marriage is like a team of horses

me and my parents at Bugolksa S. Korea

Yesterday was my parents 40th anniversary.  That's right, 4-0.  It's a big red ruby anniversary that was celebrated with family, food and one too many drinks.  For their present I put together a scrap book.  A lovely idea, and one that they really appreciated.  A lovely idea that ended up taking me hours and hours to put together.  I had no idea scrapbooking would be this hard.  *note to self ~ next time you think it's a good idea to make a scrap book for someone, remember - it's not.

Anyways, as I went through the photos for the book, it was like watching my parents grow up together.  Literally grow up together, they were 19 when they were married.  The love that they share for eachother is so clear in every picture.  My parents have been amazing role models for me and my brothers.  And at dinner the other night as my dad handed my mom a ring shaped box, the look of surprise and awe and absolute adoration that flashed under batted eyelashes from my mom to her husband made all of our hearts flutter.

For this scrap book I asked their family and friends to write in stories and memories for my parents.  The emails that came in were amazing and showed how much they're loved.  They were likened to Romeo and Juliet by friends and a good team of horses by family.  As the story goes, my great grandmother used to say that a good marriage was like a team of horses, you could only move forward if you pulled in the same direction.

With all this love and committment on my mind, it seems fitting that this month - in my no shit experiment - will be all about 'relationships'.  Not relationships in general, just one relationship really.  The one that consists of me and my homeboy.
side note~ yes, I am still doing this experient...last months theme of finances just didn't leave me with much to write about... not a topic I've really taken an interest in, but one that I did need to focus on and learn some basic principles...which I did...so now on to the fun stuff.

Relationships!!!

Here are some ideas I think might help to strengthen our relationship:

1)  Just do it ~ if there's something that I want to do, I can't always wait for the man to want to do it too...and then feel resentful when we miss out.  If I want to do it, I should just do it.
2)  15 mins of quiet together ~ I know this doesn't seem like much, but as I was writing it down I thought "how are we going to manage this?"  This means 15 mins a day just the two of us, no t.v., no books, no ipad...just a chance for us to sit, lay or whatever together in quiet and enjoy eachother.
3)  Proofs of love  (idea from the Happiness Project)~ leave notes, texts, hugs, kisses, anything as reminders of our love for eachother.
4)  Follow through ~ no matter how big or small, if I say I'm going to do it, then I'm going to do it.  If I say I'm going to wash the dishes, I'm going to wash the dishes.  If I say I'm going to clean our pad from top to bottom, cook dinner and give him a fully body massage all while reciting Shakespear from memory, than that's what I'm going to do.  No more putting our relationship and things around our relationship on hold for other 'important' things.  We are the important things.
5)  1x per week activity together; yoga, hiking, rock climbing, whatever.  Something active and out of the house.
6)  Read If the Buddha Married.  Give the homeboy the coles notes version
7)  Honesty ~ speak and act from a place of truth.  Sometimes we sacrafice our own truth as a means to avoid hurting the other.  And in the end, we both get hurt.  Honesty first!!

Just like a good horse, I ran these by the man and he is 'on board'!  Now let's see just how fast we can run together!!

Any ideas to help build a stronger/healthier relationship?  Please leave in comments.