Connect with us

Articles

Embrace Friendship in Your Marriage

How’s your friendship with your spouse? Would you consider yourselves what Aristotle termed “true friends”?

Spread the love

Published

on

It was a fairly simple activity. At least, it should have been.

Our task?

To remember back to the early days of our relationship and share with our church small group the name of “our song” at the time.

The message from our pastor that week had been on marriage. So our discussion that evening followed suit. While Ted and I normally facilitated the conversation, this time we’d asked one of the other couples to. And frankly, they put us to shame. When it comes to small group leading, I want to be them when I grow up.

Unfortunately, when it came to this task, Ted and I had a small problem. We didn’t really have a song back then.

Sure, we both loved music. We even listened to it together. A lot. But we weren’t exactly the type of couple you’d find hitting the dance floor on our evenings out. No, we were more likely to be at the local Italian hole-in-the-wall swapping stories over caprese salad and tiramisu.

Yet, we weren’t going to let this minor issue keep us from participating. While we may not have had a significant “us” tune at the time, what we did have was a first dance at our wedding. Obviously, that dance was accompanied by a song. A song, I’m embarrassed to admit, that was selected by our live musicians, not by us. The thing is, if Ted and I did have “a song,” this one would have to do.

Here’s where we hit a slightly bigger problem, though.

We couldn’t recall its name. Not even after an extensive google search on my iPhone of all big band era songs, which was the style of music we’d had at our reception. I suppose rewinding over eleven years, four little girls, and a handful of states was just more than our memories could handle.

Go ahead, laugh at us. We’ll laugh with you. Ha. There. Let’s continue.

Once we got home, Ted had to pull up the video of our first dance. And there it was. Our song: “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Hours of research, and we finally identified it.

Fortunately, the small group “homework” we were given proved much easier for us. We were asked to decide together what song best describes our marriage now. It took us all of two minutes to pick “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

Why’d we go with this song? Well, head over to my personal blog to find out why and to hear one idea for how you can embrace friendship in your marriage.

Embrace Your Marriage

Also, don’t miss my team members’ posts on embracing friendship in marriage. You can find them here:

Spread the love

Ashleigh Slater is the author of the books Braving Sorrow Together: The Transformative Power of Faith and Community When Life is Hard and Team Us: The Unifying Power of Grace, Commitment, and Cooperation in Marriage. With over twenty years of writing experience and a master’s degree in communication, she loves to combine the power of a good story with practical application to encourage and inspire readers. Ashleigh lives in Atlanta with her husband, Ted, and four daughters.

Welcome to Ungrind!

Do you want to be inspired, motivated, and equipped to live the everyday story of your life well?

If so, you’re in the right place. Whether you need encouragement in your relationships or in your faith, I hope you’ll find the transparent voices of mentors and friends here at Ungrind.

So, grab a cup of coffee and keep reading. We're so glad you're here!

Ashleigh Slater, Founder & Managing Editor

Get Our Free Ebook!

Sign up to receive weekly emails from Ungrind and you’ll get the free ebook, Better Together. Be encouraged by stories of hope from women just like you!

Latest Articles

What Women Are Saying

"Thank you for having me as your guest... Awesome design, awesome content, awesome website!!!"

-- Darlene Schacht, author of Messy Beautiful Love: Hope and Redemption for Real-Life Marriages and co-author of Reshaping it All: Motivation for Spiritual and Physical Fitness

Featured Resource

"Real life is not always pleasant. Every marriage experiences disappointments, misunderstandings, sickness and financial crisis. Ashleigh doesn’t camouflage the pain in her own marriage, and offers practical ideas on how to walk through the difficulties and find intimacy on the journey. If you are anything like me, I predict that as you read, you too will find yourself laughing, wiping tears, and saying 'Oh, yes.'"

-- Gary Chapman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages

Disclosure

We are a member of the Amazon affiliate program and regularly use affiliate links. If you purchase an item from an Amazon link we provide, we will receive a small referral commission. This doesn’t cost you anything additional. We only share books, music, and products that our writers personally have used and highly recommend.

Trending

Ungrind

Embrace Friendship in Your Marriage

by Ashleigh Slater time to read: 2 min