#1 — You must keep dating

By the time your wedding rolls around, you will have a pile of memories to build on. 

A good Officiant will draw from those memories you’ve shared and set them out as a gift to your guests for them to draw on. 

Over time, this pool of memories gets used and worn. 

You must keep replacing these memories by making new ones. 

Dating gave you the way to make memories. 

Remember the date you went on that led to the first kiss? The first time you made love? The time you left each other and knew you never wanted to be apart again?

You need new experiences

You need new experiences to make more memories to draw from or you will wonder where that person you married went to. “But you used to…” is the sad refrain of people who aren’t growing together. 

So keep dating.

• Pick a new place to explore or visit a place you both love in a different season.
• See who can name 10 cool details about it and then expand on them. 
  
• Get on Pinterest or get a book like Simple Abundance or a fav author and choose some words of wisdom and discuss them. 
• Go geocaching. 
  
• Volunteer together. 
  
• Dance barefoot to a drumbeat for 5 minutes and see how your playful selves come out to frolic (don’t you love that word frolic?? So how about writing a stream of consciousness story using the word frolic 20 times.)
  
• Go to the library and pick out a book you think your mate will love. (Not what you think he or she should read). 
  

Fill the well of your love and appreciation regularly

But fill the well of your love and appreciation for each other regularly.

If you don’t you may become the overweight couple sitting across from each other at a restaurant with a bored or sour look on their faces, not talking with each other. Looking at them makes YOU feel sad. 

And yes, I know. There’s no telling what else is going on in their life but you get what I’m saying, right?

Keep dating. Continue to nurture your relationship so your love stays alive. You’ve waited too long to find each other not to commit to doing what it takes to grow in love. 

And that is Married Couples Commandment #1.  ? 

Rev Crystal
#northernmichiganweddingofficiants

To find out how I can help you make the most of the fact you keep dating and now want to get married (!!) contact me for a free and easy consultation. Contact me click  here click here 😆

Want to get a headline on Commandment #2? Find it Here.

And be sure to check Northern Michigan Wedding Officiants out on Facebook for a ton of ideas, photos and links to other very helpful relationship tips. 

Commandment #2 

Don’t pick your battles, pick the way you’ll work through them.

When you live with someone, you learn what not to talk about and what subjects are safe to bring up. Don’t talk about sex with your parents, keep away from politics with your mother’s brother. If you comment to your best friend that she was late again for your lunch meeting, she might give you the cold shoulder for a week or so. Not the best communicator, is she? Or IS she?

When you live with anyone for a long period of time, disagreements are bound to come up, right? Is there anyone who’s reading this that hasn’t had any arguments or different points of view with her or his significant other? How do the two of you pick your battles?

When the roads diverge

My first live-in-love, Larry, and I agreed about almost everything. We had an easy- going relationship, very supportive, joyful and ooh la lah ish. But – here’s the BUT — when he hitch-hiked to California with a person of the female gender, a very major disagreement occurred. Once they got to California he called to tell me they’d taken their friendship to another level. Our roads diverged.

To be fair, we’d discussed open relationships as part of the ‘sexual revolution’ we were part of in the ‘60’s. We were living together, and not married. But theory and reality can be two different things. As a couple, you have to figure out how you’re going to bridge the gap between good intentions and what IS.

When he got back to Michigan, Larry and I talked. We listened. Cried. Positioned. We never blamed though, and our conversations focused on “we” instead of only him, or only me. We did walk away from each other, but agreed to always walk back in. We never screamed at each other but did our best to understand what was happening. 

We had to pick our battles very carefully. It turned out we didn’t have many battles to pick!

And so it went. We stayed together a few more years. Then I was the one who traveled. I came back changed and couldn’t keep on the way I had when I’d left. Our roads diverged. 

People change over time. We have to. Not always in this very loaded manner, but you want to set ground rules that you do your best to stick to.

Have you felt like you’ve walked on a tightrope in your relationship?

I used to say in my marriage ceremonies that being in love is like being a tightrope walker. A successful walker lets his or her weight shift back and forth in order to keep balance. If the person held on to the wire, they’d fall. Love and marriage means letting yourselves shift back and forth, finding new equilibrium, new wonders, new challenges with each other. 

New ways to pick your battles but most importantly how you work through them.

If you’d like to learn more about communicating in marriage, I recommend anything by Harville Hendrix (Getting the Love You Want) and here’s a blog that is one of many useful pieces of content on the internet: Marriage Communication: 3 Common Mistakes and How To Fix Them. 

You can’t always pick your battles. Things come up and things come out. You will find your way in and out of them. But don’t give up communicating. Whatever style of communication you pick, pick a method, and let it take you through the battles of love and happiness.

Rev Crystal of Northern Michigan Wedding Officiants

Namaste, Rev. Crystal

To discover how I can create with you a wonderful and meaningful (not to mention fun) wedding ceremony, please contact me by filling out our easy, peazy Contact Us Form.

Visit us on Facebook for a treasure trove of relationship ideas. See how other couples have enjoyed their ceremony with me and celebrate how love makes the world a better place. 

 Create A Unique Relationship Contest

So everyone loves to win a contest. This week’s Commandment #5 is Thou shalt create a unique relationship contest.

