The Keys To A Long-Lasting Relationship
The Four Seasons of Marriage
Marriages are never perfect and never will be but you can certainly have a better marriage than you have now because no matter what stage your marriage is in, it always can be better. Marriage is carried with two people being commited, united, intimate, purposeful and complementary.
Marriages either progress or regress , they never stand still.
The changes and our response to life is what creates the seasons of marriage: getting/loosing a job, birth of a baby, death of a loved one, weight gain/loss, moving/staying, depression, disagreements, parents, in-laws, hobbies, aging, demands of a job, travelling, infidelity, habits, sex, moods and many more changes we face.
The four seasons of marriage are; Winter, Fall, Spring and Summer.
SPRING: In spring trees & flowers bloom and there’s wonderful fragrance in the air. In marriages spring is a time of new beginings there’s nurturing, planning the future (family, business e.t.c), communicating, seeking help when needed and spring is filled with emotions of hope, excitement and joy.
Most marriages start in spring
FALL/AUTUMN: In fall the leaves start to fall of the tree and it starts to chilly. Here the partners know that things aren’t going well, they may or may not communicate about it but they are troubled with their relationship. Taking no action or assuming that marriage will take care of itself is what leads to fall.
When spouses have separate interests or are busy raising children and forget to do things together to a positive marital relationship consequently they slowly grow apart. They may be surprised their marriage is in the fall season after a crisis occurs like an extra marital affair but in reality they have been in fall for weeks or months. The leaves started changing color and slowly falling off but they didn’t notice simply because they weren’t in harmony with each other.
Fall is characterized by emotions of fear, sadness, not feeling appreciated, discouragement and often the relationship will be disengaging, drifting apart. You may know something is wrong but not sure what.
WINTER: Just like the weather winter is cold, trees are dead and there are no birds or sunlight. Winter in marriages is characterized by coldness, harshness and bitterness. The communication between partners in winter is silence or arguments, words that further hurt them, verbal abuse leading to physical abuse. Intimacy becomes a battlefield and sometimes sexual unfaithfulness comes up.
Every couple face difficulties and all couples hace differences.
When couples fail to negotiate their differences they will find themselves in winter so many times. And if both partners have a mindset of “my way or no way at all” they are bound to stay in winter.
SUMMER: In summer life is beautiful we are reaping the hard efforts to understand each other, working as a team and the dreams of spring are fulfilled. We may / may not have reached our finacial goals or have children or good health but we are satisfied and are still commited to one another.
In summer we understand our spouse better, accept each others’ difference, we have learnt to resolve our conflicts, there’s constructive communication, there’s spiritual growth and even if our marriage is comfortable we want to keep taking positive actions to keep water flowing in our summer marriage like going to seminars and reading marriage books to learn more.
It takes one spouse to take a marriage to fall/winter but it takes two spouses to the marriage in spring/summer.
At the end of the article a marital seasons profile is attached so as to know the season of marriage you are in
7 Strategies To Enhance The Seasons Of Your Marriage.
1. Dealing with past failures: this involves identifying the past failures, confession and repentance & forgiveness. We have to deal with our past before we put it behind us or else it will keep poping back up and after we have resolved past issues we can put energy on focusing on the present and creating better seasons in the future.
Marriage a 2 way street. Neither of you is perfect and each of you must deal with past failures.
2. Choose a winning attitude: The most common mistake couples make is allowing negative emotions to dictate behavior. Negative attitudes lead to negative behavior which end in bitterness and divorce. Changing your attitude can be a catalyst that changes your season of marriage.
a) Break the circle of negativity.
b) Identify your spouse’s positive characteristics.
c) Focus on the positive traits.
d) Ask God to give you a Biblical perspective of your spouse.
What we think largely influences what we do.
3. Learn to speak your spouse’s love language: Expressing love isn’t enough you have to express love the right way. Speak a language that your partner understands. There are 5 love languages: words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, acts of service and receiving gifts. You can know love languages by asking, listening to complaints example:
We act different when our love tanks are filled or empty.
Keep in mind love languages changes your partner starting out might be a gift person but after sometime he/she may change to a quality time person. The key is to keep on observing and learning more about your spouse.
4. Develop the awesome power of empatheric listening: empathy means to walk in one’s shoes and see the world from their perspective. Empathetic listening encourages other people to talk because they know they will be heard.
Keys for listening empathetically:
a) Listen with an attitude of understanding (not judgment).
b) Withhold judgement on your spouse’s ideas.
c) Affirm your spouse even when you disagree with his/her idea.
d) Share your ideas only when your spouse feels understood.
5. Discover the joy of helping your spouse succeed: You can do this by offering encouraging words, taking supportive action, providing emotional support and expressing respect for your spouse.
The author says “Together, we accomplish more than either one of us could have accomplished alone. The ultimate purpose of marriage is not sex or happiness or even love. The ultimate purpose of marriage is that a husband and wife will help each other accomplish the purpose for which God created them. When this happens, both spouses experience the ultimate joy of cooperating with God to accomplish his purposes.”
6. Maximize your differences: God never intended our differences to divide us because God is the author of adversity. No two fingerprints or leaves on a tree are exactly alike.
There are 5 steps to maximizing your differences
1) Identify your differences.
2) Look for assets in your differences
3) Learn from your differences.
4) Replace condemnation with affirmation.
5) Discover a plan for maximizng your differences.
7. Implement the power of postive influence: even though you can’t control your spouse’s attitudes & actions you do have the ability to influence him or her positively or negatively by your word or deed. Even he/she is critical of your efforts admit your feelings but do not be controlled by them.
Positive choices lead to positive actions that result in positive feelings.
A marriage can stay in any season for as long or as short. It’s the choice to work on your marriage. Remember marriage is not two people giving 50–50 but two people giving their 100.
THE MARITAL SEASONS PROFILE.
Source: The Four Seasons of Marriage by Dr. Gary Chapman
Column 1 = Winter, Column 2 = Spring, Column 3= Summer & Column 4 = Fall. In a column where you get the highest score is the season you are in. A close or equal score you get in two means your marriage has elements of both seasons or you are in transition.
Do this profile with your partner separately and compare answers then discuss what you each have contributed positevely or negatively to bring you in that season.
Are you in spring and summer? Congratulations! You and your spouse need to make the effort to take it there and keep it there. And when you instantly realize you are in fall work on it, communicate better because it’s easy to slide into winter. And if you are in winter work on your marriage to get to a better season.
With Love,
About the Creator
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