365 Love Dare | Our Marriage Adventure

Sheepish Looks

July 13, 2012 By Stephanie

By now y’all have heard of The Love Dare. Y’all may have even heard of the 365 version that Alex brought up last September. I’ve chronicled our journey through it here, here, and here. So if you do the math, we should be at least 3/4 of the way through.

Here’s the thing….we’re not.

Now I highly doubt you are surprised by that little factoid. I mean, hey the title of this post is all about being sheepish. Which I’m sure just conjures up images like this:

Nothing guilty about that look at all. No siree. HA!!!!!

I have to say that in the last mmmm, probably the last 3 months if I’m truthful we’ve pretty much laid this aside. We do occasionally pick it up and read a dare here or there. In fact last month we’ve completed a whole dang week!! We were ROCKIN’ it then. Its just. Its gotten tedious.

At this point I tell Alex that its like pulling teeth to get him to do it. He tells me I have the most atrocious timing in the world. We’re probably both correct.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never experienced a man who was really all that interested in reading (I’m sure these strange mythological creatures exist…somewhere) let alone reading a book that encourages you to talk. Even worse it wants you to talk about your relationship. Gah. Ugh. Let me stab myself with a spoon!

Knowing the above is pretty much Alex, I don’t press the issue. I want to come home, enjoy dinner and some t.v. relaxation time. Unfortunately that usually bleeds straight into bed time which means at 11:30 at night as we’re crawling into bed I’m piping up with a “You ready to do the dare?” Alex on the other hand is half asleep on his pillow groaning because good gosh why won’t I shut up and let him sleep already!

So we’re at this strange impasse. I’m sick and tired of pushing to do it. Alex is sick and tired of all this emotional talking and reading so hesitates to even look at the darn book. Thus the book sits. Night after night on my nightstand. About once a week we actually will do a dare. (Last night we did day 136 so I can safely say we’ll do the next “day” some time this weekend.)

Now I’m sure there is some greater message in all this. Something about persevering even when you don’t know the reward or sticking it out when you get frustrated and bored. Or heck how working together makes the goal you achieve even greater in the end. However right now I think we both wouldn’t mind if this dang book grew some wings and flew away for the summer. And the kicker is we have vowed to finish the dare even if (as Alex put it) this became the 365 million year dare. We WILL finish this thing. We’re too stubborn to not finish it.

Filed Under: 365 Love Dare Tagged With: Alex, books, Stephanie 6 Comments

Its A Loving Smile

April 23, 2012 By Stephanie

The past few weeks we’ve kind of been lackadaisical in our Love Dare. In fact, we’ve considered quitting. It’s just been really hard to share the love.

Moving a 3rd person into your home is hard. Its harder when you have different view points on the matter. I’m not going to pretend the last week has been super-duper easy (it hasn’t) but we keep plugging away. The church we attend (City on a Hill) did something really awesome and hosted a free showing of the movie Courageous.

{SNAKE KINGS BABY!}

(That really only makes sense if you’ve watched the movie. However, if you haven’t seen the movie check out the YouTube of that scene. It’s not the best quality but omg, HILARIOUS.)

Anyway, sorry had to just relive that scene myself. After we watched the movie we were actually able to come home and do our next day dare. The focus was greeting your spouse. I think this is an area we really struggle with especially during times of stress. We are grumpy from work, life, and rather than reach out to one another as the support structure we are supposed to be we end up shoving each other away emotionally. We might as well be on opposite sides of the track.

I come home later than Alex and I tend to use the excuse that “well he doesn’t get up” as the reason I don’t walk in the door and kiss him. He uses the excuse that “I don’t just relax and smile” as his reason for not getting up and greeting me. The thing is, I’m tired of excuses. This dare will be one of our harder ones to overcome because a lot of these movements are kind of gut reaction and habit. Translation – they take no thought and we do them anyway.

My goal this week though is to live this dare. (Save me, help me, think of me!) Which means even if my hubby reacts with a grumble or a growl I WILL be greeting him with a kiss. Even if we have a text argument (please tell me we aren’t the only people who fight via texting) I will come home and kiss him hello. Even if I walk in two hours after him, and he and our HG (house guest) are lying on their arses staring at the t.v. while the dishes lie in our sink, dinner remains un-handled, and laundry is piled up I WILL be loving in my greeting.

