by Zig Ziglar
Substantially relieved—but more puzzled than ever—I asked him to “explain” himself. His explanation was simple but it offers the solution to most marital problems today. He said, “You know, Zig, I discovered that if I was as thoughtful and considerate of my wife, that if I courted her as carefully, said and did as many nice things for her as I did for the ‘other’ girls, that I would have both pleasure and happiness at home.” He told me that the greatest thing in the world was to have someone exclusively for your own—to love, to trust, and to honor. To that I say, “Amen!”
That kind of love is demonstrated by a total, “blind” loyalty to your mate. I’m convinced that happiness, security, peace of mind, etc., are wrapped up in loyalty. My wife and I both feel that we would be completely miserable if there were any doubt about our total loyalty to each other.
Unfortunately, many husbands and wives are pleasant and considerate to associates, clerks, secretaries, postmen, and even strangers, but are often either short and abrupt with each other or take each other for granted. The question is, “Why?” I will attempt to answer the questions and offer some suggestions based on the wonderful years I’ve had with the beautiful woman God gave me to love and honor in 1946. She is the most important person in my life and we grow closer by the day. I mention this because I’m hopeful the thoughts I express will be meaningful to you and yours. It’s difficult to believe that any responsible married person can be fully effective or happy without a harmonious relationship with his or her mate.
Since the marriage is the family and the family is the foundation of this country, this chapter might well be the most important one in this book. (Dr. Paul Poponoe, in a Time magazine article said, “It can be demonstrated from history that no society has ever survived after its family life deteriorated.”) The way you see your mate, treat your mate, and get along with your mate is tremendously important. As a matter of fact, this relationship has more to do with your success and happiness than your relationship with any other person. How do you see your husband or your wife? How do you see each other as a couple? Or as a family?
My research, plus personal experience and observation, reveals three possible reasons for most marital difficulties. First, most husbands and wives, over a period of time, grow accustomed to having their mate around. They assume everything is fine and that the mate will always be with them. Obviously, they assume too much, because five marriages in ten end in divorce, while many other marriages exist in name only. Second, the environment in which we live feeds the problem. Many of our associates consider it corny or mushy to show genuine love and affection for their mates. Comedians and would-be comedians have a field day lambasting the institution of marriage, with special jabs reserved for the wife and mother-in-law. Third, the changing morality, which recognizes free love, trial marriages, extra-marital affairs, wife swapping, and the shedding of a mate for no reason other than boredom, breeds insecurity and uncertainty. There is even a movement underway for women to maintain their maiden name after marriage so if the couple is later divorced the wife won’t have so much “trouble” changing her bank accounts, credit cards, etc. Talk about planning for failure!
WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE?
Since love is the strong foundation upon which any good marriage is built, let’s look at love for a moment. Poets write about it, singers sing about it, everybody talks about it, and virtually everyone has his own idea of what it’s all about. This, obviously, includes me. The thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians gives a beautiful picture of what genuine love is really like. The Book of Proverbs teaches that love covers all sins. Jesus Christ said, “First love the Lord thy God, second love thy neighbor as thyself.” John 3:16 describes love at its infinite best. Psychologists and marriage counselors maintain that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother, and the most important thing a mother can do for her children is to love their father. They stress that children are much more secure if they know their parents love each other, even if that love is not extended to the child. This way the child feels mother and dad will be together to provide security and he will never have to face the trauma of having to choose between his parents.
In our generation we see love and sex mentioned in the same breath so often many think they are synonymous. Obviously, this isn’t so. Love is a completely unselfish feeling you have for another. Lust is totally selfish. Not once does the Bible put them together, but modern man, for selfish and commercial reasons, constantly makes the association. A moment’s reflection reveals the absurdity of this line of thought.
Despite the universal recognition of the importance of love (by theologians, scientists, and the man on the street), there is very little information on the subject of how to perpetuate a marriage which God proclaimed as the ideal man-woman relationship. Many couples who proclaim their undying love at the time they exchange their wedding vows are soon at each other’s throats. I’m personally convinced that many times their love in the beginning was genuine. However, love will die through neglect just as will a flower, tree, or bush.
It’s true, a happy marriage makes a better teacher, doctor, minister, coach, housewife, truck driver, secretary, salesman, etc. I also believe an unhappy marriage hampers the full efforts and productivity of each member of that marriage. George W. Crane, the eminent psychologist, says that love is nurtured by acts and expressions of love. I agree! Like sterling silver, love will tarnish unless it is polished with daily applications of interest, involvement, and expressions of love. Unfortunately, many couples take each other so much for granted that boredom, one of the greatest marriage killers of all, results.
