Marriage is a Lifetime of Effort
If anything is going to succeed, a good amount of effort should be expected. The anticipation of earning income comes with the realization of employment and work being attached to it. That work is the effort that is associated with a form of payment, called money.
Relationships are similar in transactions. They require a pursuit, acquisition of sorts (winning the arm of the damsel) and earning her love and trust. The “payment” would be her love, trust and all that comes with them.
Accomplishing this is not a one-time achievement. It is a string of events that consistently say, “I am in this for the long haul. That determination and subsequent choices is called, “effort.”
Working and laboring is not being lazy or out of touch, it is definitely an intentional learning and pleasing of those involved. If you are married, you are fully aware that your plans to win him/her over would not be described as effortless.
Let’s use compromising as a form of effort. If you or your spouse is “less neat” than the other, eventually, one of you will be willing to put in “the effort” to be neater. It may not feel like effort because love is in the mix and the joy of serving that person has taken over. Likewise, the other spouse does things for you just because he/she loves you.
We're doing things so that's technically "effort”, but your relationship doesn't feel like work. If that makes sense to you, yay! We are making progress.
Being “together” is practically and emotionally easier than being single was for either of you. Is that something we can agree on? One of you will likely put more effort into domestic stuff, thus, putting more determination into roughly half the domestic chores rather than all of them. There will be a trade-off along the way. The communication effort will help you both to see and understand that.
The is always a level of cost for both of you. The cool thing is, the cost for both can (and often is) less, so it relieves some stress. Striking the balance to learn and understand is also deemed as effort.
It should be a bit clearer by now that both marital partners are putting in effort to be good allies, but it's such an easy effort that just sort of flows naturally out of the desire to be good support pieces that it doesn't feel like effort. However, if we look closer, logistically, we will be able to see where it would be considered an easy effort.
I have heard it said on numerous occasions, “a successful marriage or relationship requires effort, commitment and work.” I personally believe it should be seamless and effortless. Do you see what just happened?
What do we married folk need to do to show that our union is created by the persistent love investment efforts that we choose to sow–for the strengthening of the marriage?
Many of us have never been formally educated in communication or love, in the context of marriage and relationships.
EXAMPLE: Many men have a great game when it comes to dating but sorely lack in how to have a real thriving relationship. How do you change this?
MEN: Educate yourself on what real love is. Even better, get to know Who Love is and what a covenant means as it relates to marriage and how to properly communicate (more listening than talking).
WOMEN: Most men are uninformed when it comes to how to treat a woman.
MEN: Learn who women really are.
BOTH: If you both choose to learn what motivates one another (no one is the same) you will interact better with them. It will also give you a great relationship baseline for the rest of your life.
Lots of effort is expected, but if it is done with the intentionality of learning, it will feel effortless.