Their Perfect Time Together

A baby lays asleep on the couch snuggled in her travel bassinet while her older sister plays games on her iPad, learning her ABCs and singing along with songs as they came up in her game on ABCMouse.Com. The TV plays a child’s show but neither baby nor child pays attention to it. Their mother sits tiredly on the couch, her eyes lovingly watching her baby sleep for a few minutes before her exhausted gaze shifts to where her oldest daughter sits at her feet. She may feel like a zombie but it is well worth the exhaustion, the stress, and everything else that comes to raising an independent loving little girl and bringing another strong baby girl into the world even though the world has become so confused and full of hate. Their mother sighs heavily as she thinks about having to raise these girls in the strange world, her mind and heart heavy. She looks at her daughters and hopes that they grow into beautiful, smart, independent, loving, caring women who won’t let the world or those living in it change their hearts or steer them off their path towards whatever it is that they wish to be when they grow up.

Her eyes wander to the couch beside her where her amazing husband sits, staring down at his laptop that sits propped on his black lap desk, his eyebrows knitted together as his fingers slide across the keyboard, the man never done with his work for the Navy and always giving his all to make sure that everyone is taken care of medically. The enjoyable clicking of the keyboard and the sight of her husband brings a smile to her face because she knows that she is not alone in raising her two daughters. The world may be scary but she knows that with the help of this incredible man beside her, their daughters will stand a chance. And with their families and all of their friends behind them, their daughters will always have the help they may need and will win in this crazy life of theirs.

She returns to her writing, a story flowing forth from her imagination and pen. She continues to write and to work on the story before her eyes, knowing that she must strive to work hard, get published, and show her girls that their dreams can come true if they keep striving for it, work hard, and never give up. Her eyes leave the page that she is writing on a few times as she looks to her sleeping sweet baby, to her older amazing daughter, and her perfect reliable husband, feeling truly blessed and at home with her little family. Her pen flies across the page, her mind whirling with thoughts and ideas, and a smile stays plastered to her face because as she sits there on their couch, she feels like this is their perfect time together. She can’t wait to make more beautiful memories as a new family of four, having already made some amazing memories as husband and wife and as a family of three. Life is an adventure and she knew that she has a great group of people to enjoy it with.

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Amazing Story

As I had stated in an earlier blog, I had the amazing opportunity to meet a fellow blogger who wishes nothing more than to spread positivity to those in relationships. Well I am pleased to say and share with you the link that will take you to his website where you may read my story. It was a hard story to write because it was a hard topic for me to admit to but I am glad that I wrote it. My husband has also read it and he loved every bit of it because it spoke of love, truth, and how I am working on becoming a more verbal person in our relationship. Yes, I am talking about communication and how I struggled and still sometimes struggle today to use words on how to express myself in our relationship together. I still have that issue in other relationships but his and mine is the most important relationship where communication needs to be open and I need to be more willing to express how I am feeling or what is bothering me verbally and not just in writing.

I hope that you will visit his page and read the story that this blogger known as, InspireYourMarriage, has written that includes my story about communication and mine and my husband’s relationship. But I also hope that you will take the time to read the other blogs he has written with other people’s stories about their relationships because I think you will enjoy them. And if you have a positive story that you would love to share with the world, then by all means contact this blogger through his page and tell him that you have a story that you would love to share with him, his blog, and with the community on the Internet.

Here is the link to his blog that includes my story about myself and my amazing husband. I hope you enjoy reading his blog as much as I know he has enjoyed writing it. I too loved reading it and am pleased with how my story has been spun into his blog. If you read this, InspireYourMarriage, thank you again for allowing me to be apart of your blog.

https://www.inspireyourmarriage.com/2018/09/17/laceys-story-opening-up-verbally/

Staying Positive in Relationships

I had the honor to receive an email from a man who loves to write blogs on relationships and the more positive sides of these relationships. We always have those relationships we hear about that are negative and quite a lot of times our media is over taken by stories like this form the rich and the famous. But when we get a glimmer of a positive relationship between anyone, we cling to it and enjoy it for what it’s worth, doing our best to ditch the stereotypical negative relationships. We of course will fight our loved one in any relationship and those fights do make us stronger, but when we look at a negative situation and help turn it into a positive one, then maybe our relationships will grow even stronger than if we just concentrate on the negative parts. So I was pleased when he approached me through my email asking for a story of mine that is positive and will hopefully help others and in turn I asked him a couple of questions so that we can get a glimpse into his mind as to why he wants to have blogs based around positive stories on relationships and couples. Here are not only his answers but his website so that you may go and read is remarkable blogs on couples and their positive relationships and how they are growing together with one another’s help.

