Love Doesn’t Just Happen

Building A Stronger Marriage // Marriage Tips and Advice // Huntsville Wedding Photographers

“Love is a decision. It’s as much something you made happen as it was something that happened to you.”
~Donald Miller

Donald Miller’s book, Scary Close, was full of these golden relationship nuggets. This statement was powerful! I read it and re-read it several times to let it soak in.

One of the hard things about marriage is managing expectations of your feelings. We come across people all the time who share how happy they are in their marriages. It’s beautiful, and I’m so happy they fill our social media feeds with positive encouragement for marriage!

But I promise it’s not the whole story. Even the happiest couples have times in their lives when they might not be quite as in love as they sometimes are. We might not all share the struggles of marriage publicly, but no marriage is perfect.

There’s no shame in not feeling the lovey-dovey feelings 100% of the time. What’s important is how you handle it.

What Marriage Actually Is

Marriage is a committment. You commit to loving that person whether you feel the feelings or not. Love, in reality, is a verb. It’s a decision.

You make the decision to love, one day at a time. Sometimes it’s easy and you feel like you couldn’t have married a better person. Other times you wonder if you made a big mistake.

Feelings ebb and flow. Love, though, is a decision that you make over and over.

What does it look like to make that decision? It means being humble when you’re in the wrong. It means choosing every day to be kind, no matter your mood. Seeing the best in each other. Remembering that neither of you are perfect, and he/she has to also compromise for you.

It means making the decision every day to fight to protect your marriage and each other.

Here’s to building stronger marriages!

*hugs*
Amber

Looking for more marriage inspiration to building a marriage you love? Check out this Marriage Mocha on Resolving the Unresolvable.