Thursday, August 01, 2013

What's Your Most Valuable Relationship?

I love my wife.

We've been married now for 11 years, have 3 wonderful children, and I'm regularly and truly awed by what a tremendous human being, mother and wife she is.

But that doesn't mean we never fight.

We probably fought more often at the beginning of our marriage than now. Usually our fights are better described as disagreements and more often than not they last just the course of a heated discussion. Sometimes however, they last an evening. And on extremely rare occasions, they've been lengthier, weeks even, with the impact of our frustrations interfering with the very nature of our relationship and causing us to take real steps backwards.

Eventually though, we find our way back together.

Now if we'd decided to throw in the towel after our first major blowout (which if my memory serves believe it or not somehow began with us arguing over how to install an in-window air conditioner), we'd have been done our first year in. But the reason we haven't thrown in the towel when times have been tough is because we consider our marriage and one another to be tremendously valuable and worth working on in times of need.

I'm guessing you're seeing where I'm going with this.

Living healthfully is tremendously valuable too, and like a marriage, it's a long term commitment. It may be more difficult that first year or two as you truly get to know one another. There are going to be regular ups and downs and out of the blue fights and disappointments. And some of those fights might well last week or months leading you to slide back to towards less healthful living, but if health is something you value, you're going to need to work on it, to nurture it, and sometimes, especially after a major blowout, it may require very slow, gentle, purposeful baby steps, before you find your way back.