After recently spending some time at both a roller rink and ice skating rink, I can see the parallels to skating and marriage.
When you see someone skating, you might think that it looks fun, exciting, challenging (which you may be up for) or even that it looks easy. So you go and get your skates on, get out on the rink and find that it’s not that easy without much needed practice. You get out on the floor/ice with other seasoned skaters and you can’t figure out why they seem to be so much better at you are.
So you begin to hang on to the side wall and slowly putt around the rink. You don’t want to let go or go too fast because you might fall. You could even run into someone else and get hurt worse.
The thing is, like marriage and skating, you don’t always know a skater’s past. Are they self taught or did they take classes? Are they new to skates or been seasoned for years? You can even watch those who are as bad or worse than you and think, this is normal or I’m not as bad has that guy?
The reality is, we can’t look at other marriages and think that they have it all together. We have to go at our own pace and learn using the resources around us. You may even have to seek out resources depending on what’s available to you or how committed you are to making your marriage better. We can learn from marriages, like a skater, from watching, but the painful truth is we learn by the number of times we fall. I know the first time I took my daughters roller skating, I told them at the beginning that they were going to fall and its ok. The key was to shake it off and get back up and keep trying. Some kids, like marriage, want to give up because it’s too hard or ‘they can’t wanna do it anymore’. I’m here to tell you, like a Dad to his child, yes you can. You have to just be patient with yourself and your spouse. You have to leave yourself room to fall down so that you can get back up and keep trying.
The falls will be painful and bruises will occur in your marriage when it happens, but you can’t skate till you learn to walk and marriage has baby steps too. With time, all bruises heal.
We have resources on our site that can help you start those baby steps. Just don’t be afraid to fail. It’s then that you find out what you are made of.
The best part is knowing that you and your spouse are their for each other to hold each others hand and pick the other one up after you fall.
Before too long, your marriage will be seasoned like a pro and maybe helping others who get out on to the rink themselves.

The Marriage Playbook™
~where marriage is going~

As winter roles on, people all over the upper part of the US are dealing with the dreaded task of shoveling their driveways. Sometimes it’s from blizzards where snow blowers have to force it off in several feet or it could be a few inches at a time, only to have 2 more inches covering it with in a few hours.

It can seem frustrating but the right attitude is what will help you keep from feeling like a hamster running in a wheel. You can’t go out there with the attitude like the Dunkin Donuts guy, saying “time to make the donuts”. You have to make it fun. Create a system that allows you to be more effective so that it gets easier with each shovel.

In the same way that we have to shovel the snow, marriage has those times when it seems mundane, routine or boring to do, but if we don’t do them and do them with Passion, we are only going to find a snow up to the roof, that now has you trapped. We seem to have forgotten how to have fun and be creative in the ways we show and win love from our spouse each day. There are books galore out now with help in this area, just eyeball the romance isle at the bookstore and you’ll quickly find some aid.

Whether it’s daily kisses or communication, a husband and wife is often guilty of the ultimate cancer to a marriage….being too busy and too tired. That eats into your marriage quicker than an emotional or romance issue that may occur. The Busy and Tired Syndrome can build up walls and add layers so thick they are like snow on the driveway. Even when you get the lighter issues dealt with, there will be some patches of ice underneath that have formed as a result of neglect. It takes extra ‘elbow grease’ and sweat to get the icy patches off your marriage, but just in allowing your attitude to stay focused and positive, you can make it happen.

In my experience, the marriages that I’ve seen, including my own, have been successful because of a better attitude toward a spouse and the marriage itself. To wake up everyday, knowing that even if more snow falls on the drive, I have a plan for how to get off so that my driveway is clear to be driven on. This works in marriage as well. We know the snow is gonna fall in our marriage; we just need a plan coupled with the right attitude to drive the snow out of our marriage.

The Marriage Playbook’s™ theme is for couples to work as a team in their marriage so when it comes to shoveling snow, you are either in it to shovel together or you’re in it so deep, it’s gonna have to take both of you to dig your way out.

The Marriage Playbook™

~where marriage is going~