I received a gift I had won (Yes, I actually won something *jumps up and down*) today and it is “Extraordinary Marriage – God’s Plan for Your Journey” by Rodney and Selma Wilson. It’s a workbook for improving your marriage. No there is no “Jon n Kate” drama here, but who couldn’t use a little improvement or refresher on marriage?!?

So we sat down and started diving into the workbook. One of the first things we did was the “Personal Strengths Assessment” which is sorting each person into a classification. The interesting things is that the four categories had animal names; lion, otter, beaver and golden retriever. After assessing ourselves and comparing results with each other (I had to point out that he was indeed bossy and he had to remind me that I run from conflict – which I didn’t agree with because I did just tell him he was bossy, that could have been conflict) it was decided that he is a lion and I am a golden retriever. His first comment was that the lion is the king and the best thing about being the lion was that the other three animals were edible. (That’s just one of the things I love about him – that wit!) Then we started talking about our dreams. No, not the one that you are flying above your high school graduating class and realize that you are naked, but actual dreams of the future. Things that you would really like to do (think Bucket List stuff) Surprise, surprise…I never knew he wanted to actually treasure hunt (although I can’t wait to take him because I think he will look super sexy in the Indiana Jones outfit) and he didn’t realize that I wanted to do a real cattle drive (he is not thinking I will be too sexy with 6 weeks of dust and horse sweat covering my body, it is all about perception though)

For my married friends out there, I encourage you to do some of these excersies (even though you all have perfect marriages, right???) I’ll post about them as we do them and I sincerely hope that you are inspired too.

The first step is to talk about where you marriage is going. Kind of like a map to a destination. You have to start somewhere so brainstorm about “Where You Are!” Think of words that describe where you are. For example: Exciting, Growing, Silent, Hurt, Routine, Fun, Hoping…you get the idea?

After you have found all the words that describe where you are, explore it a little deeper and come up with the route that gets you out of that (if it was a negative word) Such as: Routine – I want to do things that spontaneous in our marriage, that add excitement and surprise. Don’t be shocked if you and your spouse don’t have all the same words. The biggest key to this is to share your list, do not judge the others feelings and have communication!!

Categories: marriage