I may also drive myself to drink by Friday, but hey – who said love was easy! Will you join me in being active in greeting your loved one this week?

Filed Under: 365 Love Dare, Marriage Matters Tagged With: Alex, marriage, Stephanie 8 Comments

Appreciate Them!

March 27, 2012 By Stephanie

Alex and I have topped 100 days on The Love Dare (HECK YEA BABY) and our most recently completed dare was all about appreciation.

In short we had to spell out what traits the other had and that we appreciated in each other. I thought this was such a great dare and one that really, every couple should strive to do every week. Or heck, barring every week at the very least once a month!

Alex and I focused on characteristics because that is what our dare called for us to do. Alex expressed gratitude for things like my assertiveness and the fact that I think. A lot. (I think he may have been a tad sarcastic in that last one.) While I expressed gratitude for Alex’s optimism and physical strength. Because those bugs aren’t going to squash themselves! We simply told each other one thing each night for a week. However if you wanted to really far with this Pinterest has a TON of great ideas!

For example y’all could surprise your spouse with a treat in their car before they go to work. I’ve had a lot of success doing this with Alex around various holidays so that the Easter Bunny, Santa, and LOL Cupid always show up in our home.

261560690828474113 34atyiTc c Appreciate Them!

Source: thedatingdivas.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Another great choice is super-duper simple. You need a printer and an empty frame. Create yourself a design and on it include the phrase “I appreciate you because:” Then you just print it out and stick it in the frame, and each day or week or whatever you can write something new using a dry erase marker! How fun is that?

138415388516953392 6HYEVygg c Appreciate Them!

Source: eighteen25.blogspot.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Then of course there is the ever popular sticky note plan. Alex and I do this one the most because we love to include notes in lunch boxes. Plus we prep lunch at separate times so we’re better able to surprise each other.

So what do y’all think? What are some fun and creative ways to say “I appreciate you!”?

Filed Under: 365 Love Dare, Marriage Matters Tagged With: Alex, love, marriage, Stephanie 4 Comments

A Happy Marriage

February 1, 2012 By Stephanie

On the advice of a rather talented and funny gal whom I admire I’ve decided to start tonight’s post with the following advice.

Y’all I’m rather talented and quite hilarious so brace yourselves.

(Does it help if you believe this about yourself? Because if so I might as well give up now.)

(Thank you Megan for that bit of advice for now I’m sure the world will appreciate my greatness. Or at the very least stare at me from the same perch my cats hold themselves upon.)

Marriage is a funny funny thing. The biggest piece of advice you will hear from EVERYONE is “the key to a happy marriage is learning how to communicate.” I disagree, slightly. While communicating is indeed key – I think the final ::click:: in that happiness puzzle is ensuring you know how to lose.

Clearly ain't us

I’m sure some of y’all are thinking “SAY WHAT?!” It’s ok, I’m used to being called crazy. However, this fact cannot be made untrue.

Alex and I are pretty dang good communicators. I get he expresses himself in one way, he gets I express myself a little differently. We manage to cross those differences and voila! We have communication. However, we still fight.

Alas that is the truth y’all. You will fight in any marriage.

(Unless perhaps you are a Disney Princess married to Prince Charming and even that is suspect. Haven’t you ever wondered why they stop with the wedding? EXACTLY!)

So given that fighting is inevitable, the next key to this is in all fights someone will lose. Sometimes you both lose, sometimes one of you “wins” and the other “loses.” Either way – the quickest way for a fight to go from healthy, cleansing, and productive is for it devolve into a fight about absolutely nothing because neither one of you will give up.

Trust me on this one, Alex and I are both highly experienced in this area. Just this past weekend we had a cleansing fight about issues regarding housework. It happens. Normally we fight, we walk it off, and then we both get better at the points the other person brought up because they were kinda sorta right.

Last weekend however, neither one of us would back down. Until by the end of it we were fighting over my inability to say “Buttmunch” because I was so angry I was stumbling over my words calling him “MunchButt” and his idiotic laughter over my said inabilities. (This is funny now that I look back on it.) So the fight just continued in a circular fashion getting worse and worse and worse until we literally had to each leave the house to chill out.

That evening I apologized to him and he apologized to me and we’re back to the productive communicating. All it would have taken to stop the above fight was for one of us to back down and accept a “loss.”