And to the blogger Inspireyourmarriage, thank you again for wanting me to be a part of your blogs and for being a part of mine. I truly appreciate it.

What gave you the idea of having stories that are more positive in relationships?

The idea of having stories that are more positive in relationships came from hearing so much negativity and complaining about relationships and marriage. We need positive ways to deal with how to overcome problems in our relationships and positive stories on how other have dealt with a problem in their relationship.

We hear a lot of people complaining about their partner. Then to solve the problem, they resort to negative action. They get mad at their partner, complain, make demands, try to guilt them into meeting a need and resenting certain things about their partner. This frustration is justified, but those actions by themselves rarely solve the problem.

Then they go to their friends about the issue. First, it’s often just to complain or vent to get it off your chest. This is well-intentioned but not often helpful to the relationship and to solving the problem. When you complain about your partner to your friends, you go back to your partner with a sub-conscious negativity about them. Even if you’re just joking to your friends, you still have little negative thoughts about your partner when you see them again. This does not create closeness to them.

Second, if it’s an issue that they want help with, they will ask their friends’ advice on the situation. Their friends may be well-meaning, but can also often hurt the relationship more than help it. The reason is because their friends naturally want to take their side to show they support them. Simply taking their side doesn’t solve the problem. Also, friends don’t see a key ingredient to the marriage – your partner’s actions may simply be reactions to your actions. If your actions change, your spouse’s actions could change.

A classic example of this came from a recent story a wife sent to me. She made a negative assumption about her husband and didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt about something. This led to resentment on her part and negative behavior toward him from her, which only pushed him further away, both emotionally and physically. She tried to talk to her friends for help, which only made things worse. Her friends meant well, but they only received half of the story and vented their own relationship frustrations by taking her side without offering any way to solve the problem.

However, it all changed when she let go of the resentment and started acting more positively toward her husband. His reaction was quick and decisive – he started acting more positively toward her. They finally opened up and talked about what they each need from each other. They tried talking in the past, but because they had not been meeting each other’s needs, they both weren’t willing to budge.

Was it fair that one partner had to take the first step? Maybe not. But you can either be fair and possibly lead to divorce, or you can do what’s unfair and start the process of fixing the relationship.

So we need more stories like this of how couples have fixed problems in their relationship, rather than just venting about how bad their relationship is. Venting is ok once in a while, but don’t confuse venting with actually solving the issue in the relationship.

 

 

What made you want to inspire others through gathering stories of others and their relationships?

My motivation of inspiring relationships was for my own marriage. For years, my wife and I struggled to have a really happy and content marriage. There were a lot of ups and downs. We talked to friends, family, we read books, we went to counseling, and we tried to focus on religious teachings. We did everything and nothing worked. We didn’t have a terrible marriage, but there was just a layer of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in it.

Then I started reading a lot of various internet message boards of people asking for relationship advice. What slowly started to strike me was how people couldn’t see how their own actions were negatively affecting their relationship and likely negatively affecting their partner. We couldn’t see what their partner had to say about the situation, but it was clear their own actions often weren’t helpful to the situation.

It took a while, but I slowly started to see that my actions also weren’t helping my own marital situation. So to understand my own marriage better, I started to try to follow what people’s frustrations were in their relationship. I saw patterns of what their frustrations were. They had different scenarios and wording, but the problems started falling into distinct categories. This became the basis for the 10 Needs I developed.

The next thing that became clear was that people’s frustrations fell into 2 distinct areas. Either there was a lack of stability in the relationship, meaning they were still highly attracted to their partner, but their partner’s actions/behaviors were very frustrating to them and very unreliable. Or there was a lack of stimulation in the relationship, meaning they felt their life was steady with their partner, but the passionate desire wasn’t there any longer.

