Love got complicated while we weren’t looking

And it can hurt. Get Gary’s weekly letter to make it simpler again so we can love and be loved for the long term.

Hi! I’m Gary Morland

Darn, it’s easy for married love to slip-slide away into:

  • A growing auto pilot and disconnection.

  • Increasing negativity, grumbling, blaming, bickering, anger - on the inside, outside, or both.

  • Arguments leaving you feeling isolated & lonely.

  • Not feeling seen, heard, understood.

  • Needing a bit more - or a LOT more - appreciation, trust, friendship, and rooting for each other.

But thankfully, the important choices are in our control - if only we would realize their potential:

No matter how long it’s gone on, or what my spouse does, I can start honoring these realities myself -

Relationships are made to work a certain way. Cooperate, instead of ignoring or fighting it, and good things happen.

We’re nurtured or wrecked by our daily words and interactions. They’ve been adding up for years.

We control our own attitudes and mindsets that ultimately rule how we see our marriage and spouse.

For a person of faith, we’re always being formed, by our marriage and life, into the kind of person we really do want to be. We can cooperate.

I can become my own worst enemy if I let bitterness and unfairness prevent me from embracing things that are mine to control and releasing things that are not.

3 marriage paths I’m walking - join me?

I avoided these timeless paths for a long time. Why? Didn’t want to be responsible to own my own walk.

1. HOW YOU THINK

A mindset is just my assumption and expectations about my spouse and marriage. That posture of my heart and mind influences what I do and how I feel. Most of us just “land on” unhelpful mindsets. We can adjust.

2. WHAT YOU SAY AND DO

Small actions and words add up to a surprisingly big influence. And they naturally come from my mindset. But they’re underestimated. Most of us miss how easy it can be to create a positive relationship climate.

3. HOW YOU’RE BEING SHAPED

God is up to something personal and good, if I’ll let him. I can cooperate, fight it, or something in between. One way to cooperate is to see our daily marriage challenges and issues as part of how our soul is being formed.

It starts with seeing

50 years of marriage - so far so good! Actually it’s fantastic. But for 20 of those years I was unknowingly developing negative emotional reactions to Brenda. She did it too with me. We all do.

I didn't see my role in digging a hole in our relationship.

I didn’t realize I had developed mindsets of unhelpful thinking, which led to unhelpful words and actions. And I didn’t realize God was up to something good and personal inside me, and wanted me to let him use my marriage to do it.

Slowly, under pressure, I learned my thinking, and my words, and my relationship with God were all one thing. That doesn’t make things simple - but it does make them much simpler.