Nate and I went to his brothers wedding recently and just had a precious, lovely time! It helped us refocus on our own marriage. We also had one fabulous week to ourself without the babies so that was restoring for our souls, friendship and marriage. Highly recommend a week of dates with your man if you are married with kids and MAKE IT happen ladies!

If you’re not married and wondering if you will ever find HIM, you know the one that you are called to be with… READ ON GORGEOUS! (And if you want to details on this fabulous blush pink dress I found that fits my prego bump perfectly!)

I remember the time in my life when I wasn’t interested in getting married. Then another time when I felt unprepared for getting married and even unworthy.  I eventually came to a stage where I realized I DID want to get married; however, I wanted to be as prepared as possible because I wanted to have a great marriage.  So thats when the hard, not so fun work came to life. 

For 5 years of preparing and waiting for the “right” guy I read lots of books, dated many frogs and surrounded myself with people who thought the same way.  Through this process of working and waiting, I discovered some very crucial elements to do BEFORE I said YES to the “one.”  Here are a few of them that helped me.  

Personal Growth:  Working on myself is one of the best things I did while waiting for my fabulous husband.  I’m talking about in all different areas.  Self awareness and self actualization are important because this is when I learned not just what I want, but what I DON”T want.  

By knowing who you are and what you’re not, it helps you realize who you want and who you don’t want in your life.

  In fact, I was almost always single and I often got asked by my friends and strangers “Why are you always single?”   It was because I knew exactly what I wanted and exactly what I didn’t want and I didn’t waste anyones time.  So invest in personal growth opportunities and find out who you are called to be.   This helps on so many levels.  

Find A Man I can Respect more than Love:  Woah!  Yeah!  Remember I told you it was a lot of work and reading trying to learn what this marriage thing was suppose to be?  One of the books I read was Emerson Eggerichs’s book Love and Respect.  I loved how he took one simple scripture and made it so simple.  

These are the important things I looked for when rating the respect category.  

-Can I trust his judgment? So I don’t question him all the time or tell him what to do. Lord knows, no-one likes to be told what to do!

-How does he treat his family?  Particularly his mom and sisters.

-How does he treat me in conflict?  Hello Gorgeous! Conflict is a must before saying I do!  Figure out how he’s going to treat you in those not so fun times.  

-Does he make wise choices with money?  How does he behave towards others? 

-How does he lead or respond under stressful or challenging circumstances?

-Are his friendships ones that are deep or are they simply surface level?

-How is his mental health? Does he make healthy choices? Emotionally and physically.  Little things that are really the big things like food choices because that ultimately affects the grocery bill which affects the budget and the dating/dinner dates.  

Respect was probably the most important thing I looked for because If I couldn’t respect him, daily life was going to get in the way and that could create unnecessary tension in the marriage.  

Made my health a priority:  I like to exercise my body but I also like to exercise my brain.  Making sure my mindset was in the right space was crucial for a healthy mental state.  I’m a huge advocate for mental health and from my experience being a counselor I noticed how a poor mental state can affect relationships.  So I was always exercising my thoughts and making sure they always went away from negative, anxious thoughts to positive faith based ones. 

When I was single I wouldn’t allow myself to stay in a place of negative thoughts.  Mental health has such a huge affect on relationships.   The energy of negative thoughts comes to fruition and so do positive ones!  So I very quickly change my thought process when it turns to looser thoughts.  

Built My Faith Walk:  As I was preparing for my husband I needed to learn how to be the wife I was called to be.  I realize now I was not prepared for the husband I have now when I was 25.   So when I was 25 and wanting to get married and feeling lonely thinking “I’m the last girl who hasn’t got married,” (you know how it is ladies if you’ve been in this space before)  I was really in a space where I was just beginning the faith walk.   I had to learn what it was like to be a wife and what that looked like for me.  I wanted to be the wife God called me to be and I didn’t know what that looked like.  

Why was this important? Because when you do think you found “the one” and he is talking about what he wants in a wife, you will know if it matches up to what you have in mind.  If he wants dinner on the stove every night and you have sweaters in your stove …..(like me)  you know thats not going to work out.  LOL 

Seriously,  if you don’t cook and don’t want to be cooking often, keep the sweaters in there, and show him where you store your extra fashion!  

It’s funny, but it’s true.  I knew this about myself.  I knew I was not going to be cooking formal meals. It wasn’t my calling nor what I wanted to do with my time.

If you’ve been following me long, you know I like to eat clean and healthy without spending tons of time in the kitchen so make sure to jump on over to the recipes to get tips on that.  

So with that example, I hope you can look at your own situation and find one thing about yourself that you’re ok with.  

Don’t change for someone to fit their standards when you are fabulously you!  You will be miserable, lonely and wonder why you don’t like your marriage or your husband! 

  Keep going on your faith walk and just pretend it’s the runway to your fabulous…. because it is!

Xoxo 

Vangie