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Yesterday I continued my week of marriage posts, resuming the concept of “Flove,” and I introduced PART 1 of “3 Expressions of Flove That Will Change Your Marriage.”
In that post I shared the first two simple expressions of flove:
1. Hallmark Cards and Panties
2. Spy
Now…let’s resume with Expression #3…
3. Let It Slide
If there’s one thing two decades of marriage has taught me, it’s don’t sweat the small stuff. When two people have the goal of growing old together, they learn to let things go! No one is perfect. Everyone has their own little idiosyncrasies. These are some of the elements that make relationships interesting.
Lori has one of these unique little quirks, and I love it. Lori is a workhorse. She can’t stand disorder so she’s constantly cleaning and organizing. Can this get irritating? Big time! When we’re leaving somewhere and on the way to the car, she makes 13 stops on the way out the door!
Yes, I’ve spent many a “5 minutes” waiting in the car.
Has this causes some fights? Yes. But then I realized… What’s the alternative? Would I rather live with a slob? Would I rather have dishes stacked everywhere and dirty laundry in piles? No way. And come to think of it… I love that Lori is a “do-er.” I really love that idiosyncrasy. So when I’m in the car waiting… I let it slide.
Besides, chances are that our spouse is letting things slide just the same. Many of the times I’m waiting for Lori in the car, she’s doing tasks that I neglected. (Take out the dog, lock the front door, set the alarm… are these her job?) Pretty silly to get made at that.
Does this mean never talk about conflict? Not even close. It just means, pick your battles. Sometimes we just need to let things slide, even when our spouse messes up or says something mean.
Today I was running with Lori and I started calculating the distance we were going, figuring out where each mile marker was, where we’d stop, etc. I’m really intrigued by all this. She’s not. I kept gabbing about it. “Let’s see, if we round the corner up there at Oak Avenue, we’ll still need to go another quarter mile. Hmmmm, minus the distance from here to….” (Those that know me well are probably laughing because they know I can be a chatterbox.)
Lori, exhausted, finally said, “Man! You won’t shutup!”
I could have been hurt by the comment. I was a little. But the funny thing was, I did the exact same thing to her two days ago. She was saying something and I responded with absolutely no sugar on it. I was tired. When Lori and I run, we get tired and we say things with no sugar added.
Funny, five minutes after each of our offenses, we each apologized. “Wow, that came out a little blunt. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean it like that.”
Case closed.
Yet, for some people, those are the arguments that cause divorce. It sounds crazy, but it’s a fact. When you don’t have flove flowing through your marriage, the small stuff irks you like a small pebble in your shoe.
Try letting some of that small stuff slide. Put yourself in their shoes. Maybe you’re even the cause of some of it. Now, if your spouse continues to do the small stuff without any realization that it bothers you, eventually you’ll need to confront it… but that’s an entirely different article. The point here is, flove isn’t quick to get angry. Flove let’s the small stuff slide. (James 1:19 in action)
* * *
There you have it, 3 expressions of flove.
Scared of Divorce:
In a recent poll, 67% of unmarried young adults admitted that they were scared to marry, fearing that it would only end up in divorce.
Isn’t that sad? Marriage has almost become a stigma that is pretty close to what Kid Rock expressed (see Expression #1). That’s because those people haven’t experienced flove. When you have flove, you’ll want to live it out and express it in ways like these three expressions.
What about you?
How do you let God’s love flow through you to your spouse?
How can you implement the principles above in your marriage?
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