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Welcome to our blog! We are a husband & wife photography team based in Madison, Wisconsin who document weddings & anniversaries for joyful couples who believe in marriage. This blog is a journal about real love stories, marriage & our own adventures along the way. We are so glad you're here — please stay awhile!

MAISON      CALEB

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Teamwork and Tortilla Chips | Marriage Monday, July 2017.

July 23, 2017

Hey guys! Welcome to Monday — and specifically a Monday for a Marriage Monday Post! It’s officially my (Caleb) birthday week … it’s my golden birthday week to be exact (I’ll be 2…) and as the grey hairs continue to take over with every passing day, I figured this Monday would be a great opportunity to continue our Marriage Monday series! I’m getting wiser (I think) so that’s how I’m going to tie all this nonsense together ; )

ANYWAY! As you probably know, Maison and I are very passionate about pursing the freedom and truth that come from a marriage relationship and love this series dedicated to exploring some of the good, some of the bad, and some of the ugly that we’ve experienced in our own relationship, along with things we are learning as we grow!

Early in our marriage, we quickly realized that we had pretty unhealthy eating habits. As I do most of the cooking, we would rotate between a few easy meals, frozen pizza, waaaaaaay too many snacks (chips and salsa anyone?!) and going out to eat (especially at Chipotle) far more often than our budget allowed. We knew we needed to make a change. We tried multiple diets and exercise routines but nothing ever seemed to stick. It all felt like such hard work and we could never shake the cravings of food or notice any benefit from the work we were putting in.

The Lesson

Fast forward to this year and into a habit that has allowed us to come together as a team to develop eating habits that are healthy AND work for both Maison and I. When you get married, it can often be hard to break out from the way you used to do things and into a mindset of doing what is best for the marriage. It can be even harder when that thing is one of the things that your body needs to survive (aka eating)! We finally got to a point where we were just plain fed up with our progress in healthy eating (these are always the best and worst points, am I right?), so we sat down as a team and went over all of the things that worked or didn’t work for us, and things that we could and were willing sacrifice for each other.

And, it worked.

We finally had a plan that we felt good about! We decided to eat more vegetables by learning to cook good meals with them, start easy, and to limit the junk/unhealthy foods we had in our house! That’s it! We knew we both defaulted back to quick and easy (especially when things get busy!) so if quick/easy/unhealthy was available, well, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Other Lesson

For a month or so we were really doing well eating mostly vegetables and keeping the pizza, ice cream, and chips and salsa out of the cupboards. Then one day, a seemingly small decision derailed the whole thing. At the grocery store, I made an impulse decision to purchase chips and salsa. They were both on sale and I decided for myself that it would be okay to buy them. We could eat them as a special treat but it was a buy one get one free sale … so of course I got two of each! By the next day, Maison and I had eaten an entire bag of the chips and salsa.

I went shopping on Monday night and by Thursday all of the chips were gone.

Yum.

I bought them again.

This time, however, I was greeted with a, “You HAVE to stop buying tortilla chips!” And she was right. I was choosing to buy the chips outside of the commitment Maison and I had put in place together to stop having junk foods in our house.

I love this lesson. It has taught me so much over the course of a few short months.

  1. There are a lot of resources out there to help you/your marriage (and a lot of them claim to be the BEST way) but you should use them as a resource to help point you towards your personal goals as an individual and as a couple. You need to do what works for you and your unique personalities.
  2. If you and your spouse sit down and get honest about something you are both struggling with and make a commitment to help each other you with your goals, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish together. Stay committed.
  3. Pursing this goal together daily has brought us closer together overall as we have a shared goal, as small as it may be, to work towards together.

 

The best part is this concept can apply to anything. Not just food. It could be financial, spiritual, physical, and it could even be something as simple as not spending so much time in front of the TV. Anyone else have any recent successes or struggles with marriage goals? What things are you guys looking most forward to growing towards?

Have a great Monday!

-C

If you liked this post, you might like our Monthly Marriage Newsletter, designed to help couples engage in conversations about money, sex, conflict … and everything else married couples deal with ; ) You can sign up here!

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