Marriage In Full Bloom

By Fawn Weaver on Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Following my father’s passing a few weeks ago, people flooded my mother’s home with flowers.  Many people sent flowers to our house, which I promptly dropped off at mom’s.  The interesting thing is whether or not people knew my mom’s favorite flower, they all instinctively sent the same kind: orchids.

Orchids are my mother’s favorite flowers.  They’re mine, as well, but I don’t keep them around the house for one simple reason: I kill them.  I physically kill them no matter how hard I try to take care of them.  When it comes to orchids -really, when it comes to any potted plant- I can’t seem to keep them alive.

When I visited my mom yesterday, I commented on how so many had sent orchids to her house and mine.  She responded with a smile, “You know why orchids are my favorite flower?”  No, I realized I didn’t.  ”They’re so easy to keep alive.”  Really?  They could have fooled me.  

She explained that most people over-water orchids which is why they die.  But she loves them because they only require one cup of water, once a week, and they remain living and vibrant.

Thinking on her words, I thought about an event I attended recently for online writers.  When I’d tell people I wrote about being happily married or that the name of this site was the Happy Wives Club, I received one of two responses.  Either they loved that I focused exclusively on the positive side of marriage or they kindly excused themselves from the conversation.

Everyone’s experience in marriage is different.  Everyone’s concept of how to take care of their family varies.  Just like the difference between orchids at my home that die after just a couple weeks and orchids at mom’s house that seem to live forever.  Marriage is no different than every other living thing in life.  The outcome will be determined by how well we tend to and care for it.  Mom knew to water once a week, and only one cup.  I thought I was doing a great job by watering daily.  I was wrong.

I may have a black thumb when it comes to plants but I definitely have a green thumb when it comes to caring for my marriage.  And working toward getting better at it each day.

Question:  How important do you think “date night” is to maintaining a happy and healthy marriage?  Do you and your husband schedule them regularly?

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

Comments: With more than 69,000 Happy Wives Club members already actively engaged on our Facebook Community page, what better place to share your thoughts? Join me there and let’s continue the conversation. 

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Fawn Weaver

Founder at Happy Wives Club
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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  • http://www.littlepocketbooks.blogspot.com/ Alysia @ My Little Pocketbooks

    I just joined the club and I decided to start reading your blog from the beginning. Sorry for posting comments on old post but I wanted to start this journey from the beginning. Thanks for your words of wisdom. Love the analogy of the orchid and marriage. My parents had (and I still think they still do) have date night 45 years later.

    • http://www.happywivesclub.com/ Fawn @ Happy Wives Club

      Love that you started with one of the old ones :) . We moved everything to WordPress at the beginning of 2013 so if you come across posts with weird formatting, you’ll know why. Everything before the beginning of last year were imported and everything didn’t come over as smoothly as we’d hoped but everything for the past year or so should be golden.

      And I love that your parents have date night 45 years later. Hoping the same for you!