Susie welcomes pastor Ted Cunningham for a conversation on marriage and learning to love and laugh with your spouse in the midst of everyday life.
Ted Cunningham is the author of Great Parents, Lousy Lovers and Young and In Love: Challenging the Unnecessary Delay of Marriage.
Enjoying life with a spouse is not about relying on them for energy and excitement, it’s about togetherness, intentionality and self-examination. He explains that if we are going to bless our spouse and be blessed by them we have to be plugged into the source, into Christ. God is the one who gives life in the good times and the bad times.
Key to enjoying life with your spouse is not to assume that you have married the wrong person because you are not enjoying your marriage at a certain point. Such thinking makes the lack of enjoyment the other person’s fault and removes personal responsibility. This doesn’t work.
“You have to make a decision, before enjoying life with your wife, you have to make a decision to enjoy life.”
Any enjoyment in life must be an outflow of the individual themselves.
“Unhappy people aren’t going to get happy by being around the right person.”
Ted and Susie also talk sticking through the hard times and learning how to slow down together.
“I think enjoying life means finding ways to get that battery recharged, making sure you’re plugged into the right sources. This is why my wife and I do three things: a daily delay, a weekly withdrawal and and annual abandon.”
Ted and his wife intentionally take time out for each other and make each other a priority and they have found this intentionality very beneficial.
Ted and Susie also discus sacrificial enjoyment and the importance of simply being together with your spouse.
Key Scriptures: Ecclesiates 9:9
