Christian – Page 7 – Ramblings of a Christian Father

Married Mondays — Communication is Key

communication

[kuh-myoo-ni-key-shuh n]

noun

1.the act or process of communicating; fact of being communicated.

2.the imparting orinterchangeof thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs.

3.something imparted, interchanged, or transmitted.

hearing

[heer-ing]

noun

1.the faculty or sense by which sound is perceived.

2.the act of perceiving sound.

listen

[lis–uh n]

verb (used without object)

1.to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing; give ear.

2.to pay attention; heed; obey

This week, I wanted to touch on something that I have been hinting out the past couple weeks. One of the things that I feel give my wife and I a successful marriage is that we communicate with each other. Communication, true communication is back and forth. It is listening, and then responding. You cannot respond properly if you haven’t listened to everything that is being said.

Now let’s be honest, the women in our lives will use words that we don’t understand and will say things in ways that we have to really pay attention. Listen to her words, watch her actions, listen to her voice. Does this look ok? and Does this LOOK ok? and How do I look? are not the same question, and an answer with the word fine, does not mean the same either. It comes down to knowing the question that was asked versus the question you think was asked. My wife had a co-worker at one time that would always answer that they thought they heard in the most intellectual way possible. A simple question about the time could turn into a story about Swiss watch makers, and 15 minutes later you still didn’t know what time it was.

It comes down also to sometimes she is just going to need you to listen. Sometimes you just need your spouse to listen to you. I have always struggled with trying to find the answer or resolution half way through the story. I’m planning my response not as a rebuttal to conversation, but as a way to work something out. Guys STOP do this. There are going to be things that we can’t fix. There are going to be things that are going out that you don’t want a certain level of detail on. When you are there as the ear to listen, the hand to hold, and the shoulder to support, sometimes that is all they need. They don’t always need you to fix it. Be there, be present, be a listener. Some times they do want you to take action, just not always right then.

The other factor into all of this is vocabulary. I included the definition of the work hear as well as listen, but I’ve been very careful not to use hear in this. Hearing is only receiving the sounds, we hear the keys of the keyboard, we hear cars outside, we hear someone at the door. We listen to music, we listen to our children, families, and spouses. You also know over time what the proper vocabulary is for whatever mood you are both in. As time goes on you learn when to just shut up and let them vent or stew. Just make sure that you are there for all parts of the communication process.

Take this week, and again as I have said before, put the phone away, put down the game controller, put the computer away, wrap your arms around your loved one. Ask them about their day, and be truly interested.

November 9, 2015November 9, 2015 by corymcglone

Married Mondays — The Elusive Mythical Date Night

Hey everyone and Happy Monday. This week I want to talk about the elusive date night. Let’s face it, life comes along and date nights get few and far between once you get married. Now I don’t want this to be discouraging so just stay with me through this first part…

The initial dating phase
1. You are on your best behavior, ALL of the time.
2. You are still getting to know each other.
3. You are spending time just the two of you
4. You are spending time with friends
5. You fall madly in love.
6. You talk about everything and nothing for hours
Engagement
1. You are in love and don’t care who knows it.
2. You know and learn more about each other
3. You go on private romantic dates
4. You talk mainly about the upcoming wedding
5. You unintentionally alienate your, not as close friends
The Honeymoon Phase (The first year(s) of Marriage)
1. You are involved with yourselves
2. You spend hours upon hours talking about how much you love each other.
3. You have a few close Friends that you still get together with
4. You go out as much as possible at least a couple of times per week.
5. You love each other and those around you are close to sick of hearing about it.
The Career Phase
1. You are both working hard on your careers trying to get things in line for a family.
2. You go out when you can. Usually just on the weekends
3. You catch up with your friends if you can, but you don’t make as much effort
4. You still spend as much time as you can with each other, but occasionally work gets in the way.
5. Long nights of talking turn into binge watching shows while you finish up extra work or browse Facebook, or read some blog.
The Family Phase
1. Kids are now in the picture or on the way or both
2. Life has gotten crazy. Days, weeks, months, move faster
3. You go out sometimes maybe.
4. The big outing as a couple is a trip to the grocery store without the kid(s)
5. You take the few hours that you have of grown up time to catch up on shows, reading, and to catch up with each other.

I could go on with lists but I won’t you all get the picture.

Where do you find yourself in this list? It doesn’t matter where you find yourself, eventually you will hit one part of these lists or another. This happened with my wife and I. We realized one day that we hadn’t really done anything for ourselves for a while. We started making sure that we at least got a weekend just us every few months. You have to spend time working on your marriage. It doesn’t matter how strong of a marriage you believe that you have, if you aren’t continually working on keeping in touch with the person in your bed at night, you’re not on the right track.

