Your Marriage: One Degree Hotter

What is the temperature of your marriage today?

Ice cold?

Lukewarm?

Or Red Hot?

Let’s heat it up  – 1 degree at a time.

How do you feel about your marriage today?

Do you feel alive, connected and loving with your spouse?

Or do you feel disappointed, frustrated and more like neighbors than lovers?

On the hot – cold spectrum, where do you live in your marriage?

I’ve had some cold months – and possibly years – in my marriage.

I’ve been there, believe me.

21 years of married life together. Not all of it Red Hot marital bliss.

I felt one thing. (Meh.)

And I wanted to feel another thing entirely. (Red Hot. In Love. Adored.)

I did not want to settle for mediocre. (Meh.)

I did not want to divorce (Again).

My Plan — Learn all that I could learn from this partnership

before I tossed in the towel and started all over again with a new someone –

and my same old problems.

My husband and I weren’t near divorce.

I mean – we hadn’t made an appointment with a lawyer. Yet.

We were mostly just coasting along.

Our marriage temperature — Lukewarm.

I wanted something more.

Something great.

Something to brag about.

Something to want to come home to.

Something to soak in.

I wanted to turn up the heat.

So I asked myself –

What do I want to feel about my marriage?

I wanted ease. (Who wants to work hard on their marriage all the time? Not me.)

I wanted freedom to be myself. All of myself.

I wanted happiness and joy.

I wanted to feel loved.

How do I want to feel in my marriage?

I wanted to feel appreciated.

Adored.

Treasured.

Brainstorm the words that describe how you want to feel about or in your marriage.

Pride

Love

Joy

Connected

Safe

If you want to feel it, you’ve got to get in action and DO something.

The first thing to DO is to become aware of your thoughts.

Thoughts create feelings.

Feelings generate – or dissipate – action.

And your actions create your results.

That lukewarm result I had was directly related to the thoughts I was having about my marriage.

My lukewarm marriage did not create my thoughts.

My lukewarm marriage did not create my feelings.

My thoughts created my lukewarm marriage.

My thoughts that my spouse wasn’t enlightened enough or my husband didn’t love me enough –

or the barrage of other defeating judgmental thoughts I had running wild & rampant in my unsupervised mind –

Those thoughts created my lukewarm marriage.

If you want to feel loved & connected

in your marriage,

you need to think thoughts

that create loving and connected feelings.

Because — your thoughts create your feelings.

If you want to feel connected in your marriage —- what thoughts would you need to think – and believe?

Possible thoughts that may create the feelings of love & connection:

“I like looking at my husband.”

“I appreciate my husband’s attitude.”

“I love my spouse.”

Now ACT and DO from that thought and that feeling of connection.

What can YOU do from that feeling of connection?

You can thank your spouse for something he or she did that you are thankful for.

You can look at your spouse and smile.

You can touch your spouse every time you walk by or pass him or her.

You can let your husband know what you appreciate about him.

TIP:

How to Appreciate A Spouse

Keep it short & direct.

Expect nothing in return.

Give appreciation & let it go.

You will feel good simply in the giving of appreciation.

The more you can act and do from the feeling that you want to have in or about your marriage – the more you will create that feeling in and about your marriage.

You are incredibly powerful.

Your thoughts can raise the temperature of your marriage –

from lukewarm – to Red Hot.

Your thoughts = your feelings = your actions = your results – 1 degree at a time.

Try this as an experiment this week.

Share how it goes and what you learned in our private Facebook group.