Happily Ever After

Let’s fall in love and live happily ever after!

This statement has been engraved into our minds since we were all little children. All we have to do to live in happiness is to fall in love and marry that person, however what they don’t tell us is how complicated falling in love and being married actually is.

We must first start with the question, what is love, and how do we know we are in love? These are such loaded questions! But isn’t it easy to tell? We have been told that you know you are in love when you feel a spark when you kiss, when you look at them and feel butterflies and of course the typical response of “you can feel it in your heart”. Is this love or just emotions playing with head? Personally I do not believe that you will always “feel” it. We get caught up in trying to “feel” something when we are with someone that we miss what love truly means. So let’s go back to the first question “what is love?” I believe love is a “commitment to the growth and spiritual well-being of one another.” There is no better way to determine what love is than to say that it is caring enough about someone that you put their needs and desires before your own.

I don’t believe that we need to look for our soul mates, because I don’t believe that just one person in this life is perfect for us. This may sound depressing however just because there are no such things as soul mates doesn’t mean there are not people that are better for us. Once you find that person that you care enough about to put them before yourself and they feel the same way you take the next step by getting married. Once you make that step and get married you become than become each other’s soul mates. However once you are married it doesn’t mean you will automatically live “happily ever after”. Marriage takes a lot of hard work but the great thing about is, that it is completely worth it!

Here are some things we need to do to insure marital success:

- Have ongoing courtship (go on dates)
-  Be closer to your spouse than you are to your children
-  Putting God before your spouse and your own desires
- Communication Communication! Communication!
- Recognize the good not the bad in your 
- Make your spouse feel appreciate and needed
- Put your spouse’s needs before your own
- Eliminate the word “I” in decisions
- Dance! (have fun)