Equality

For the last 18 years of my life I have lived with the Four Agreements which are;

The Four Agreements are:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

When my husband and I were dating we met every Saturday morning for our book study. After realizing our bible study wasn't doing anything for us but simply being put on repeat, we decided to branch out and I was more willing to learn outside my religious bubble. We study "The Mastery of Love." by Don Miguel Ruiz. Every Saturday when we both met up we had our own copies of the book with our own notes on the side then we spent the whole morning mid-afternoon discussing in-depth these important love lessons for life!

And what a wonderful magical life we have had! After we were married we made references to Don Miguel Ruiz books, I would buy a new one while we were on vacation, reading out loud as we drove home. Sometimes we agreed and sometimes we didn't so these books gave us direction for thought.

The Equality of our marriage has always been a priority of ours from the moment we said "I do."

There is no one perfect person nor is there a perfect marriage out there in which if you follow the rules you will succeed, my mother thought the bible was like a rule book to follow for protection in living yet I explain to her the ideas, the advice and the wisdom about the human condition is not able to capture the ever changing evolving ways of life. It would be nice if we could contain the energy of the world for our own personal safety and control.....but that isn't how any of this works. We can't grow, we can't learn new things if we limit ourselves through fear.

I was afraid to get married, afraid to loose my independent self and afraid that I would be trapped or stuck in some way in the end. I have always been very aware of how marriage works in religions, in following the bible guidelines. It took me a moment to realize that I am in control of my marriage simply by loving my husband just the way he is and just the way I am. I let go of all those old fears in comparing my self to other married people who struggled so much.

"The Mastery of Love." is my number one all time forever favorite book. I live by it, I enjoy my married life because of it.

It helps to have a strong friendship with your partner, everything that is important to me is also important to my husband so that when we are frustrated with each other we make time to talk about it.

I wonder if marriages get harder as people grow older, I haven't been married all that long compared to a 60 year anniversary couple. I will always say "And they lived Happily ever after!" as my blessing at a wedding, as my hope for the future for them and as a mission statement for my own life choices.

I believe a positive attitude and a willingness to share helps any relationship out, so I celebrate love stories and that fairy tale romance that makes so many movies popular in our society.

I made a list of how my marriage works for my own joy and then I thought why not share it?

1. Respect each other; Listening to the other without judgement or correction. Not embarrassing each other or trying to make the other look bad.

2. Negotiation; This is my favorite rule in a relationship, I LOVE negotiations! I believe making time to decide after hearing out both sides of the discussion is exciting and freeing to me! I even tell the kids I babysit that my rules are easy to follow, Don't hurt anyone. Don't hurt yourself. EVERYTHING else is up for negotiation.

3. Honesty/Accountability; Some people are born honest and it gets them into loads of trouble as a kid, they can't seem to learn how to NOT be honest so just like me they grow up aware of how hard this is for some to do. Being called out on your shit is very important for personal growth, as long as it's not done in public, that's where respect plays a huge part in protecting each other. 

I will die being honest to my last breath, I will always keep myself accountable because I love the end result of who I am.

4. Supportive Trust; This is just as important as Honesty, always having your partner's best interest at heart allows for trust to grow or stay strong. The thing I have told my husband from day one, "If you fall in love with someone else just tell me, I would be so honored that you trust me and that you found what you were looking for. I would be thrilled and happy for you because I only want what is best for you!" We often get into trouble if we become possessive of each other, in reality we all here at the same time nothing is ours to keep forever.

5. Partnership; The best marriages I have seen are the ones with 50/50 responsibility. Sharing the same financial awareness, sharing the same life goals, sharing the same desires in every day life and always sharing the same ability in working together in the home. I think my husband and I really like our partnership as our home is very peaceful, we have a refuge from the world!

6. Unconditional Love; This is last but not least.

I have unconditional love for our pets, always. It's easier to love on the helpless dependents then to love on our partners who can be stubborn or challenging. We all have weaknesses in selfishness and in annoyance of each other but when we practice Unconditional love for pets and children we able to have it more for our lovers. This can take time in the making, I use to hide in my bedroom when I fought or argued with my newly wed husband back in the day, I was afraid to say something mean so I created a girls only room in our first home. If he tried to come in I would be so upset, then he realized that I needed his unconditional love during those times that we rarely disagreed because I hadn't found my own feet in standing up for myself without saying the wrong words. When he would get so upset that there were kids around him I would practice my unconditional love towards him saying "You don't have to play with us, it's alright to go to your office and close the door." We build a life time on how important Unconditional love was/is to us. 

It's fun to make these lists, to think about how everything works for us. I enjoy my 50% of the relationship, I will always be grateful looking back no matter what the future holds. I will always hope for the best and hope for the help that I can be.

My happiness is a choice, my marriage is a choice and my living happily ever after is a choice as well.

For I will celebrate Love till the day I die!