Vows Have Been Exchanged, Agreements Have Been Made – Now What?
We can all tell a unique tale about how a relationship with our significant other came to be. All those tales contain unique DNA of situation and circumstance that brought your relationship together. Friends and family conspiring to “hook you up”. Perhaps school, work, church or the club served as thhttp://wevolvetogether.com/2021/01/31/vows-have-been-e…en-made-now-what/e backdrop for you meeting that special someone. Let us not forget the power of the internet and social media as the driver toward your relationship. There’s always that story of the incidental, random bumping into someone and before you know it, the relationship quickly accelerates to new levels.
Whatever drove you toward desiring to have a relationship with your significant other, there were conditions that had to be met. There had to be some mutual agreement as to what the relationship would look like. Guidelines and guardrails needed to be put in place. An understanding had to be reached. This happens throughout various stages of relationships: dating, engagement and marriage.
But interestingly enough, once agreements have been made or vows have been exchanged, do you honestly know what to do next? How are you supposed to behave? Are you expected to feel any different? Are you expected to act differently? Should your types of communication change? We have no doubt that the answers and perspectives vary greatly.
But speaking from our own truth and reality, there is no one person or group of people to model how to behave after we agreed to date, get engaged and ultimately get married. There is no one absolute resource to refer to (other than the Bible) that outlines what existing in a relationship should look like. But even then, you need others who understand it enough to explain and or show you what that looks like. Of course there are countless stories of parents, grandparents or aunts and uncles who thrived in a beautiful relationship for years filled with bliss. But those examples have been far and few between in the overall relationship/marriage community.
Chances are, you had to figure things out on your own in your relationship through trial and error; through tragedy and triumph; through heartache and happiness. You had to exercise the choice to either remain in the relationship or to sever all ties. You had to understand what works well in your relationship and what does not; what you can tolerate versus absolute deal breakers.
In all of the self discovery and learning along the way, we have an obligation to ourselves and to others who are in relationships, to share pieces of our wisdom. We must be willing to share based on our experiences not our age. In doing so, we begin to strengthen the blueprint for success in relationships and marriage. We begin to restore what has long been eroding which is the importance of storytelling and modeling behavior that exemplifies what strong relationships and marriages should look like. Strong relationships and strong marriages lead to strong families. Strong families lead to strong communities. Strong communities lead to strong nations.