I fully understand how busy life can get. Face it you have 3-4 hours of family time each day, you have 1-3 hours of spouse time, and 16 hours things to do after you’re 8 hour work day. It seems impossible to make time for it all. It takes A LOT of effort. But anything worth anything isn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at the start of the relationship getting to know each other, but you found time for each other. Now that you’ve been together 2, 3, 7, 10, 20 years, are you still willing to put in the same time and effort? I hope so. Yes, dates are going to become few and far between once you have kids. Make the effort to go out, by yourselves, start with once a month. Go to a nice grown folks dinner, go out to a movie with real people as the actors, and DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go grocery shopping. Any date that ends in the Wal-Mart/Kroger/(Insert Local Store here), is not a date.

And this if for the men reading this, make the effort. Surprise her, do something you wouldn’t normally do. She has dropped hints, at some point recently about something she would like to do, make it happen. We are men, we are doers, even when you fail, if your plan is so jacked up, it will give you something to look back on and laugh about. To the women reading this. We are men, we are doers, we are literal. We are not going to pick up on the hints that you are dropping in small doses. We need direction. Don’t mention something 4 years ago in the middle of doing dishes after that one meal that we had, and expect us to remember in intimate detail. We are going to let you down when we plan a date. Sometimes we will knock it out of the park, but we will try.

Not every date has to be epic. But you need to ensure that you are taking time for yourselves. Go out for coffee and just sit and enjoy being with each other again. Pick one thing that you used to do when you were dating, or engaged, or newly married and go do that. Take time to remember those things that you used to do before life got in the way. Maybe your favorite date memories were riding around in the car talking with no real place to go, maybe you loved going out for coffee and desserts and reading a book together. No matter what it was that brought you closer together and built that love that you have that used to drive everyone around you crazy when you were starry-eyed lovers, do the best that you can to go to that point again.

If you don’t know by now, my challenge for you this week – Go on a date. Spend time together, as just a couple, catch up on each others lives even if it’s only for an extra couple of hours that you get together.

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 by corymcglone

Married Mondays – No Mulligans

Over the past couple weeks I have heard so many people talking about time and how no matter what we can’t get it back. We all have the same number of hours every day, we all get 24 hours each day. It’s what we do with this time everyday that matters.

“Time is free, but it is priceless.

You can’t own it, but you can use it.

You can’t keep time, but you can spend it.

Once you’ve lost it,

you can never get it back.”

–Harvey McKay

Recently at our church in Kentucky and in Ohio we had a series backed up by secular movies. The weeks that involved time used Interstellar and About Time. Both were focusing on trying to do things differently and trying to change your past. We don’t get that chance. We can’t go back in time and change our decisions. We can only make the most of the time that we have right now, and what we can do differently going forward. We have to value the time that we have with our family, our loved ones, our friends.

A couple of the most interesting things that I have heard about our time these past few weeks have been that it’s a bank. We must invest into others lives, before we withdraw too much from them. We have to be careful how we withdraw from others lives, and make sure that we have invested properly into this bank. We get out of people what we put into them.

The other example was around a man putting gum balls in a jar that equaled the number of days between then and when his son would go off to college. Every day he removed one knowing that it was one day that he could never get back with his son. Our pastor in Ohio took this a step further and placed gum balls in a jar for every year between now and when he would be 76 – The average age of a man in the United States when he dies. Yes, this seems morbid, but put it into perspective how much longer you have with your loved ones. I want to take this a step further, the average age of women at death is estimated at around 81. How many gum balls do you have left with your spouse? How many gum balls do you have left before your kid or kids go off to college? How many gum balls do you have left with your parents?

I want to leave you with this challenge this week. Shut up and listen. Stop focusing on what you have to do tomorrow or next week. Focus on what you can do with your family today. Focus on what you can do as a family tonight. Spend this week going just a little slower and looking at what you have around you. We are now in the fall, leaves are changing, day light doesn’t last as long, find a spot to look at the trees or look at the stars. Look at the beauty in the world around you. Invest in the lives of your loved ones, invest in the lives of your friends, invest in the lives of those that you come across every day. Do something for someone else, give the server at the restaurant a compliment along with that tip, pay for the person behind you in the drive through, Turn off you work brain at the end of the day. I have to admit that I’m a fan of the new Hyundai commercial that says “When did leaving work on time become a badge of courage?” Leave work at work, focus on what is right in front of you. You cannot get time back that you miss out on with your family. Your child only takes their first steps once. There is only one first time for anything.

Take a look at this video, and have a great week.

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 by corymcglone