I enjoyed reading “Love & Life” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

She said that security in marriage comes from fulfilling the vows you made “To Love, honor, and cherish.” She also advises that repairing marriages is better that ending them. Children grow up best with a married daddy and mommy.

Finally, she said that if you want to improve your marriage:

• Do not say anything to your husband that is not sweet
• No bitching
• No complaining
• No whining
• No nagging

Instead, be a girlfriend to your husband because girlfriends know boyfriends leave if this situation happens.

In my situation when I got married, I was dysfunctional. Dysfunctional because of my inheritance – spiritual or character traits accumulated in my ancestry that were not necessarily the best, my upbringing, my experiences in life, my shortcomings, my inadequacies to handle conflicts etc…my too strong emotions.

My husband Dietrich often said to me that I was irrational, or “Oh! You are so emotional!”

In my opinion, Dietrich was also dysfunctional. He did not know what to do with me when “I was irrational.” He also came to our marriage with stuff. He was not aware of the stuff he was carrying around.

We did not know how to deal with conflicts the best way at the time. We were both dysfunctional trying to make a happy ending with our relationship. Was it an impossible dream to come together?

We did three things:

1. We educated ourselves on how to resolve conflicts by taking marriage seminars

My husband wrote his doctoral dissertation on marriage and family.

2. We served and loved our parents

Dietrich intentionally and actively loved and served my dad and mom.

I was smart enough to know that a successful relationship with Dietrich was to absolutely reconcile with his German father, and unite with his mother. This I did with much difficulty, because as I said before our marriage was between two enemy nations. Through loving his parents, I loved his inheritance, his ancestors.

3. We had unshakable faith

Our secret weapon for both of us was our absolute faith in God, our Heavenly Parent. Because of our faith, the impossible became possible. He was persistent not to be deterred by any conflict. I loved it when my husband said, “I love you no matter what.” I was stubborn to cling to God, our Heavenly Parent. We never let go of our dream to be true love partners forever.

So, from dysfunctional we became workable, to wonderful, to true love partners for ever, finally to a sacred heavenly bond.

Over the course of our forty years of married life together, we learned to forgive, to love, to honor, and to cherish. We became eternal love partners, Beloveds, forever together.

If we could do it, you can too! Elisabeth Seidel