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Day 10: Celebrate

This post is a part of The 15-Day Relationship Challenge. If you’re just now tuning in, click here for the whole series.

MORNING
Celebrate! What we have accomplished. 

Good morning. Welcome to day 10, cellll-ebrate good times, c’mon! 

We’re at day 10, and in case you’ve missed how we got here, take a look at where we’ve been in this 15-Day challenge:
Day 1 – Hello! The gift of welcome. 
Day 2 – Roles. Where we come from.
Day 3 – Personalities. Who we are.
Day 4 – Top 5, Part 1. Keystone Stories of Loss.
Day 5 – Top 5, Part 2. Keystone Stories of Joy.
Day 6 – Growth. Who am I becoming?
Day 7 – Rest. Let all things be.
Day 8 – Remember Us. Our story. 
Day 9 – Grace. Sweat the small stuff. 

Today, we’re going to talk about celebrations.

Have you ever noticed that your photo albums are all full of pictures from happy moments? There may be a stray picture or two about something sad, but generally we take pictures of happy times. Why? I think it’s because we need more help remembering the good times. Difficult times stick to us like velcro, thus we don’t need help remembering those. It would do our lives good to think and reflect about the happy times as much, or more, as we do for the hard times. 

I often talk with couples about the relational problems that stem from competition. Competition means that there is a winner and a loser. No one likes to be a loser, and no one wants to be with a loser. So it’s really a lose-lose situation when competition is present in relationships. You might win the argument, decision, debate, but you will ultimately lose. Win the battles lose the war is a horrible strategy. So let’s talk about a different kind of strategy, and a different kind of winning. 

There are battles, and there is a war. The best strategy is to choose your battles, and fight together in the war. Unfortunately it’s easy to confuse our spouse as being the enemy. When this happens, competition is nearby. The real enemy are the threats and forces that are out to break the two of you apart. Societies thrive and prosper when families are in tact and committed to a common purpose together. There are threats a plenty that don’t want socieity to thrive, nor do they want your marriage to prosper. 

Teammates win together, and they lose together. When we get married we create and join a team together. We give up our individual rights, and together create new rights that serve the team, not just the individual. Tomorrow when we talk about losses, we need a foundation that allows us to grieve together the difficulties and losses in our relationship. 

Winning as a team means that we’re competing together against a common goal, a common enemy. When we win, it calls for celebrations to rejoice and remember the goodness that can be accomplished if we work together. Couples desperately need these monuments of good to remember and hold on to, especially when the storms of life show up and challenge us to the core. 

Reflection Questions

  • What did I think about my spouse in reading today’s material? Was it kind? Was it thoughtful? Was it loving?
  • Did I have feelings, thoughts, questions, or stories that came to mind?
  • What is something I can do for them today?
  • How can I welcome and receive what they have done for me today?

Assignment
What are the top 5 most celebratory moments of your marriage? Answer these questions about each story: 

  • What happened?
  • What did I feel? 
  • How did I respond?
  • What was amazing about this event?
  • What did I do with the joy I felt?

Give yourself some time to complete today’s assignment. You might need 30 or more minutes to appropriately answer the above questions. Be thoughtful, be kind, don’t rush through this assignment. 

EVENING

Hello! Welcome back. Great to see you again. How was your day?

Stories are awesome, and I hope you have some great stories to tell after today’s assignment. Stories give us hope, and help us and others express this hope in profound ways. I think this is why we love movies so much. 

Take 10-15 minutes tonight with your spouse to talk through your day. 

  • What were the highs and lows?
  • Where were you surprised? 
  • Was there anything different about your day because of the assignment(s)?
  • From this mornings reading, what stood out to you? 
  • If you’re willing, share your answers to the assignment. 

Assignment Connection
We need to remember these stories of goodness and joy. Go on a date together and visit a local home decor store.