HERE IS REAL LOVE
Dr. Crane explains that many times couples, after they reach an impasse, fall in love again. If they are morally responsible people who wish to save their marriage, they undertake a new courtship process as a feeling of responsibility. He points out that the responsibility of physically expressing and showing love will literally bring love into, or back into, their lives. Dr. Crane is telling us if we feed our love often enough, firmly enough, and long enough, the positive aspects of our marriage will grow stronger, while the negative aspects get weaker. I can enthusiastically “Amen” that statement. He asserted that physical expressions feed mental acceptance. Dale Carnegie says, “Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.” What I am really getting at is this: Act like you are in love by courting each other like you did before you married, and over a period of time you know you will be back in love.
My first exposure to married life at its most beautiful best came about many years ago in the front yard of my minister brother Huie’s home. Jewell, his childhood sweetheart who had been his wife for 33 years, was returning from a ten-day trip. She had been to Michigan City, Indiana, to be with their daughter to help with her first baby. This was the first time my brother and his wife had ever been separated. When Jewell got out of the car and started toward the house, my brother, having heard the car, quickly walked out the door. They met in the front yard, warmly embraced each other, and cried like babies as they expressed their love for each other—and their determination to never again be separated.
I’ll have to confess my eyes were leaking pretty badly, too, as I viewed real love spontaneously expressing itself. What a shame this scene between a little country preacher and his helpmate of all those years could not have been captured on film and piped into every home in America! How beautiful it would have been to let everyone see real love— love that had been born in adolescence, nurtured in young adulthood, matured in middle age, and reached its full and beautiful zenith in the golden years of life.
Real love is a growing and developing process that involves every emotion, problem, joy, and triumph known to man. It’s often harder than easy, more demanding than rewarding, more confining than freeing, and frequently involves more problems than pleasure. Such was the case with Huie and Jewell Ziglar. They started on a shoestring and often reached what ap
peared to be the end of their rope. When this happened—and happen it did—they just tied a knot at the end of that rope and held on. She bore his children, cooked and ironed for the family, and supported him with total faith and love in everything he did. He gave her his best—his all. He loved her, respected her, held her, and courted her like the “Jewell” she is. Five boys and a girl required lots of money, lots of time, and lots of loving discipline, but together, through their unshakable faith in Almighty God, they raised a beautiful family.
It would be an inspiration to anyone to watch the obvious love this devoted couple and the entire family had for each other. Never have I seen so much love or so much fun in one circle. No outside entertainment was necessary when the children and grandchildren got together. Huie took the floor and, even though I was supposed to be the word merchant in the Ziglar clan, I’ll be the first to admit when brother Huie started telling us about “Old Bullet,” his “talking” dog, I took a back seat. He entertained old and young alike by the hour. Through it all came the light of love shining like a beacon beckoning a bewildered world to re-explore its value system. It urges us to assume both the opportunity and responsibility God intended when He sanctioned the family as a unit and proclaimed that it was not good for man to be alone.
I’m convinced beyond any doubt that you truly can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. We all want to be genuinely loved as well as to have someone to love, don’t we?
THIS I BELIEVE
We often see or hear a love story advertised as “the most beautiful love story ever told.”Obviously all of those claims are not true, but just as obviously someone, somewhere at sometime has told or will tell the most beautiful love story ever told. However, I am totally convinced that the really beautiful love stories have never been and never will be told. They have been and will continue to be lived—and lived away from the printed page, the TV set, or the silver screen. The reason is simple. No husband and wife who deeply care for each other, who put their mate above anyone and everyone else, would ever dream of sharing the intimate details of their life and love. There is no way that a sensitive, loving husband or wife would consider revealing, to even one other person—much less the world—the countless ways they have of sharing with each other and showing to each other the depth of that love they feel. To do so would make an intimate, personal, and beautiful relationship a community or public property, which would degrade and make common a relationship which God has decreed as holy. True love is truly beautiful and very private.
By now you know I’m one of these old-fashioned guys who believes in God, family, and country, and those vows—for better or worse—are not just words. They are opportunities to stay and grow together. Just as fine steel can be truly tempered only with the use of heat and cold, and highways can only be made safe by adding hills, valleys, and curves, so must love and marriage be built in the crucible of trials and tribulations. That’s why it’s so distressing to see young men and women flaunt the laws of God with trial marriage or communal living. Or, for that matter, calling it quits at the first straw in the windstorm before they have time to know each other, much less to love each other. They have no concept of what love between two responsible people is all about. They haven’t learned to differentiate between love and sex—they can be in the same ball park or two entirely different ones. When sex is a manifestation of love and consummated in holy matrimony, it is truly beautiful and as God intended. When it is an expression of lust, it is animalistic and selfish.
