The Best Stage in Your Marriage? How about NOW?

I've not counted how many couples I've counseled over the years but there is a malady that I have seen in most of them when they are struggling. It's not typically the main or root cause but it certainly adds to their challenges.

The difficulty? One or both of them live in the past or the future, not the now. They bemoan the fact that their marriage, health, activity level, finances or stage of life isn't what it used to be. They live in the past. Or they constantly talk about (and gripe) about not being where they had hoped they would be. These couples live in the future.

It's a black hole that will never get filled.

After nearly four decades of marriage, certainly an imperfect one, I know that we've tried our hardest to make the best time in our marriage right now. Sure we've made some great memories. We hope there will be many more. And yes we've had our struggles as a couple and individually and we pray there won't be as many of those.

But if we've done anything right it's that we've made enjoying the present something we embrace and appreciate no matter the circumstances. One of the ways we do that is we explore the world around us together. We've not had to live in too many places but we've always found things to do together. Not everything, but a lot of things.

Whether we've lived in Michigan, Illinois or Texas we've poked around to find fun things to do and enjoy together. And at each of those stages our kids and now grandkids have lived in different settings. Most of the time they haven't been close. For five years though our daughter and her family were nearby. Now we're nearer our son. We've tried to make each situation work.

Sometimes our work environment was going well, other times we struggled. We embraced it all. We didn't like it all the time but we made the most of it and didn't dream of past or future as something better. The apostle Paul speaks of learning to be content in whatever circumstances we're in. That is powerful advice and certainly makes for a better and stronger marriage.

Living in the past or future also kills healthy communication with a spouse. We start bringing up past mistakes as tools for punishment of the other rather than dealing with the current struggle. We must learn to speak only in the here and now and if we live that way it will be more natural.

So whatever your age or circumstances spend a bit more time, energy and conversation on what you have NOW. Enjoy it, embrace it, relish it. God's given you some moments that you'll never have again. Don't cheapen them by wishing they were something else.