Secret to Keep Falling in Love with your Spouse

 

 

During our 4-day spiritual retreat at Bintan from 21-24 Sep 2023, our fellow retreatants were surprised that my dearest wife and I were married for more than 22 years because we behaved more like a dating couple!

Actually, in retrospect, I felt a little sad because marriage is supposed to be the epitome of Love but many experienced the very opposite... Hence, this prompted me to share our secret which took me a while to crystallize it into 3 key action points:

1. Put God first

I must admit the marital journey isn't paved with romance and loving feelings at every turn which is why it is very crucial to provide marriage with a firm unchanging foundation which in our case, is our shared Catholic faith. 

With God at the centre of our marriage, we were able to weather the inevitable storms of life and emerge more caring, more understanding and more loving after each trial. And with daily prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments, we were able to overcome temptations, control our temper, forgive more easily and see things from each other's perspective.

2. Put in effort

Marriage is like a garden: hard work plus knowledge are both needed to sustain growth and beauty. There is much wisdom captured in books on communication, gender differences and conflict management but not to worry, I've distilled the essence of relationship skills into a Youtube mini-series called The Marriage Notebook which can help you get up to speed real fast - the challenge is to put theory into practice!

3. Keep sharing

To teach is to learn twice and this is doubly true for relationships - the more we share with others our experiences of keeping our love burning the more our love kept burning and burning stronger too!

If you consistently do the above 3 actions, I assure you that you will helplessly fall in love over and over again with your spouse and experience the magic of true love on a daily basis!

"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7