Love is a verb

Over the course of the weekend, T and I took a day for "us" and participated in a 'Celebrate Marriage' retreat held by our church's marriage ministry.  I've been wanting to go this forever because I know the couple who started this ministry at our church, and well...it is not often that T and I get to take couple time. Combine that with free daycare, and I was there.  And no...this is not a retreat where couples go when their marriages are in trouble, so don't think that.  It's one of those take time out of our busy lives, reflect on where we came from, where we are and where we will go in our relationship.  And it was amazing. 

 

Something that was discussed really hit close to home because it's so very true, and it's something that you don't always think about.  It was the statement that love isn't a feeling.  Love is a verb.  It's something you do.  So often couples say "we fell in love" or "we fell out of love."  The presenters said something that hit me in one of those "wow" moments.  You don't "fall" out of love.  You don't lose a feeling.  Every day, I wake up next to T, I actively make the decision to work on our relationship.  I have to.  Love is a verb.  I love T, meaning I put work into our relationship.  I choose to really put effort into making our relationship strong.  I feel like I'm rambling here, but basically you don't fall out of love with someone.  You make the decision to stop working on the relationship.  And when I said "I do" I didn't just say "I do so long as everything is rainbows and ponies and nothing ever gets hard."  I said I do to good times and bad, health scares, mice in the house, toddler tantrums every day, job stress, all of it. 

 

Thinking about it, I'm not sure that I can say that I have been putting the effort into my marriage that it deserves.  Things get busy.  Our lives get in the way.  Aubrey.  We focus so much on our job of being parents, and no matter what we said before she came into our lives about how we'd put us first and nurture our relationship, that isn't always happening.  We got some time to really reflect and just talk about just that, "us."  And we were reminded of who we were and who we still are. 

 

Coming upon the 5 year anniversary of my first date with T on the 25th, I'm brought back to that day and the feelings of excitement and happiness that I had.  I still feel those. 

 

Love is a decision, one I make every day.  And it's the easiest one to make, but sometimes it takes a step back for me to realize that.