Blogger Friend on Relationships - for what it's worth...

Relationships can be complicated or they can be simple. Sometimes they are both. 25 years ago I thought I was in love with my very best friend. I had no idea what love really was. Back then, love was an emotion, like the feeling you get the first time he puts his arm around you or after that first kiss. Now, I know that’s not love at all! Love is not an emotion, it’s an action. Its 25 years later when you’ve been through the ups and downs together, when you’ve shared sorrows and joys, you’ve disagreed and agreed, compromised, not jumped to conclusions, chosen not to get your way so the other person would be happy. It’s when you say, “I love you”, write a quick love note, greet them at the door, hang up their clothes, and snuggle, etc., etc., etc.… just because you love them and not because you want something in return. (Sometimes I forget to do these things.) Love doesn’t expect anything in return. I think today some people build up so many “expectations” from watching too many “love stories” on TV and in movies – That stuff is not real! When a person goes through life expecting someone to treat them a certain way or to do certain things and they don’t… well, the person with expectations gets hurt. But they bring that hurt on themselves with their own expectations. So, if this person is you, ditch the expectations! Treat others like you would like to be treated and expect nothing in return.

I guess the most profound thing I have learned in the past 25 years (concerning relationships) is that I am more happy when my best friend is happy than I am when I get my own way. Whoa, that’s profound! So, what will it be? Want to be happy or want your own way – your choice to make. “Happy” or “my way”? Sometimes you think getting your own way will make you happy and in the beginning it might have. However, when you come to the point that the other person being happy makes you happier that you getting your own way, well, that’s love.

Love is your best friend finding you at an imaging center, when you are the sickest you’ve ever been, and need them real, real bad – OK, now I’m going to cry…

Marriage is like a garden. You plant the seed but you also have to continuously maintain the garden. And I mean continuously. A real Gardner doesn’t go a day without tending his garden. You have to weed and sometimes if you come into a marriage with a lot of baggage, there is a lot of weeding to be done. If you just let the garden go, it gets all grown over with ugly words, bad feelings, unfulfilled expectations, and so on. The garden can be whatever you want it to be and will be whatever you make of it. Like the Bible says, (paraphrased) “You will reap what you sow.” So, do you want your marriage to be all grown over with weeds and vines (Kudzu)? Or, do you want a beautiful rose garden? Your garden may get so overgrown with weeds and the whatnot that you think you just want to ditch it and start over. However, if you do, what’s going to keep that garden from getting all grown over??? Better to tend to the garden you’ve already planted.

OK, I know this is like REAL deep, and if you feel like I’m preaching to you, maybe I am. If you feel like I reaching out to save your marriage, I am!

Take it from me; having a best friend to help you tend your garden is the greatest thing ever. I have one, I know. I just want you to have the same. :~)