You’re going to buy two things: A container and a bag of smooth rocks. The container needs to be small enough to fit on a shelf or table, but big enough to hold 25+ or so rocks about the size of a silver dollar. The rocks need to be smooth so that you can write on them. Look for river stones at the store (A store like TJ Max, At Home, JoAnns, etc) 

Go home, put the container in a visible place in your house. Take 5 rocks, and write a phrase on the rock that represents one story of celebration. Fill the jar with as many stories as you can. Continue filling the jar in the days, weeks, and years ahead. This is your monument jar.

In the future, when your relationship feels like it is “on the rocks,” take out the rocks and look at what is on them. You’ll be reminded of what goodness has happened, and what goodness can still happen.

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Day 8: Remember Us, Our Story

This post is a part of The 15-Day Relationship Challenge. If you’re just now tuning in, click here for the whole series.

MORNING
Remember Us. Our story.

Good morning. Welcome to Day 8!

We’re taking a shift from focusing on you as an individual, to you two together as a couple. The next week will be a similar experience to last week, only the readings and assignments will be more directed to your relationship. These assignments might take you a little bit longer than last week, so just ask if you need more time to finish these well. If you missed any of the days/assignments from last week, now is a great time to pause the challenge here and get caught up. 

Today is about your relationship story. The story of us: How we came to be together. 

All great stories have similar themes, characters, and storyline. There’s the hero/heroine, a partner, villain, purpose/plot, the journey, struggles, hope lost, hope found, a guide, and happily ever after. These components of a great story are only great because we all live a similar story. 

We’re all embroiled in a fight of good vs evil, and in our context here today, we have a partner in this fight. Unfortunately in this fight, we mistake our partner for the evil and ourselves for the good. We’ll get to that later this week, but today we’re going to help you tell your story. There are three main parts you’re going to tell about your relationship: Origin, commitment, and passion. 

Your story involves this guy who met this girl, and they started finding reasons to spend more time together. Perhaps it was love at first sight (or fight!), or maybe you both came along for the ride unsure about the other person. Regardless you both had some first impressions that clearly didn’t dissuade you from getting together. 

Your story also involves some kind of promise to one another. A promise of commitment to, but also a promise of giving up others. Commitments to someone are only good insofar as you let go of the other someones you used to be committed to (parents, exes, self, possessions, etc). You might have used the phrase “forsake all others” and truly a better phrase doesn’t exist to describe the surrender of two people to one another. Fidelity means we live our lives on behalf of benefiting the other, in all manner of things. Most of us didn’t have a clue what we were committing to! 

Lastly, your story involves passion. Passion for each other. Passion for sex. Passion for love. Passion for the euphoric feelings of being together until all hours of the night. Just like fire, passion is a beautiful and powerful force. Left unwatched it can burn out of control, or lose it’s flames. Something has happened to your passion for one another and has turned into something like a raging wildfire to a pile of ashes with a barely felt presence of heat. Or perhaps you’re somewhere in between those two metaphorical places. Regardless of where you are, the story needs to be told. 

On our 15th anniversary I took my wife on a 3 hour car ride. We stopped at each of the significant landmarks (or representational landmarks for those out of state) in our relationship, and I read aloud the part of our story that took place there. It was a great for me to remember, as it was for her to hear. We both needed to remember where we had been, and where we were going. 

Today you’re going to answer the question of “where have we been.” What story will you tell? Dr. John Gottman says that happiness in couples increases when they choose to tell stories of positive past experiences together. Happiness decreases when these same couples tell negative stories from their past. I invite you to leave the negative experiences alone for another day, they probably won’t go too far away! 

Reflection Questions:

  • What did I think about my spouse in reading today’s material? Was it kind? Was it thoughtful? Was it loving?
  • Did I have feelings, thoughts, questions, or stories that came to mind?
  • What is something I can do for them today?
  • How can I welcome and receive what they have done for me today?

Assignment
Write your story. Take the 3 components discussed above, and write what comes to mind about these questions: 

Origin:

  • What do you remember most about the early dating days with him/her?
  • What’s something you’ve never told about that meeting?
  • Where was your first kiss?
  • What hope did you find for your life in your relationship together?
  • From a positive perspective, What do you miss about you, and about him/her, and about your relationship from those early days? (Note: this is not an opportunity to air resentments, or past hurts. Save that for another day)

Commitment:

  • When did you know you wanted to commit your life to him/her?
  • What was it like for you waiting for the right time to ask, or to be asked?
  • What didn’t you know about yourself then about commitment that you wished you would have known?
  • What was hopeful about your commitment together?

