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Powerful marriage's are easy.  Just show up, have lots of sex and everything just works out.   Simple...just don't worry about in-laws, friends, money, career's, kids, vacations and you will be fine...

Ridiculous! Marriage is just like anything else.  You want a great one, or a powerful one? Then you have to put the effort and intentionality into it.  It's not really that complex.  Think about a world class athlete.  They train.  It doesn't feel amazing.  They stay at it and reap the reward of being a champion.  Or a kid wanting to ride a bike.  He takes a few falls and skinned knees - cries, samples the hydrogen peroxide, screams - then gets back on his bike and tries again.  Before long X-Game material.  

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While thats obvious, I think in most relational conflicts, especially in marriage, we just get along with the other person's junk as long as we can.  Eventually it gets too much to handle and the relationship slowly deteriorates to nothing.  In marriage, it ends in divorce, in friendship, it gradually fades - and its usually awkward.  Like anything you have to put the intentional effort into it for it to thrive and grow.

I married a lion of a wife.  She's full passion all the way on all the time.  That is an amazing quality to have, she is a great leader and gets stuff done, it's also quite explosive at times.  Lions can have a tendency to walk on people for the sake of accomplishing a task.  This has created plenty of opportunity to engage in relationship when I do not really feel like it.  

For example, in the Summer on several days our kids will all be home and I can get home from work around 3 or 4pm.  This has the potential to be one of the hardest times in the day.  It's hot, our kids are tired of being outside and my wife is in task mode trying to help the kids stay motivated.  I can walk in the door and meet the lion.  She has 8 things on her mind trying to keep everything moving.  Dinner, laundry, potty training, fight between the older two, clogged toilet (from toys), friends coming over in an hour for dinner and immediately starts communicating the several things I can do in the immediate to support the mission in her brain getting accomplished.  

Now, my wife is getting stuff done and awesome at it.  She runs a well oiled machine, but walking into the middle of that machine's operation can be dangerous.  I don't know which button to press and can get my hand stuck in a turret and get bopped.  Early on, this became really challenging for me.  I would feel missed, unseen and my dainty feelings would be bruised real bad.  

# In This Moment is my Choice #
I can choose to get over my bad self, walk up the stairs grab my wife, give her a squeeze, look into her eyes and tell her I love her and jump right into the machine.  Or I can choose to sulk, ignore her, walk back to my room and pout (yes adults pout).  

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This is one of the situations that frequents my house.  There are many instances like this.  It's critical for you and your spouse to understand where these opportunities are in your relationship so that you can choose to love each other when you do not feel like it.  This instance has created increased trust in my wife for me.   She has seen me choose her in spite of her behavior that could be hurtful toward me.  Hence an increase level of power in our marriage.  Our relational muscles are stronger and we can hold more weight.
# Will You Choose It? #

My question for you today is where in your relationship can you choose your spouse when you do not feel like it?  Think of it like training for a greater prize.  Literally when you feel the challenge think of it like tearing down your muscles so that they can be built up stronger.  It helps me get over my hurt feelings and see a greater goal then myself.  Do not ignore the pain, embrace it, address it and dominate it.  

Thanks for reading along!  If you have something that you have found has helped you build a powerful marriage, I would love it if you would use the tag powerfulmarriage and share your wisdom with the rest of us!  We are all failing forward. 

As always Live Big Today and Dominate Life!