Love, Honor and Cherish…Today

by Wendy Warner, LPC, NCC

Wendy Warner is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with couples, children, and individuals, Wendy also enjoys teaching the premarital classes for all couples planning to marry at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Macomb.

It’s June, the most popular month for weddings.  Weddings remind us of the day we exchanged vows with hearts full of love and hope for our future life together.

So how do some of us go from that starry-eyed moment to feeling disconnected, misunderstood or at least a lower priority to our spouse than we expected?

Let’s reflect on the vows we said on our wedding day:  “Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him/her, forsaking all others and holding only to him/her forevermore?”
How are we doing on those?  We could evaluate how loved, honored and cherished we feel by our spouse.  Instead, let’s take a look at how we are doing in extending those to our beloved.

How do we show love to our spouse? Do our words and tone honor our spouse?  Do we convey respect to our spouse in the presence of others?  Do we take time to say thank you and notice the positives?  Would they say they feel cherished? Would our spouse say we have their back?  Do they feel we protect them (from in-law criticism, from financial stress, from disrespectful kids)? Are we characterized as forsaking all others or do we engage in “harmless flirting” with folks at the office, party, bar? Does our behavior reflect that they are the only one for us forevermore?

Change involves someone willing to do something differently.  What will you do differently to love, honor and cherish your mate to regenerate your relationship?