Just Be Open

By Fawn Weaver on Tuesday, January 17, 2012

I’ve been thinking about this blog series for more than a week.  Rarely do I think about a blog post more than an hour or two before I write it.  But this one has been on my mind for a couple weeks.  If you didn’t get a chance to read the post from yesterday, School of Marriage, you may want to take a peak when you have a moment to understand the purpose of this series.  

Before I continue I want to give one quick disclosure.  On this site, you will never see me writing about what a husband should do, say or how one should act.  The reason for this is two-fold: 1) This site is specifically for wives and it’s highly unlikely many of our husbands are reading it so it would be unfruitful to address them; and 2) I believe in the power of responsibility.  I believe each of us have more control over our lives and happiness than anyone else; happiness begins with “me” not “us.”

It is with these thoughts in mind that I will be writing this blog series.  I don’t expect there to be any earth shattering revelations.  But what I do hope to share with you is my heart in the area of marriage and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.  I joked with a reader yesterday that my marriage has been a guinea pig for all the relationship books I’ve read.  Now, that may be an exaggeration but it’s probably much closer to the truth than even I once realized.

I love to read.  I especially love to read books on spiritual and personal growth.  Marriage is one of my favorite topics.  Growing up the daughter of marriage counselors, I realized early on that so many of the challenges people experience in marriage can be avoided.  It’s just a matter of getting, accepting and applying the right information.

I mentioned this Warren Buffet quote yesterday but it’s worth repeating, “When people tell me they’ve learned from experience, I tell them the trick is to learn from other people’s experience.”  Keith and I both believe we’ve been able to avoid so many of the typical pitfalls in marriage because we purposed from the beginning to learn from other’s experiences.  

When we sit down with married couples, they may not know it (and most times we don’t even realize we’re doing it), but we’re studying them.  We’re learning from them.  In a two-hour dinner, we’ll walk away having learned at least one new thing about marriage.  Always.

This morning, I thought I was going to begin writing on the topic of Language, more specifically, how to master your husband’s love language.  But instead I find myself wanting to ask you a simple request: just be open.  

I mentioned yesterday, I’m not a counselor and have no desire to be one.  But I do desire to see okay marriages become better, good marriages become great, and great marriages become extraordinary.

Keith and I have an extraordinary marriage.  Anyone who knows us will agree.  But it’s not because we’ve not made mistakes.  It’s because we refuse to stop learning.  We are never so set in our ways as to not strive to make things even better.  Every day, our desire is to please each other just a little more than we did the day before.

So I have two requests of you.  Agree to meet me here each day for the next six days, be open, and I promise you will either learn something new to improve your marriage or you will be reminded of something previously forgotten.  And if I’m wrong, great!  That just means I also have something to learn from you.  

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

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Fawn Weaver is the USA Today® and New York Times® bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 900,000 women in over 110 countries around the world. When she’s not blogging or working on her next project, she's happily doting over her husband of nearly eleven years, Keith.

 

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