Advice to Newlyweds!

Adam & Jennifer Wood

News Flash ... My niece got married this past weekend! Weddings are one of those occasions when people seem to reflect on their own marriages ~ what works & what doesn't & what you've learned along the way. When you look at the love in their young eyes, it's hard to imagine that they need anything more than that to sustain them. Yet those of us with a few years of marriage under our garter belts know, it takes a bit more to keep on track.

I wrote to Jennifer with my own unsolicited advice. In my marriage, I have had to learn to create a "Win-Win" situation whenever possible. We all want our way and it's so easy to get focused on that outcome ~ whether it's where you go on vacation, what couch you purchase for the family room, or how you spend the weekend. While the personal victories along the way may feel momentarily satisfying, they ultimately take a toll on the relationship. When one person feels that they lose, then the relationship takes a hit. It may just be a small chip but damage is done. Whenever possible, strive for that Win-Win in all it's various forms.

My parents offer a great example of this in how they move into a new home. Married 55 years, they have navigated this road a number of times, and as recently as this past year. Their "deal" as they buy new furniture, decorate and landscape works something like this: they take both opinions into consideration. Many times they agree. But if they don't, here's how they decide: if it has to do with something inside the house, Mom gets 51% of the votes. If it's outside, it's Dad's domain!

This works for them in many ways. Frankly, my Dad cares more about what's happening outside than Mother and visa versa. Plus, they respect each other and always honor especially strong feelings. In that way, neither one feels like they are always caving in, losing, coming up short. It is a Win-Win!

Barbara & Bob McFarland
A "Win-Win" 55 Years & Counting

Earlier this week, I read some advice I had never heard before, or at least in this form. Writer Gretchen Rubin has published several books and is currently working on The Happiness Project described as “an account of the year she spent test-driving every conceivable principle about how to be happy, from Aristotle to Ben Franklin to Oprah to Martin Seligman.” Her popular blog, The Happiness Project, details her experiences testing out these principles. She is also a contributing writer for the Real Simple magazine online blog Simply Stated. In a post earlier this month, she wrote about the marital advice she had received. It's worth implementing no matter how long you've been married, and is my new challenge ...

When I got engaged, a friend passed along a piece of advice that she’d heard from her boss: “In a good marriage, both spouses leave three things unsaid each day.”

I was surprised. I thought her advice would be something like, “Remember to say ‘I love you,’” or “Be sure to say ‘Thanks.’” I couldn’t imagine why I would have to leave things unsaid.

Well, now I know. And I realize that this advice was tremendously useful.

I only manage to follow the advice part of the time, but just in the last few days, I’ve left unsaid the following statements:

• I’ve told you that three times already.
• You said you’d try to come, but are you really going to try?
• Can’t you do it this time?
• Don’t stay up late tonight and then, tomorrow afternoon, tell me that you need a nap.
• Can’t we talk about this now?

And these are just the statements I can think of off the top of my head.

Research backs up my friend’s advice to “leave things unsaid.” Studies show that one fact of human nature is that people have a “negativity bias”: we react to the bad more strongly and persistently than to the comparable good.

For example, within a marriage, it takes at least five good acts to repair the damage of one critical or destructive act.

So, by refraining from making an obnoxious comment, I’m actually doing a lot more to preserve the happiness of my marriage than by making a nice comment. The negative drags us down farther than the positive lifts us up.

by Gretchin Rubin

Comments: What's the best marriage advice you received or would offer? Please share!

A Celebration of Sisters

The McFarland Girls:
Sandra, Gayle, Mom, Julia & Pamela

When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us? ~ Pam Brown

Sisters annoy, interfere, criticize. Indulge in monumental sulks, in huffs, in snide remarks. Borrow. Break. Monopolize the bathroom. Are always underfoot. But if catastrophe should strike, sisters are there. Defending you against all comers. ~ Pam Brown

If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child. ~ Linda Sunshine

Our siblings push buttons that cast us in roles we felt sure we had let go of long ago - the baby, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the avoider.... It doesn't seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we've traveled. ~ Jane Mersky Leder

A sister shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams. ~ Author Unknown

The Boppenmeyer Girls: Barbara & Peggy

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk. ~ Susan Scarf Merrell

A sister smiles when one tells one's stories - for she knows where the decoration has been added. ~ Chris Montaigne

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~ Clara Ortega

*With special thanks to my favorite quote site: Quotegarden

Fond Memories! (or should I say, Fond-UE Memories?)

