Focusing On the Common Goal

This is one of those areas of marriage that is so easy on paper, but living it out can be very difficult. Let’s look at having an awesome marriage as the common goal. I’m a little biased but I think that should be the goal of every marriage. If that is the goal, the way we attain the goal is by having everything we do point towards that goal. If I want an awesome marriage, and a friend asks me to go to a game with him but I have already promised Nancy that I will do something with her, the answer to my friend is, “Thanks, but no.” If I know Nancy’s love language is quality time, it means that every day I carve out time for her.

Now here is the tough one for me. If I am doing everything that I know Nancy wants me to do for her in our marriage but she is not doing anything in return for me, what do I do? My selfishness wants to say, “I’m not doing anything else for her until she starts doing things for me.” Yet, if I keep focusing on the common goal of having an awesome marriage, I keep doing things for her. Here is my experience. Over the years of our marriage, there have been times, for whatever reason, that both of us have been out of the mode of doing things for the other. When the other person continues doing things focused on the common goal of having an awesome marriage, the other always comes around. When the other person gets off focus too, it takes a lot longer to recover. The ideal is when we both stay focused on the common goal. That’s when we make big strides forward together. That’s when our marriage is truly awesome!