10 Commandments of Marriage

Every day find a way to show appreciation to people you love. When writing your personal wedding or commitment vows find a way to add this or something like it into your vows: “I will remember to tell you ‘I love you’ and ‘thank you’ every day and not take for granted the little things you do to make life easier and happier.”

Not only show appreciation to your partner and your children, if you have any, but to other people who give you service.

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Your wedding vows have more power than you might imagine. But the power comes not so much from the writing of your wedding or commitment vows but from continuing to read those vows every day.

Sometimes you read your vows by yourself and other times you read your vows together-at least once a week.

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Your wedding or commitment vows are for the purpose of creating dreams that give you passion for Life and Each Other.

Commandment #3 is about staying passionate–with yourself, your partner and the third entity which is the marriage.

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Commandment #2 is ‘Honor each other.’ Writing that into your wedding or commitment vows is an important element because you are going to read those vows every day and you want to be reminded that sometimes you will have to look past appearances.

Your partner will falter, make mistakes, forget who s/he is, do stupid things.

Practice high-vision. This means that there will be some times that you will have to hold your partner’s vision for him/herself. You will have to see more than is presented at face value.

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Honoring yourself may seem like a strange way to begin the 10 Commandments of Marriage. Yet the idea of putting yourself first is not about a selfish, ‘me, me, me,’ attitude, it’s taking care of yourself so you have the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical energy to nourish and sustain yourself and your partnership.

When you hold yourself high with integrity and self respect and never compromise your values you can trust each other absolutely. It’s the basis for everything else that defines your marriage. The writing of your wedding or commitment vows will reflect this.

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by Rev. Linda Bardes

Your Wedding Vows are for the Purpose of Creating Dreams that Give You Passion for Life and Each Other.

Main Point: You need dreams to keep you truly alive and vital. They help you create passion: for life and for each other.

The Question: “What makes me come alive?”

The Story: This commandment has to do with staying passionate about yourself, your partner and the third entity which is the marriage.

In order to do that you must keep hopes and dreams in front of you. They give you reason to get up in the morning, reason to plan, and a vehicle to help you create powerful and long lasting relationships.

They help you create passion: for life and for each other. A dream is bottled energy. You uncork that bottle when you talk about and imagine living your dreams. Do it often. Click to continue »

by Rev. Linda Bardes

Do not hesitate to see more in each other than what is presented at face value. Look deep. People tend to live up to our expectations of them.

Main Point: Hold you goals high and hold the dreams of your spouse high also. Both partners have to grow emotionally, spiritually, and sexually or the relationship becomes unbalanced and eventually one partner outgrows the other.

The question:  ”What one thing can I do today to honor the uniqueness of my partner?

The Story:  Today I want to discuss Commandment #2-Honor Each Other. Let’s begin with this bible commandment. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

We’ve established in Commandment #1 that you must love and honor yourself first. This is not a selfish command. It is so practical and powerful that if more people would understand that you cannot give anything away if you do not first possess it that practicing the art of self-love would be a priority and the world at large would be automatically changed.

It’s not a cocky kind of arrogant self-love. It’s a quiet powerful sense of self that creates an energy that draws everything to it that supports one’s highest and greatest good including ideas, people, jobs, money, etc. Click to continue »

by Rev. Linda Bardes

When you hold yourself high with integrity and self respect and never compromise your values you can trust each other absolutely. It’s the basis for everything else that defines your marriage.

Main Point-Your marriage and your life will be determined by the values each of you decide are important and give your attention to.

The question:  ”What are my 5 most important values?”

The Story: This might seem like a strange way to begin the 10 commandments of Marriage with, the idea of putting yourself first.

However, if you don’t know what you are all about, what you want from life and what you have to give to it, you won’t know what you have to give to your partner, your marriage, or yourself.

Consciously determining what those values are will set the tone of your entire life. Click to continue »