitment grow in your relationship.

Marriage is not easy; it takes hard work. Commitment requires hard work and self-sacrifice. You have to be willing to compromise to please your mate. Too often one or the other in a relationship is not willing to yield. One may have the attitude of ” What’s in it for me?” How many selfish couples do you know who have a happy marriage? No matter how sweet the couple felt about each other when they first fell in love, if there is no commitment, then the relationship has less of a chance of lasting.

How do you strengthen your commitment in your marriage?

8 tips to help strengthen your marriage:

  1. Make your marriage a priority: If you invested little or no time in your relationship, then your mate will find it difficult to believe you are committed. Make sure you spend time together regularly. Give them your undivided attention.
  2. Actions: show your commitment by your behavior. Laugh together, date each other. Plan your future together.
  3. Tell them: tell your mate you are committed to your marriage. Make sure you children know that your are committed to your spouse.
  4. Remember: remember what you love about your spouse, remember all the positive parts of your relationship.
  5. Goals: What do you see happening in your marriage? How do you want it to grow, where do you want it to improve.
  6. Speech: Examine what you are saying to your spouse in the heat of an argument. Don’t say things you will later regret. You don’t want, to say things that undermine your commitment. But rather address the issue.
  7. Ask: Look at mature couples, those who have weathered marital issues successfully. Ask them questions to gain insight on what commitment means to them and how that has helped their marriage.
  8. Show it to everyone: Make it obvious that you are committed to your mate. Pictures of them at work, talk positively about them to friends and workmates. You will be emphasizing to others and yourself that you are committed to your spouse.

If you are experiencing problems in your marriage, now is the time to act! Now is the time to strengthen your commitment to each other. The tips above are just some that I have found useful. I hope you do too!

 

“I don’t want to be married just to be married. I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, someone I can’t be silent with.” 
-Mary Ann Shaffer

Sometimes you need to push the RESET button!

Raina Birden14 Comments

Some of you may have thought I fell off the face of the earth…

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No, I didn’t fall off the earth literally, but I did lose touch with a lot of things. It’s been a rough year to say the least. We all go through difficult times in our lives and dealing with them is unique to each individual. I didn’t deal as well as I thought I might or maybe how I thought I should. I think some of us put pressure on ourselves to rise above the challenges or pain, that’s what I was doing. I don’t recommend it.

The last two years I have put a lot of things off or put minimum effort into them. I have been wrapped up in the emotions that go along with having a parent fighting cancer. As I wrote in a previous blog, my Dad had been diagnosed with Stage 4 Non-Smokers Lung Cancer in 2013. I spent that las two years trying to spend as much time as I could with him. Believe me, I don’t think it was enough. I wanted and needed more time. Not living in the same state made it difficult but not impossible. He lost his fight with cancer November 17th, 2015.

My Dad was an exceptionally strong individual; I had never seen him weaken in my life until that diagnosis. He let it get him down in the beginning, but then he rose to the challenge and was his feisty self again. That’s the Father I knew; he worked so hard at everything he did. He instilled in his children that strong work ethic. He taught me not to give in to fear or failure. When I went to him with my concerns, he always built me up. No matter the mistakes I made, he did not tear me down ever. He gave me advice when I asked for it and yes even when I didn’t ask for it. He was very opinionated. My Dad didn’t go for me just laying down and giving up. He didn’t agree with all my choices in life, but he respected them and supported me. He was my cheerleader even when he wasn’t feeling so great. We had some of our best conversations this last two years. I will miss those conversations. I will miss the many times when I would call him, and he would respond to my “hi Dad” with “hey baby Raina.” I can’t share enough how much I love my Father. He left a legacy of love, commitment, loyalty, integrity, dependability, strength, humor, friendship, and family.

So what does this have to do with a reset? I decided just this last Sunday, after attending our companies yearly kickoff event, I needed to get out of my fog and get back to the things I had set out to do. Get back to writing this blog. Get back to getting in shape. Get back to work! I know my Dad wouldn’t want me just to sit here mourning him and doing nothing. I know he believed in working hard and moving forward in life, and that’s what I am determined to do. I am by no means over grieving the loss of my Father. I know it will continue to hurt my heart. I will go through some very hard days yet to come. A friend of mine had lost her mom and after my Dad died we were having a conversation. Later she sent me a text message saying: “I admire your strength and grateful to have you as a friend.” When I read that, I didn’t feel like I had any strength. Maybe she saw something in me that I didn’t see.  I won’t feel that strength every day, and frankly, I haven’t felt strong until just recently.  A friend of mine said “it is like sitting on a three-legged chair…your sitting totally fine and then all of the sudden the chair falls out from under you! It comes out of nowhere, and sometimes it takes a minute to get back on your chair”. So I know I will have those kinds of days, but I am determined to be the best person I can be, be the daughter my Father was so proud of! I love you, Dad…

It is going to be a great year. I have goals, I have made a plan! I am going to stick with my pland and reach my goals! How about you, do you have a goal for this year? Have you made a plan? No matter what happened last year, you can make this year better! I look forward to connecting with all of you through this blog and on the social media sites, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn & Instagram.

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
―Beverly Sills