Marriage as a Performance Art

A short ebook from my relationship series and blog: "Finding Mr Huggie-Wuggie" that is all about building an outstanding foundation for an outstanding marriage. This ebook contains 7 articles:

Talking About Vision!
I love the idea of establishing mutual goals to work towards from the outset. I also love the idea of booking a retreat with your spouse, minus the kids, to go off and talk through these areas, and see how you are doing within the marriage. I guess it would also give both spouses the chance to air issues on their heart.

Marriage as a Performance Art
I was recently reading an article by another relationship columnist, about 5 reasons that marriage does not work anymore. All the reasons that he gave were very cogent, however it was the final reason that struck me in particular, especially because I write this blog, and because of my own activity on social media. To summarise the reason, he says that social media makes it very easy to throw out privacy that is essential for nurturing the deep intimacy of a successful marriage.

...But I Was Outstanding!
To be perfectly candid, I do strive after excellent character for myself. I strive to cultivate truth, righteousness and integrity in my heart, and treat people with these characteristics. I take responsibility for my own actions. I don't try to foist responsibility for my own actions onto other people. I identify insecurities in my heart and deal with them, instead of leaving them to seep out to hurt other people.

Talking about the Day to Day!
Even with so many excellent intentions, it must be so difficult for couples to dedicate consistent time to and for one another; time to sit around talking, listening, laughing, flirting; getting dressed up "to the nines" for one another, going out on beautiful dates or simple ones; going for long walks, holding hands; admiring one another, revelling in the delight of being together!

What True Care Truly Looks Like
It is like when you are looking at a beautiful painting. When you first see it face to face, you see how beautiful it is. Even when the painting is covered by many layers of cloth, you know that that beautiful and precious artwork is still there, waiting to be uncovered, even if you cannot physically see its beauty right at that moment.

Building a Foundation for Your Singleness
And that is when it finally struck home. Even for singleness, there needs to be an excellent foundation to enable you to persevere in singleness as long as necessary. If this is not there, then it almost makes no sense to talk about establishing an excellent foundation for marriage, because many people, myself included, will simply not be able to wait to build that excellent foundation, but will throw themselves into the first available opportunity for marriage.

In Hot Pursuit
OK, let's talk about the word "pursue". When you are pursuing something, it means that you are running as hard as you can to catch something which is simultaneously running away from you as fast as it can. And this is my big problem with this idea of "letting him be the one to pursue you." It is like this. You like this guy, right? You want to be in a relationship with him. So why are you running away as hard as you can from something that you want?!