"Find the good - and praise it."

So I am in a Marriage class and had to do much thinking about problems and issues that come up in marriages this week. When I was thinking about this, I thought of this quote, “I love being married.  It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”  ~Rita Rudner. I think it is very interesting because it’s true in some sense. I married my husband because we are great friends, I would do anything for him, and my love for him has grown stronger than I ever thought possible. But there are things about each other that annoy us once in a while. Especially trying to adjust to living together, we have found that we have to learn to deal with many things that we did not before. We have found that we have to work together in many different things to get the job done.

Then I thought of this quote that I have written in my journal many times, “Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can't live without.”  ~James C. Dobson. This is what I have lived by basically my whole dating life. There were guys I dated that I probably could have lived with and we would have worked things out. But the reason I chose my husband is because I know that I couldn’t live without him for eternity. I think of him and me as an all-star team and we can’t be separated or else we won’t win the gold. I can look over the things that annoy me because I know he does it for me. We look over those things and then we make the best team possible. That is what I think a great marriage consists of.

After criticizing my husband and complaining about what I think is annoying I found this quote that I really thought applied to me specifically, “Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.”  ~Barnett R. Brickner. If I just sit there and complain about all of the things he does wrong, I won’t see the things I am doing wrong or not doing at all. When I strive to be the best wife possible, it just helps our marriage and relationship grow that much more. I have had to slowly learn that along the way though. In fact, I am still in the process of learning it. I just have to work on it a little every day and maybe by the time I leave this earth I will have become an amazing wife, mother, and friend.