This revelation of the 10 Needs and 2 main types of needs led me to do a lot of thinking about my own marriage. The more I focused on fulfilling her needs that she wasn’t getting from me, the more she focused on my needs. Our marriage isn’t perfect now, but a lot of the frustrations we felt for years have mostly gone away.

Hearing all of this is what ultimately lead me to want to inspire other relationships. I felt the best way to do that was to post stories from people who had overcome issues in their relationship. I wanted to be a source of showing people how to overcome their own problems in their relationship.

The interesting thing is that it’s very easy to correlate how they overcome an issue with the 10 Need I developed on my website and my book at https://www.inspireyourmarriage.com/.

Mermaid Crystal Cove

Thin clouds slowly march across the yellow, orange, red, and slowly deepening blue sky as a lone figure steps out of a small cottage that sits high on a cliff. The light spring breeze pushes back on the figure’s midnight blue cloak and brushes back some long auburn hair from a pale slender face. A pair of sea foam green eyes peers down the cliff as the young woman steps close to the edge of the cliff, staring down into the angry waves below. Water sprays upwards at her, beckoning her to jump, to join the water, and to disappear underneath the cold ocean.

She can hear a voice behind her, a slight smile playing across her lips as she hears a male voice telling her to be careful near the edge. She turns away from the cliff, the breeze pushing her hair out from under her cloak and across her face as she watches a young man with shaggy brown hair pull on a deep forest green cloak over his shoulders, shielding himself from the growing night breeze, covering his crème colored shirt and dark brown pants. He waves at her to wait for him before she does anything crazy. She laughs, the laugh twinkling lightly like bells mixing with the crashing waves below her. She waits for the man to join her on the edge before she slips off her cloak and hands it to her beaux. He kisses her cheek as he takes the cloak and takes a step backwards in order to give her some room.

The woman turns on her bare heels to face the edge of the cliff, spreads her arms up high over her head, whispers a few words to the goddess of the waves, and leaps forward off of the cliff, making sure to push herself far away from the rocks that are jutting out on the cliff’s side. The man glows proudly as the woman plunges into the dark swirling waters below, the ocean engulfing her body completely. She rises above the surface moments later from the curling waves and looks up to see her love staring down at her with a smile on his face. She waves to him then points to the left of him where a path will lead him down to a small cove that is protected from the ocean yet is fed by ocean water and where the water sparkles like crystals under the pale glowing moon. He acknowledges her with a short wave then heads off down the path, her cloak swinging over his arm with the movements.

Once he reaches the end of the path, he slips his cloak off and places his and hers on a low dry tree branch from one of the few trees that scatter around the cove so that they wouldn’t get wet while he and his love sits in the cove. He walks to the nearest boulder that is next to the crystal blue water and sits down, his deep brown eyes watching the still surface as he waits. Soon a head emerges and two sea foam green eyes beam up at him, her long hair fanning out behind her on the water’s surface. He chuckles as she swims closer, lifting her nude body up out of the water until she is leaning on a rock that is slightly submerged below his seat. She pulls her hair over her shoulders and gently runs her fingers through it as she looks back towards the mouth of the cove that enters the crazy ocean beyond it. The water’s surface ripples again and more faces appear, swimming over to the rocks in the water in order to sit down, slipping up out of the water to sit on the still sunned warm rocks while others stay floating in the water, their colorful eyes on the man and woman. The moon beams dances along blue, green, red, purple, turquois, and orange tails as the mermaids and mermen of beyond the Crystal Cove settle in for their nightly story.

The man nods to his friends and pulls out a well-worn notebook, and flips it open to the page where they had left off the night before. He clears his throat and continues to read the fantasy story he has written himself about far off places where humans live in tall buildings and get around by driving strange things called vehicles. The mermaids and mermen listen to every word, as the stars seem to lean in closer to also hear the incredible story. Soon the moon nudges those below as he rises higher in the sky, and the man finishes his story, promising to write the next day a new story about humans and how they have learned how to fly in giant metal birds in his made up world. He says his goodbyes as he stands, shoves his story into his back pocket, and then leans down to pick up his mermaid from the waters, her lavender tail swishing back and forth as he carries her back to the path. The woman grabs their cloaks as they pass the tree where they still hang and the couple retreats home for another night, the cove behind them growing still after the last mermaid swims back into the sleepy ocean to return to their underwater kingdom for the rest of the night.