Five Tips to Live Valentine's Day Everyday

You settle down for an evening of enjoyment with your partner. Lighting the gas logs in the fireplace, you turn down the lights and put on a CD of sultry tunes.

You’re teaching your partner to play Scrabble. What makes the evening magical isn’t the amount of money you plunk down, for everything here is free. It isn’t in the exotic scenery, for you are at home. It isn’t the feeling of a vacation, for you may only have an hour together—depending on whether you have children, or how early you have to wake up in the morning. Yet this ordinary moment seems timeless because you are having fun.

Tip #1: The magic is wrought by your attitude, in which you are neither competitive nor pedantic, but warm and spontaneous. You and your partner may face endless demands at work and in family life, but together in moments like this, there is a pleasurable mystique. You are reminded why you got together in the first place: you like each other!

Tip #2: A lover’s secret, employed when sharing something new with the beloved, is to adopt an attitude akin to a grandparent teaching a little one the joy of finger-painting. In the Scrabble game you compliment your partner’s efforts and slightest successes. Far from bossing or chiding, you know that winning is not the issue: trusting and enjoying are.

Tip #3: Why are you so patient—so nurturing and non-judgmental? Because ordinary moments are transfigured into comfortable communion by your partner’s friendly gaze, or by the creativity released in each other’s presence. 

In the world at large there are aggravating deadlines and the daily pressure of meeting people’s expectations. Why not fill your private time together with little extravagances? Since this intimacy bond can either be diminished or deepened, depending on the quality of your attentiveness, it makes sense to give it all you’ve got!

 

Tip #4: It’s not just at home that you show patience and kindly humor; it’s when you’re out playing tennis, taking in a new restaurant, going to the movies, or strolling together with the kids around the neighborhood. This attitude of caring involvement even livens up mundane chores. You can turn a drive to the hardware store into a date by going out afterwards for coffee.

Tip #5: You’ve probably noticed couples who don’t live this way; who long ago stopped showering each other with sexy smiles and comforting hugs. Now they exchange grim glances and speak tersely, if at all. In their own way they are witnesses that love—when deprived long enough of energy and priority—can be lost.

Say you’re watching a guy playing tennis. He is about to serve to the woman with him. Bam! He hits a winner. Pow! He serves another winner. Ka-fluey! His last serves bounces up and knocks off her sunglasses.

“You’ve got to be faster, Honey,” he shouts. “Keep your eye on the ball so you don’t get hit like that! Anyway, it’s forty-love in my favor.”

But, in a nearby park you see a man holding a football and a woman in shorts and T-shirt.

The man tosses a soft spirally pass. The woman grabs the football like a slippery fish. “Way to go, Honey.” 

She laughs, plants her legs, and throws a wobbling pass that bounces in front of him. He chases it down.  “Let’s get a little closer,” he yells. They adjust the distance and one throw later she completes her first pass. Jumping up and down, she cheers, “I did it, I did it!”

As you can see, the football aficionado is a lover who is simpatico to his wife’s needs for frolicking fun. You can bet that after today they will have added another game to their repertoire of outings.

Live Valentine's Day Every Day!

Yes, it takes special intentions to transform ordinary moments into extraordinary communion, but that’s what living Valentine's Day everyday is all about.

For more, read:

STAYING IN LOVE:

Dr. Dan & Siggy's Guide to Couple's Love

STAYING IN LOVE

Christ's Compass for Couples

Jesus commands us to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). 

This is a tall order. How do you do that, especially when it comes to the daily complications of a couples relationship?

But Jesus doesn’t leave you hanging. He gives you clues by the way He lives his life as described in the Gospels. Clues to a healthy personality that help you relate to one another in Christlike ways, yet unique to you as a couple.

How can couples do this in the 21st century? Enter the Self Compass. Based both on Jesus’ personality and modern psychological research, the Self Compass steers couples toward man/woman intimacy. 

The Self Compass

The Self Compass helps reveal what Jesus' personality is like. In the Gospel accounts of his life on Earth, Jesus showed us the model of a perfect personality. Unlike the rest of us, Jesus was perfectly loving—a good friend to Peter and John. But he wasn’t loving all the time. Jesus balanced his Love with Assertion—by standing up against the Pharisees when he saw injustice and unfairness, for example. 

Jesus also revealed healthy Weakness—he was humble of heart, a servant who washed his disciples’ feet. He sweat blood, contemplating his crucifixion. Yet this vulnerability was balanced by Strength—to act according to his Father’s will and a confidence in his identity as the Son of man.

Love in balance with Assertion; Weakness in balance with Strength. Together they form Christ’s Self Compass. A Self Compass: a compass that contains Christ’s LAWS to act as your guide to a healthy and whole marriage.

What does Christ's Self Compass look like? 

Christ's Self Compass

Christ’s various names indicate the balance drawn from his own Self Compass. On the Love compass point, he is known as the Good Shepherd—tender, kind, and nurturing. On the Assertion compass point, he is the Lion of Judah found in the book of Revelation; Christ stands against injustice of every kind, and will judge the quick and dead based on their pursuit of righteousness or lack thereof. On the Weakness compass point, Jesus is the Lamb of God, who willingly laid down his life to redeem all who call upon him. And on the Strength compass point he is the Prince of Peace who died in weakness and was raised from the dead in strength and glory.

The Compass LAWS of a Christ-centered Marriage

Love and Assertion; Weakness and Strength. These are compass points that show the contrasting polarities in your personality. Love isn’t better than assertion, and strength isn’t better than weakness. Healthy people express both tender care and diplomatic assertion. They are competent and strong, yet humbly aware of their weakness. In a well-balanced marriage, couples maintain free and rhythmic access to all four compass points of their Self Compass.

Love is kindness. Thoughtfulness. Forgiveness. Tenderness. Compassion. Fondness. Faithfulness. Friendship. Sacrifice. In the development of healthy personality and relationships, Christ gave priority to loving one’s self, others, and God.

But no one remains loving all the time, nor is it healthy to do so. While love lets you stand with-and-for your partner, Assertion is required so as not to lose yourself.

 

Assertion gives you the courage to express your point of view or challenge what you perceive as unfair in your relationship. Diplomatic assertion preserves your individual differences as a couple and helps you develop the skill of negotiating for your reasonable rights. All couples experience bouts of anger or discontent, when your interests rub against the wishes of your spouse. But when you combine assertion in rhythm with caring, the diplomacy that results will help you reach successful conflict resolution.

Weakness reflects the human experience of uncertainty, vulnerability, and soul-searching. The weakness compass point helps a couple develop humility and empathy for one another. It allows the expression of disappointment, anxiety, depression, or helplessness.

Strength reflects the human need for competence and adequacy. Each partner needs to feel appreciated by the other; to be seen as worthy, capable; to be treated with dignity.

When a couple rhythmically modulates the compass points of Love with Assertion, and Weakness with Strength, their relationship develops the balancing grace of compass virtues: 

• Love brings forth charity. 
• Assertion yields courage. 
• Weakness fosters humility. 
• Strength develops esteem.

Jesus Christ

With the help of the Self Compass, you develop a whole and healthy marriage when you center your marriage in Jesus Christ and on His personality.