My father always used a funny term when I was a teenager and we were training for marathons and 10K races. He said “the more, the more” and I understood that he meant the healthier he got the healthier he wanted to be. The more racers he signed up for, the more races he wanted to sign up for.
As a fat, short man who smoked pipes, he was told by his doctor to start running or die. Later, 55 pounds lighter and smoke free, he was a different man and I became obsessed with the concept of “the more the more”.
At one point marathons were not even enough for me and I ended up becoming an Ironman finisher. But, as time went on I found other things that consumed me. Finding a husband. Becoming a mother. Homeschooling my kids. Becoming a writer.
At one time writing became my “the more the more”. But then 2020 hit and we all shut down in some form. We had lockdowns, restricted activities and basically nothing for me to write about.
Oh, I could write about the hidden agenda going on, the political climate, the left and the right, the division or the financial and emotional toll of the 2020/2021 years, but that is not me.
I want to go to my grave knowing I helped marriages become whole, fun, sexy, exciting and wonderful. So, I just stopped writing and “the more the more” became “the less the less”.
The less I wrote, the less I cared to. I became just another woman chasing a paycheck and working a 30 plus hour week.
But then I thought, what did the 2020/2021 years do to marriages? I was curious to know if things like the lockdowns made husbands and wives closer or did the twenty four hours with a spouse drive them farther apart.
It was sad to see that more than one woman shared with me that all that time with their husband drove them up a wall. Why? For me and my husband, the weeks that we were not working were fun. We (actually he) repainted several rooms in our home. We rode our bikes together on the local bike trail. Oops. Were we supposed to stay indoors?
We picked a different genre of movies to watch and we listened to audio books together. Hey, truth be told, we even did a bit more of what married couples are supposed to do. Wink, wink.
So my marriage became my new “the more the more”. I love my husband with all my heart. He interrupts me when I talk. He disagrees with some of the articles I read. He kicks my butt on the bike trails. He wants to go here when I want to go there on date night.
So why do I love him with all my heart? Because he is mine. We have so much more than the times we knit pick each other. We have wonderful shared experiences. We trust each other (although that took a while after the affair he had so may years ago).
These last couple of years have made me more committed to tweaking my marriage counseling and the marriage course that I have created.
So, are you with me? Are you ready to take that husband or wife and do some work? Are you ready for your partner to be the more the more?
The more I love my husband, the more I want to love and serve him. The payoff has been tremendous.
Ephisians 5:33 however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Comments