by Ron & Kathy Feher
Summer love stories aren’t just for movies, songs and teenagers! Being in love is not a phase we are meant to grow out of, but to grow ever more into. Here’s a few tips on how to fall in love this summer– more deeply with your spouse! (Fun fact: these tips work in the other seasons, too!)
- Approach marriage as a proactive “vocation”.
Seeing marriage as a proactive and unilateral mission to convince the other that he or she is loved and lovable changes our whole mindset and focuses our energies on loving at a higher standard of success. We will live our marriage with more intentionality. We can ask the Lord for the specific graces we need to bring His love as well as our own to our spouse.
2. Affirm each other as a man or woman every day.
Affirming the other lifts our own spirits and makes us feel grateful to have this man or this woman as our spouse. If we look for virtue, we will find it. It is not just that he or she is a “nice” person. It was their unique masculinity or femininity that drew us to them in the first place. When we affirm them as man or woman it resonates most clearly with their innate personhood and is the most powerful affirmation. Criticism is a cancer that kills marriages, and the best way to root out criticism is to actively affirm the other.
3. Love “smarter”.
Too often, we give the gift that we would want rather than what the other most wants and needs to feel “in love.” If we are to be a gift to each other, as Pope St. John Paul II suggests in his Theology of the Body, it helps to find out what our spouse would put on their “gift registry.” Is it eye contact? laughter? music? tender verbal sentiments? Learning what makes the other feel “in love” makes it easy to put a smile on their face. Want to try this? Take our 7-Day Real Connection Challenge!
4. Make love as something you are saying, not doing.
If we approach making love as something we are “saying” to each other rather than just an activity that we are “doing,” it becomes a powerful “language of the body” that speaks the total, permanent self-donation of our wedding vows. Ask yourself what you most want to say to the other before you make love. Then, make sure you say it verbally as well as non-verbally.
5. Be “spiritually naked” in prayer.
We are most open and true to ourselves in prayer. Allowing each other to overhear our sincere prayer is a spiritual nakedness that is profoundly bonding. When we also tell each other about our personal faith experiences and share our relationship with God, we deepen trust and achieve the most profound intimacy. Recent studies indicate that couples who share faith and belong to the same church have the lowest recorded incidence of divorce.
We’ll continue our list next week. If you want to learn more about any of these, join us for one of our skills courses, or one of our Weekend Immersions!
Ron and Kathy Feher, together with Fr. Chuck Gallagher, S.J, are founders of the PMRC (now EverMore in Love) and have authored all our programs. Parents of 10 children, they have been married over 50 years and have been joyfully living the insights and skills they share.
