Choosing to Love your Spouse

Awesome Hub! Marriage is a lifetime commitment and to be happy one has to keep the love and romance alive in the relationship. Whether you want to be miserable or happy in a relationship solely depends on you.Voted up and shared on facebook.

This is beautifully written. My husband and I have been married for 6 years with three children. I know six years isn't long but no matter how bad the night before was I wake up every morning so glad at how blessed I am that I have been given another day with him. Thankyou for sharing this!

What a beautiful and poignant article Cindy! Great examples of maintaining that spark. Voted up and shared all over. Kudos!

Lisa

What a ride! Am I getting old? I was missing my popcorn and my juice to finish reading this lovely hub! Thanks for the mention! Love keep our world moving around....and around! Voted up!

LORD

Well written as always...

Hugs

This is awesome advice, Cindy. I'm lucky to be married to a great guy who's always pretty easy to love. : )

What a beautiful Hub homesteadbound! I especially like the points you made in the "Choosing To Love Your Spouse" section of this Hub Article. Respect for yourself and your partner while keeping a friendship are the foundation to a successful marriage.

It is imperative that couples communicate and never stop "dating" to keep their relationship alive. I have been married for 3 years now and I can appreciate this Hub very much!

The best point you have made is that "Loving Your Spouse Is A Choice"! We have to decide to want to and work at it every day. This is a great guide for people who want to be in a happy relationship with their spouse!

Voted and SHARED as always! Good Luck in the Challenge and keep up the Great Work!

JSMatthew~

Touchy ... Marriage is always a work in progress. Yup I agree with your first statement choosing to love your spouse in a manner that is truly and condition-less is the greatest gift you can give them. Thanks for sharing

All so true Homestead...I've been married twice...very young the first time...(22) and I think I know the difference between a good relationship and a bad one. Positivity is absolutely vital. Every single marriage will have ups and downs...but I think what has turned into a 20 year relationship for myself and current husband is facing our problems as a team! When we fought financial issues as a young family - we didn't blame each other for example - we talked and worked out a plan to fix things together. I heard the advice like "be a team!" but I had no clue what that really meant until we faced some of our hard days.

I think marriage is like a plant. It needs warmth, sunshine, water, nurturing to grow. It takes understanding, respect and patience.

I love the statement that its easier to kindle the fire than to re-ignite the spark. We are coming up on 17 years of marriage (more than 20 years together). Its definitely been up and down, but I am so glad we have worked through issues by choosing love.

People in committed relationships understand exactly what you have described here in your hub. Hopefully the "me-ness" thinking that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s and people will begin to see that a marriage isn't just a honeymoon.

I enjoyed reading your take on this important topic.

Voted up and SHARED.

Great advice Cindy. I am going to enter my second marriage this week (we have been together a LONG time), but these words are certainly true. A great relationship and marriage takes a lot of work and mindfullness. I think people dive into to marriages to early. When that infatuation stage ends, many people discover they didn't find someone that could be their best friend. I will reflect on these words. :) Great hub!

I choose to love my spouse. When I reached this decision all my tantrums, our arguments, and negativity around the house diminished slowly and I want to believe, is gone now.

I am happier after I decided to love my spouse, despite ...

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for sharing this wonderful information. You have some really great ideas for having a great marriage. I've always said that being in love is easy but staying married is a lot of work, and the work begins after the honeymoon phase is over. I'll definitely be bookmarking this to read again. Voted up and useful.

I like that you took the time to write what is so valid, and so forgotten in this generation. I've been married a short while (5 yrs) and I wholeheartedly feel what you wrote. Its something that is true. However, the fear in reading something like this is the opposite could also be true. I can simply decide not to love my wife and that would be enough for me to dissolve what we have attempted to build. Today's generation of quicky marriages and divorces, high impact relationships (lots of lust, lack of truth, lack of passion and connection) brings people's 'everyday grind' into the realm of insurmountable chaos never to be righted.

It's a hard path the one of love and honesty. It is a choice. And by today's standards it is harder to maintain relationships, not alone marriages.

I appreciate the sentiment, and believe in what you have written, I also feel that these goals are not enough for some people to maintain their marriage, and some will not have the wherewithall to understand that maybe the lust had whisked them into a relationship that could not carry the amount of responsibility a marriage includes.

Thanks for sharing.

Such an important point--we fell in love once and can fall in love again if we focus on making that work. I'd also recommend "Love Life for Every Married Couple" by Ed Wheat.