Passion:

  • What are the three most admirable traits about your spouse?
  • If you were stranded alone on an island for six weeks, what would you miss the most about your spouse?
  • What is a story of passion together that you never tire of telling?

EVENING

Hello! Welcome back. Great to see you again. How was your day?
Stories are awesome. They give us hope, they let us see things about ourselves, and they provide clarity on the battles we find ourselves facing. What isn’t named cannot be celebrated, nor can it be fought. I hope the story you worked on telling today has brought some life and hope into you and your relationship. 

Take 10-15 minutes tonight with your spouse to talk through your day. 

  • What were the highs and lows?
  • Where were you surprised? 
  • Was there anything different about your day because of the assignment(s)?
  • From this mornings reading, what stood out to you? 
  • If you’re willing, share your answers to the assignment. 

Assignment Connection
Write a note of gratitude for the work your spouse has put in to the challenge thus far. 

______________________________________

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Day 5: Joy

This post is a part of The 15-Day Relationship Challenge. If you’re just now tuning in, click here for the whole series.

MORNING
Top 5, part 2. Keystone Stories of Joy.

Good morning. Welcome to Day 5 of 15! 

Yesterday was a big hurdle you made it over! Good for you for taking the time, energy, and responsibility to engage in those difficult stories (if you didn’t, that’s ok. But stop here and complete yesterday’s daily assignment before moving into today’s reading and assignment). 

Remember that a keystone is a stone that a builder places at the top of an arch to connect the two sides together. This allows the archway to stand on it’s own, hold weight, and be a central focus of the building. There are two categories of keystone stories in our life: Joy and Sorrow. Today, we’re going to talk about Joy. Joy is so much better than sorrow, right? Yes, and no.

I think we are more afraid of what is good about ourselves, than what is bad. For the entire history of mankind, we have yet to discover something good and not attempt to use that for power and control. Wendell Berry says it best, “What man has not discovered, man has not destroyed.” Some of us are afraid of discovering the joy and goodness in our lives, and inappropriately use those. 

Just as the painful experiences have shaped your life, so to have the glorious experiences. We often take pictures of these events because we need help remembering these moments. Pictures become a memorial to remind us that there is good in our lives, and this good needs to be celebrated. When we celebrate, we invite others to celebrate as well. When we don’t celebrate, we envy those who have something to celebrate about. 

Celebration is an emotional muscle that only grows with exercise. One of the biggest holes in marriages today is that husband and partner get seduced into contempt and criticism towards each other.

Here’s a secret that will change your relationship: Celebration and contempt cannot coexist. They are like oil and water. The glorious and celebratory stories of your life are the ones that need see the light of day, and to share the joy with those you are closest to. 

Reflection Questions:

  • What did I notice about me in reading today’s material? 
  • Did I have feelings, thoughts, questions, or stories that came to mind? 

Assignment
Write a brief description of the top 5 most joyous experiences from your life prior to marriage. Be as detailed as you can. Answer these questions about each story: 

  • What happened?
  • What did I feel? 
  • How did I respond?
  • What did I do with the joy I felt?

Give yourself some time to complete today’s assignment. You might need 30 or more minutes to appropriately answer the above questions. Be kind. 

EVENING

Hello! Welcome back. Good to see you again. How was your day? 

This morning we talked about joyful experiences, which is way better first thing in the morning than talking about difficult stories! I hope the assignment was revealing and helpful for you and your day. 

Take 10-15 minutes tonight with your spouse to talk through your day. 

  • What were the highs and lows?
  • Where were you surprised? 
  • Was there anything different about your day because of the assignment(s)?
  • From this mornings reading, what stood out to you? 
  • If you’re willing, share your answers from the reflection questions. 

Assignment Connection
Pick one story from your assignment list, and share that story in as much detail as you’d like to share. 

______________________________________