Making Marriage Fun Again

I admit it.  I have been way too obsessed with the news coming out of Penn State.  I go from being sad to disgusted at the things I am hearing that were allowed to go on.

But one of the interesting things is that almost every player in this tragedy is a man.  All the coaching staff are men, all the University leaders that I’ve seen at least, were men.  The president is a man; all male leadership.  It smacks something of the “good old boy” system.  And it dawned on me would this have gone on so long, would the cover-up have lasted almost a decade, if there were women in these positions of leadership?  I guess we’ll never know.  But here’s my take-away.  Men need women in every strata of life; not just for marriage, and to bear children, but in leadership.

Could the conspiracy of secrecy been kept if there was a woman in the mix? Could the sensibility and the viewpoint of a woman have helped head off these sad tragedies?

To be sure, the cost that has been paid, and that will continue to be paid for this sad breakdown in leadership is beyond measure.  I just wonder if it would have been a different story if there were women speaking into these situations who had influence.

Men desperately need women in their lives. Guys, you need your wife.  You need her dissenting voice.  You need her disrupting viewpoint.  I know it may drive you crazy, but it just might save your life.

Paula and I just returned from a weeks long cruise.  We had a blast and while we were on the cruise, we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary.  It was a great time for us to take our “Making Marriage Fun Again” message to a larger audience.  It was also a great time to be together just the 2 of us.

Here’s what I learned on the cruise, “You either make time to be together and grow stronger or you’ll have to take the time to lose the most precious thing in your life through a messy, expensive divorce.  Or what is even worse than that, you’ll drift into apathy and mediocrity and spend the rest of your life in a loveless marriage!

Did we have the time to unplug from everyone and everything to go away? Yes, because I’ve learned that you make time for the things that are important to you.

Make time for each other!  Go to church together!  Go to the grocery together!  Sit out and drink coffee together!  If you make time to growing closer, you will reap the benefit of growing great together over time and marriage that grow great overtime change their family tree.