Get Your Eyes and Your Butt Back Over Your Own Fence- The Grass is Greener Where You Water it the Most

I don’t care who you are, people have wandering eyes. As American’s we are constantly fed a diet of “something is better over there and you need it now!”

“The living is better in that neighborhood” or “this car is the car that makes you somebody” are common pitches to our psyche’s almost everyday.

Guess what? This barrage of “don’t be satisfied with what you got” spills over into our marriages. “Why can’t my husband be like that?” “Why cant I have a wife like that, look at her, she’s all over him?”

How many times have I heard that as a counselor? How many times have I said something similar? I am embarrassed to say. If you are honest, you are probably there too.

This kind of mindset is an epidemic among us. Just look at our divorce rates all over the world. We want bigger and better to the point we kill ourselves trying to make enough money to get it and, we throw relatively good marriages to the curb because we think the grass is greener over there.

Research shows this is not the case. People are generally not any happier with their new lover 5 years down the road than they were with the one they had (spouse). Exceptions? Sure. The norm? Don’t buy the bull.

The fact is, I had to learn that if I wanted greener grass I had to stop looking over the fence. I had to start watering the grass God gave me and the grass I signed up for.

Soft, green lawns don’t get beautiful by neighbors peering over the fence. Admiration don’t get it done.

It takes somebody paying careful attention to it, almost daily.

It takes intentional attention.

It takes sweat and blood.

It takes financial investments.

It takes ongoing learning and study of nutrition and lawn diseases.

It takes being proactive- putting out the weed killer in the fall even when you cant see the weeds.

It means responding at the first sign of a problem.

It means showing up and walking around on your own lawn.

Get what I am saying? It’s really not that hard to have a good marriage. It simply takes focus, attention, investments and being a little proactive and reactive when needed. It takes refocusing on what’s most important, what you have- not what you could have.

I once told a couple: “Get your eye’s and your butt back over your own fence and get to work.” They did and with a little guidance, they are still together and have a good marriage. Maybe that’s what all of us need to hear from time to time.

What can you do today to help get your butt and eyes back over your fence?

Mitch

P.S.: Here’s another piece I wrote sometime back. It’s the Ten Best Pieces of Advice I can give your marriage. Hope it helps.

The Top Ten Secrets of Successful Couples
Successful couples are savvy. They gain marital success from reading books, attending seminars, browsing web articles and by just observing other successful couples. However, successful couples will tell you that they also learned by experience - by trial and error. Here’s some principles of success I have learned from working with and observing hundreds of couples over the past 23 years.

1. Happiness is not the most important thing. Everyone wants to be happy, but happiness will come and go. Successful couples learn to intentionally do things that will bring happiness back when life pulls it away.
2. Couples discover the value in just showing up. When things get tough and couples don’t know what to do, they need to hang in there and be there for their spouse. Time has a way of helping couples work things out by providing opportunities to even out stress and work out challenges.
3. If you do what you always do, you will get same result – which is the definition of stupidity. Wise couples have learned that you have to approach problems differently to get better results. Often it’s the minor changes in approach, attitude and actions that make the biggest difference in marriage.
4. Your attitude does matter. Changing behavior is important, but so is changing attitudes. Bad attitudes often drive bad feelings and actions.
5. Change your mind, change your marriage. How couples think and what they believe about their spouse affects how they perceive the other. What they expect and how they treat their spouse matters greatly.
6. The grass is greenest where you water it. Successful couples have learned to resist the grass is greener myth (someone else will make me happy). They have learned to put their energy into making themselves and their marriage better.
7. You can change your marriage by changing yourself. Veteran couples have learned that trying to change their spouse is like trying to push a rope - almost impossible. Often the only person we can change in our marriage is ourselves.
8. Love is a verb, not just a feeling. Everyday life rips away at the “feel good side of marriage.” Feelings, like happiness, will fluctuate. But real love is based on a couple’s vows of commitment: “For better or for worse” – when it feels good and when it doesn’t .
9. Marriage is often about fighting the battle between your ears. Successful couples have learned to resist holding grudges, bringing up the past, and remembering that they married an imperfect person – and so did your spouse.
10. A crisis doesn’t mean the marriage is over. Crisis are like storms: loud, scary and dangerous. But to get through a storm you have to keep driving. A crisis can be a new beginning. It’s out of pain that great people and marriages are produced.

Read my book. : ) These things are talked about there a great deal. .