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Tips from The Marriage
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Valuable Information:

Love is Like a Greased
Pig!

By Mark
Gungor

This article is by Mark
Gungor, famous for his Laugh
Your Way To A Better Marriage programs, books,
and DVDs. He also has an Internet radio
show (The Mark
Gungor Show), a cable TV show (Love, Marriage, and Stinking
Thinking) and a Daily radio Tip (The Better Marriage Minute).

_________________________________________________

Love is
Like a Greased Pig!
by Mark
Gungor

"I just don't feel what I used to feel for
you."
"I love you, but I'm not in love with you
anymore."
"I believe I've found my soul
mate...and it isn't you."
Or as the Righteous
Brothers sang, "You've lost that loving
feeling."

However people want to word it, the bottom
line is this: the fabulous and intense experience
of our early love isn't there anymore. I guess it
wasn't true love after all.

In the wonderful movie classic, The Princess
Bride, the cotton-mouthed, speech-challenged
priest talks about "true love" (or "twuuuu wuv" as
he says it!) at the wedding ceremony of Princess
Buttercup and Prince Humperdink. He states that
true love will follow you forever. While it makes
for a great movie line, in reality it is a bunch
of nonsense.

True love doesn't follow you like a little
puppy that is constantly there. It's actually more
like a greased pig! You have to chase after it and
pursue it. You have to run it down and tackle it
and when it gets away, you go after it one more
time. You may finally get a hold of it for a
while, but then the little rascal can slip away
and you have to chase it down again.

I know, I know, ...a greased pig isn't all
that romantic of an analogy to use, but it surely
is more realistic and more accurate! Men and women
who ascribe to all this romantic fantasy stuff
will be sorely disappointed. So many people
actually think that love and marriage will always
be easy; that it will always be a skip through the
meadow with birds chirping and butterflies
flitting and the orchestra playing in the
background.

They think that the emotional high and buzz
they experience at the beginning of dating or
marriage will always be there. "Our love is true
love and it will never fade!" That's why so many
people become disillusioned once they get into
marriage-and sometimes it doesn't take very long
at all. They think that they have "fallen out of
love" with their spouse once the flames of passion
begin to die down to a smoldering ember.

Of course our feelings change over time.
There is no way that the initial euphoria can go
on and on. It gives way to a deeper and more
mature kind of love.

The stages of marriage have been well
documented in the research. That initial high that
people experience at the onset usually only lasts
six months to two years. Once the buzz is gone,
the mistake that people often make is to allow
their "feelings" to dictate their actions. They
don't feel that rush of emotion that they
associated with love in the beginning; therefore,
they assume they aren't in love any more. And
naturally, since they don't feel love, they reason
(wrongly) that they must be true to their
feelings.

As a result, many cash in their marriages to
try and find someone that they can feel in love
with again. Sadly there are people who go from
relationship to relationship and marriage to
marriage, yet never learn the reality that they
will never find a person with whom they will share
all that heat, magic, and excitement every day for
the rest of their lives.

The stuff of life happens:  kids,
in-laws, exhaustion, dirty laundry, lack of sex,
so on and so on... Sometimes it's huge stuff like
loss of a job, death, serious illness, an accident
or other catastrophes. But it's in these "for
worse" times that real love is fostered and
developed. It's easy to have all the happy
feelings toward someone when everything is going
great.

But true love, the kind that Scripture talks
about, is tested and tried in the difficult times.
True love requires patience, perseverance, dying
to self, and forgiving.

Feelings are fleeting, that's why you have to
chase after love. Be intentional. Pay attention to
the girl, give the boy some extra time and focus
on one another. One of the reasons new love is so
exciting is simply due to the exorbitant amount of
time that the couple spends together.

Sadly, after a few years and a child or two,
they spend little to no time with one another. How
on earth do they expect their relationship to
survive, much less thrive? No wonder there are not
many feelings of love left!

Make your spouse and your marriage important.
If you rarely see each other and are not investing
time and energy into the marriage, it won't work.
Try growing plants without tending and watering
them. Or think of your pet-no dog or cat would
survive without basic care and feeding. Neither
will your relationship.

So, go after it! Wrestle that greased pig to
the ground and when it squirts out of your grasp
and gets away, chase it down again. Realize that
it is work and commitment that allows you to hold
on to love... as greasy and slippery as it can be
sometimes! Don't let it just squeal and run
away.

________________________________________________

God bless your marriage and
family.

Jim
Stephens

Ask More Than
Once
Mark Gungor tells women how to
get a man to do what they want. Asking a man to do
something once is like never having asked him at
all.

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