Love—contrary to what the poet and the TV writer might say—is not an instant emotion. Personally, I was attracted to my beautiful redhead the first time I saw her. I thought I loved her during our courtship and early years of our marriage, but to be completely honest, I didn’t know what real love was until after we had been married over 25 years. As we head for another wedding anniversary on November 26th, that love is still growing daily. She is far and above the most beautiful, most fascinating and exciting woman I have ever seen. When I have a choice of spending time with her or with anyone else, she wins every time.
This is not to imply that we agree on everything because we don’t. Nor does it mean there are no arguments because there are. It does mean there is never any maliciousness or bitterness in our differences. It does mean each is willing to admit a mistake and apologize if he or she is wrong. It means we enjoy each other and love each other enough to put the other one first. We never part company or go to sleep without settling our differences and reaffirming our love. We’re both grateful that God has let us spend enough years together to develop a relationship and discover what real love is all about. Our prayer is that God will permit us to have many more years together before we start our walk though eternity—together.
SOME SOUND ADVICE FOR HUSBAND AND WIFE
Let’s look at a step-by-step procedure we can follow in building or rebuilding a happy marriage.
Remember what you did before you married each other? Remember how you kept your best foot forward at all times, showed your best side, were on good behavior, were thoughtful, courteous, considerate, and kind? That is an excellent procedure to make certain your marriage stays solid. Even if it is in trouble at the moment, you can bring it back to its original bloom and even add a depth, commitment, and beauty to the marriage that adds greater meaning to the relationship.
In her beautiful little book Moments With Mary, Mary Crowley points out that marriage is not a 50/50 proposition, it is a 100%/100% proposition. Husbands give 100% to the marriage and wives do the same.
Start and end every day with a declaration of love for your mate, and during that day, if it’s feasible, take three minutes to telephone just to chat and express your love. After all, the best time to express love for your mate is before someone else does. Occasionally drop a “love letter” in the mail. It’s a small investment with great rewards.
Surprise him or her with an occasional gift or card. It obviously isn’t the gift itself, but the thought behind the gift. As Sir Lancelot said, “The gift without the giver is bare.” Another poet expressed it rather eloquently when he said, “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only true gift is a portion of one’s self.”
Spend some QUALITY time together. Remember how you courted each other so avidly, and how you had so much time just for courting before marriage? Repeat the process. Go for a walk or simply turn off the TV and make your mate feel as if he or she is the most important person in your life. He or she is, whether or not you realize it at this moment.
Be a good listener. As a wise man once said, “Talking is sharing but listening is caring.” Listen to the myriad details and small talk that make up your mate’s day. Always remember that duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully. I emphasize again that what occasionally starts out as duty turns into complete love. Interestingly enough, you will be amazed at how exciting some of those details can be.
Don’t make your husband or wife compete with the kids for your attention. Reserve time just for him or her.
When you disagree, remember you can disagree without being disagreeable. However, you must never go to sleep at night with unresolved differences. You will not sleep as well, and these differences will settle into both of your subconscious minds and will be a recurring source of problems. You can be honest and yet sensitive to each other.
Remember that every organization, whether it’s an athletic team, a small business, a major corporation, or a family, needs a leader who can be depended on to make the difficult decisions. God has decreed that man is to be the head of the house, but He also makes it very clear that we are to submit to each other as husband and wife. Submission is not an indication of weakness, and certainly not of inferiority. Scripture says rather that one marriage partner demonstrates love for the other by yielding to his or her mate. In 1 Peter 3:7, God tells us, “Husbands, likewise deal with them {wives} with understanding, gi
ving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.”
Two things: First of all, “weaker” does not mean “lesser.” In the context in which it is used in the referenced scripture, it means God created women to be weaker than men physically, but they are also more gracious, understanding, kind, gentle, compassionate, and loving than their counterparts, certainly all strong and powerful qualities. The Bible makes it crystal clear that if the husband wants his prayers answered, he must deal kindly and gently with his wife as being an heir with him to the grace of life itself. It makes it clear that if the husband acts otherwise, he can forget having his prayers answered. The Bible also says that we are to love our wives as Christ loved the church, and gave His life for the church. Thus far, I’ve never yet met a wife who would not be delighted to have that kind of husband.
In Ephesians 5:22-24, we read, “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the church, and He is the Savior of the Body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in everything.” Then the next verse, Ephesians 5:25, puts it all in beautiful perspective: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word.” Then in the 28th verse Paul points out that husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies, and “he who loves his wife loves himself.” In short, the husband must remember that he can fill his role with love and kindness. We also need to remember that God took woman from under Adam’s arm, and not from his head, so she could rule over him; not from his foot, so he might trample her. He took her from his side, from a secure and protected position so husband and wife can walk down life’s pathway together. That is what a beautiful marriage is all about. Is it easy? No. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it rewarding? Definitely.