In Pursuit

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.” -Pliny the Elder

One of the biggest changes we have made in our marriage over the past 6 years in our pursuit of one another. It isn’t that we intentionally stopped pursuing each other…it just kinda stopped. The thrill of the chase faded. The romance of our relationship went away. Neither of us felt like a priority. We were obligations. No one gets married to be an obligation. What do you do when your marriage doesn’t have the charm it used to have?

Pursue. Start pursuing. If you aren’t pursuing your spouse…something or someone is. Work. Facebook. Friends. A lady at the office. A guy at the gym. A mediocre marriage. Something is pursuing.

Where do you start? Here are three things that have worked for me to pursue Trisha. (Ladies, Trisha will be speaking to you later this week.)

-Write a note. You remember notebook paper? Not an email…a note. Like you did when you were in college. Remember the poems you used to write her? Remember how special she felt when you bought her a card for no reason and wrote a note inside of it? What if you wrote her a note and left it next to the coffee pot before you go to work? What if you put a note on the front seat of her car? What if you stopped on your way home from work and got her a card and gave it to her when you got home?

-Send a text message. Not a picture of yourself without your shirt…a thoughtful text message. For the first 10 years of our marriage, every time Trisha would call me during the work day, I would make her feel like she was interrupting me. I would be short with her on the phone; act like I had more important things to do; or return email or type while she was talking. It was the opposite of pursuit. If you take the time during the day to send your wife a text that tells her that you are thinking about her, the words will probably mean less than the time you took to send it. She will feel pursued.

-Scripture on the mirror. There are times that I feel prompted to share a verse of Scripture with Trisha. One of the things that I have done for a while now is writing the scripture out on her bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker. It takes very little time, but what it communicates to my wife can’t be measured. As you lead your wife spiritually, she will feel pursued by you emotionally.

These are 3 ways that I have learned to pursue my wife…what would you add to the list? Help some brothers out!