Okay homesteadbound, I was 19 and my husband was 23 when we got married 45 years ago! Your hub is so very correct. You can't take advantage of your love or your relationship. You chose to love each other when you said "I do" so it's important to keep that love alive. Nicely done. Voted up.

What a wise and practical answer to a great question.

I do believe that mature love is a choice and you've done a wonderful job of listing what's involved with making that choice.

Romantic love has its ups and downs but for the long haul commitment, choosing to focus on the positive things we like about our spouse, choosing to nourish our relationship with them, spend time and shared activities with them and communicate with them in a meaningful way will keep mature love vital and still passionate.

Voted up, useful, awesome, beautiful and interesting.

Awesome! Voted up and all that. :) My husband and I have been through a lot in our short marriage, and we have CHOSEN to love each other no matter what. Too few folks understand that marriage is a lifetime commitment, which means it will require our attention and devotion for a lifetime. Great hub!

I love your quote, "It's easier to maintain a fire than it is to re-ignite a spark!" If we would only remember this when we communicate with our spouse, we would prevent a lot of tears, harsh words and broken trust. Your suggestions will keep a relationshiop strong and healthy. My hubby and I follow your date night idea. We've been doing this for two years now and record our adventures of each one. Voted up!

Your beautiful hub has conferred that love does grow with age IF an effort made by both :)

Voted up Cindy and sharing :)

What a lovely hub. I wondered what the title meant, but as I read it all become so clear.

Luckily I can relate to it (lucky for my own relationship!). You do choose to love your partner. In my past relationship, I chose not to love him. I looked at the negative all of the time - so much so, I never thought I was capable of being in a relationship. But finding the right 'one' means loving everything they do, and the negative is endearing.

Thanks for this - another well written hub.

We are lucky to have such great writer.

Thanks.

Beautiful hub Cindy with many valuble truths.

Thank you

Your hub is really informative. It is so true that sometimes we spend a lot of time focusing on the negative things or what we consider the 'shortcomings' of our partner, that we fail to see the positive or good things. I am guilty of this. Thank you for this inspiring hub.

Aww, I love this! Having a harmonious relationship with your spouse needs to be high on the list of priorities. I completely agree with the part about respecting yourself. How can anyone respect you if you don't respect yourself first? Great words!! Voted up and across.

These are excellent tips from start to finish but the quote was what really grabbed my attention. It is easier to keep the fire going, and your advice is a wonderful way to keep fanning the flames. Good luck on completing your challenge successfully; I believe in you:)

Marriage is a want not a need, true genuine love comes from the heart not an excuse or using a person by saying that you love them when you don't because of personal or selfish reasons, marriage is not a jail house commitment Marriage says that both parties says that I know you and love you so much and I love you more then myself, when you hurt I hurt, when you cry I ask what is wrong or what can I do to help,it says when you don't understand lets communicate to find out, marriage says you make me feel like I have never felt before, and marriage also says for those who says what if someone is lying mariage is action not words it will say that everyday I awake and see you i have that same feeling inside of a shyness and wanting so much to make her happy and if she is not he works hard to do that, and if someone is still skeptical to know one is to know one who has and is GOD fearing with GOD in there life fully but not perfectly, marriage says that although I work around beautiful women who Try to tempt me there is no feeling that would have you live in infedelity. Love is not a mystery but the way you feel when you really love someone is a mystery.!

I truly believe in this approach to love. We may have stars in our eyes at first, but after our vision clears, we need to consciously choose to continue in a relationship, despite what might happen to either of us, or the changes that come along. Very useful hub, and very important.

Great hub! I am bookmarking this one! Voted up.

I think that what you say is definitely true, it is a choice to remain active in a relationship. I think it is important to note too that in some relationships such as physically or emotionally abusive ones, it is very important to accept that no amount of work is going to change things. I also think that in order to have a successful relationship with another, a person must love and respect themselves firstly. I think it is true that what you put into a relationship you get back. Everybody is human and faulty including our selves and if we cannot accept faults in others we cannot expect them to accept faults in us. I think it is good advice to "love the you're with"

If more people who were in troubled times or suffered emotional distances made a deliberate choice to love their spouse and acted that way, there would be far fewer divorces. And if those who made children without marriage made the choice to love the person they were with after the wild passion died, they'd be able to create a lasting family for their children.

Love this hub! I think too many people these days have unreasonable expectations on what a marriage should look like. When things get tough it is far easier to walk away than to make the choice to put in the work. Love is a choice not just a feeling!