Hi, I'm Paul Friedman. I founded The Marriage Foundation and today, I'm going
to give you "Perfect Marriage Advice." Now this isn't the same kind of advice you get
from uncle Edie or aunt Sylvia who have been married for
30 years and don't really get along all that well. This advice is coming from
the studies that I've done and an understanding of what happens in most
marriages that he roads them. That advice is really important and then there's the
other advice that you need and that is the advice that you get that helps you
build your marriage because a marriage is organic, it's living, and there's no
such thing as sort of a neutral marriage. It's either moving forward or moving
backwards, and moving forward is a hard concept for us to understand because we
always think in terms of finite. We think in terms of mountains. Let's climb this
mountain together but you get to the top or let's think of it as a plant and
let's think, "Oh, it'll grow and grow and grow," but even the most enormous trees
only get to a certain height but a marriage is based on unconditional love
and this is something you need to really take in, absorb, and make it part of your
thinking about your marriage because unconditional love is God's love. It is
limitless, it has no boundary anymore then God has a boundary or that God's
love has a boundary. When you get married, you're putting
yourself in a very small area with only one person, and that person is there for
you to cherish, to nurture, to love unconditionally. Unconditionally really
means unconditional, it doesn't include any "yeah buts." Let's go back to a
basic premise about marriage and then my advice will have greater context. You
didn't get married to get married. Yes, some people do but they don't really do
that. They don't really get married just to get married.
Obviously, they get married to be happier then they otherwise would be that's the
whole idea and it should be your expectation but what happens is, they
don't cling to, they don't live in this core premise of how to create this
happiness forever building and growing all the time, and this is the key of
understanding unconditional love that it's limitless and we use our limited
mind to do things to push ourselves into this realm of limitless love. If you
think in terms of limitless love and you go, "Yeah, I want that," and you're thinking
that there is some mystical way to achieve it, no. The way you achieve it is
with very practical down-to-earth efforts. One little effort at a time that
brings in, that opens up the heart to love.
The smallest gesture counts, the biggest gestures are no different than the
smallest gestures just to give you an idea. It's the effort, the intention of
putting love into your marriage by loving your spouse more and more and
showing it more and more. Now you have control over your mind. It is your mind
you're a soul so you do have the ability to do this. Now you may need some help in
understanding this or thinking about all the different ways, either one of my
books which is very inexpensive is a great way to do that but I'm not trying
to sell you the book. I'm just trying to explain to you that there's a myriad of
ways to accomplish this, and this is the greatest advice then there's the other
side that I spoke about before because that what I just gave you is the do.
Do this, do this. It's the same do, efforts to increase the love, efforts to express
love to your spouse all the time but there is another side. This human mind we
have is a tricky creature it's supposed to be a servant. We have free will
and we're souls so we're supposed to be able to control the mind obviously, but
we don't. We don't, we literally turn all of our control over to two things. Our
habits and our instincts, and if you do that and
you are doing that, and when you do that what you're doing is you're allowing
your drive to survive which is in the body to control the mind instead of you
control the mind. Here's the dont's, the dont's is very simple, big picture. Don't
do anything that might hurt or offend your spouse.
Don't complain, don't criticize, don't condemn, don't be critical
don't tease, don't be mean. The list goes on so you have to stop it before it
happens. Now, that's all of it. If you liked what you heard, share it. Let other
people know. If you have a comment, put it in the comment box
other than that blessings to you, blessings to your spouse, and blessings
to your family.