The #5 Commandment as a contest is simple: See who can surprise the other with unexpected gifts the most.

You and yours get to compete day after day after day for the fun of it!

Showing up for this contest can make your marriage 100’s of times more alive and supportive.

When I was in school, a mentor who was easily 25 years older than his wife told me about the relationship contest he and his wife hold every day. The effects were increased affection, laughter, surprise and delight. He chuckled when he explained some of the submissions he’d made and had received. He and his wife continued to be on the same page until the day he died.

Which he did with smile on his face.

Nothing that’s given has to cost anything. What you’re after is the element of surprise and delight.

This commandment to compete in a relationship contest may be hard to keep especially when those difficult moments grab our focus. But even then, making another submission in the contest can really pay off.

Suggestions of ways to wage the contest

• Slip supportive notes in your partners purse or wallet giving some kind of compliment.
• Put favorite rocks in special places you know the other will find them with a written love word on it.
• Surprise the other with a trip to the zoo.
• Arrange for a concert to hear a fav performer.
• Make a quick phone call to say I love you.
• Give a kiss before you put the car in drive.
• Pick up your partner’s fav food for lunch. If you can’t deliver it yourself, have it delivered to them.
• Go on a tree climbing expedition and film each other half way up the tree.
• Make a collage of fav photos of each other.

These are small things that can have a big effect on the other.

Here are suggestions for contest rules 

1. The winner is whomever gives the most unexpected gifts during one week’s time. 
2. The prize: 5 points which accumulates and at the end of the year go towards a 600 point total granting one wish he or she has. 
3. Point earning in the weekly and new relationship contest begins again on the first day of the new week. 
4. You get to decide who judges a gift appropriate or not.

You’ll find this contest is very affirming. Creating a relationship contest is a commandment because keeping your relationship interesting, supportive and fun makes makes for a vibrant and alive marriage that can stand the test of time.

So go forth, for thou shall be fruitful and multiply your joyful surprises!

Rev Crystal of Northern Michigan Wedding Officiants

Namaste,

Rev. Crystal

To find out more about our services as your wedding officiant, please fill out our easy peazy Contact Form

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Relationship Commandment #9 —  Let Your Name Signify Your Goals

Photo Courtesy of Ferdinand-Stohr on unsplash.com

How many of you traveled with your family as a kid? If you did your parents probably came quipped with name games or word games to keep you and your siblings and fur babies (hahaha) occupied between launch pad and destination.

My folks and I loved name games. I vaguely remember a game about the last letter in a word meant you had to find a word that started with that letter. Matrix was a bingo, yahoo I win word most of the time. (I still don’t know if there’s a word that starts with X, is there????)

Another word game was to name a sentence out of all the letters in a license plate. So a KNY 732 would become Knowing Nothing Yet. Or Kiss Nicely Yesterday. It didn’t have to make logical sense, but the game was primarily just for fun.

Let’s make a game of names.

Who needs Game of Thrones when you’ve got a perfectly good name of your own???

I kid….

Here you two are, with two perfectly good last names. Maybe you’re going to keep your same last names, maybe your partner is going to take your name. 

So why not make not just a game of the letters in your name, but also make those letters stand for a shared goal in your relationship?

I think last names are the most interesting, so that’s my recommendation. Use your last names since they can have much more of a challenge. Keep that brain active I say!!

Let’s take my last name for example. YARLOTT. Y=You’re A=Appreciative R=Riches (in) L=Love O=Openness, T=Truth T=Trust.

That’ a pretty stellar set of goals to keep in mind, don’t you agree?

If I married Kevin Costner…

Now if I married Kevin Costner (a woman can dream, can’t she?) his name could stand for the goals of C=Caring, O=Openeness, R=Riches, T=Trust, N=Necessary, E=Extraordinary, R=Remarkable.

I could take the repeatable letters, and then add in a few of the others to make a great goal or statement to keep in mind for our marriage (still wishing…) You’re Open to Remarkable Riches and Trust Extraordinary Love. Of course, add some poetic license and change “You’re” to “I” or “We”.

I’m F=Flexible. If only Kevin’s middle name were Frank or mine were Felicia, (they’re not) we’d have it made.

Your name is a fun game

But this is for fun and Commandment #9 can be fun. This commandment is related to Commandment #1, which, to remind you is about continuing to date each other after your I DO’s. This Commandment #9 using simple every day ways to lighten the journey. Together, they’re wonderful tools to keep fun front and foremost in your relationship.

Freaking Utter Niceness = FUN

So give this name game a try. Let your names remind you of some goals for how you relate to each other and to your life together. Create reminders for yourselves of what matters to you about YOURSELVES as individuals becoming one because of your names.

Make it FUN

Remember you never lose your individuality, but you do make the most of who you are together. As ONE. Openly Nurturing Each (other) 🙂 😆 

Namaste,

Rev. Crystal

I can help you have an awesome wedding ceremony, one that you’ll remember forever. At Northern Michigan Wedding Officiants we know your perfect wedding day begins with your ceremony. And we can make your ceremony as awesome as the love you’ve found! Contact us for more info or set up a time to chat. We’d love to hear from you!!

Did you miss Commandments #1 through #8?

Check out #1: Married Couples Relationship Commandment #1

Check out #8: Practice Kissing, Married Couples Commandment #8

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