It is March 15, 2008. It is my sister Julia's 50th birthday. It is also the day that her daughter Jennifer will be married. Our family is all gathered in Manitou Springs, Colorado for the event ~ my parents, my 3 sisters and their families and many of our very close extended family. They fill my life with many blessings, but it's when we come together that I am especially reminded of the special bonds we share.

We had an impromptu gathering last night at dinner at a fondue restaurant in Colorado Springs. We laughed and shared stories, reminiscing about growing up & eating fondue. My parents had a slate coffee table and fairly often, we had a special Sunday night treat of eating fondue in the family room while watching TV ~ 60 Minutes, MASH, the FBI. (Hey, how many people can say the have "fondue memories"?!)

It is fun to hear the stories and the various perceptions of our shared experiences. Throw into the mix my cousin Kelly, who has been a part of many of our family events. She has this freaky gift for remembering trivial details. Like some kind of savant, Kelly can tell you not only what restaurant we went to after my sister's wedding in 1980, but where everybody SAT at the table. She frequently interjects color commentary and details my sisters and I forget

I am blessed to have a close family, something that is never far from my heart. Still, it is during these times that we come together, sharing our versions of history, that I am particularly attuned to this fact.

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. ~Erma Bombeck

Choosing Your Response to Pain: Lessons from Browning Ware

Reverend Browning Ware wrote a newspaper column for almost 50 years that was carried in various newspapers, including the Austin American-Statesman. While I never heard him preach, I looked forward to his weekly messages in our paper and gained inspiration from many of his columns. This was one of my favorites, which ran Saturday, May 21, 1994.

Wound may not be Fatal but Reaction to it can Be
Reverend Browning Ware

Scratch anyone deep enough, and you will discover great hurt. I was reminded of the walking wounded recently when a list of church members came to my desk. Essentially healthy and energetic, these persons do not advertise their problems, yet I know that each of them has walked in the valley of the shadow.

A critical issue on life is not whether we will be wounded, but how we respond to our disappointments. Some of us waste energy in attempting to fix blame for our injuries. Such score-keeping provides bitter satisfaction; it does not nurture our future.

Several years ago, Gerald Mann and I were driving to a favorite fishing lake, south of Uvalde. We saw a deer that had not leaped high enough to escape entanglement in the top strands of a barbed-wire fence. The wound on one front let was not deadly, but the doe’s thrashing desperation had been.

Silent miles later, Gerald and I reflected on the experience: Most of life’s wounds are not mortal; although some certainly seem to be. The response that we make to an injury may be more damaging than the wound itself.

What shall we do with a deep hurt that doesn‘t fade away? First, acknowledge the problem. Denial of the issue embeds it more deeply and delays healing. Second, accept the problem as a painful school in which you have enrolled. Finally, use the injury, not parade it, to become compassionate. In helping others toward healing, we help ourselves.

* * * * *

Reverend Ware knew all too well of life’s wounds. In Remembering Browning Ware his cousin, Hal Haralson writes:

“Browning’s compassion for people grew out of the pain he had experienced in his own life. His mother died when he was a Baylor student. Their youngest daughter Camille suffered from cancer when she was ten. Their son Brooks died when he was in his thirties. His closest friend took his own life the day after hunting season was over. His first marriage ended in divorce. Alzheimer’s took his wife Juanell from him and robbed him of companionship in his final years. Connie, his youngest brother, died of cancer a year before Browning.”

The Reverend Ware passed away from cancer in October 2002 at the age of 73: Even in dying, Browning Ware listened and learned. A collection of his columns was published in 2003 by Augustine Press: Diary of a Modern Pilgrim: Life Notes From One Man’s Journey.

Comments: What does this article mean to you? Can you think of a time in your own life that illustrates – in either direction -- Reverend Ware’s message: “Wound May Not Be Fatal But Reaction to it Can Be”? What was the outcome?