It's been decades, but I can still close my eyes and hear my mother saying, "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well."

If I keep my eyes closed, more of those sayings come to mind, bits of advice that were repeated over and over during my growing up years. I can see my mother's face and I can hear her voice clearly in my mind.

Now, with all due respect to mothers everywhere, and with a certainty that they were giving us what they thought was good advice, let us just say that some of these tried and true sayings are just are not always true.

Though they are well-known clichés, they aren't the best way to approach today's world:

1. "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well"

Not always. In fact, there are a lot of things that need to be done but aren't worth killing ourselves over. Things that are done better if done with a short cut, like cleaning. Does your house have to be totally spotless every minute of every day? Does every little routine task at the office have to be done perfectly? If old friends are coming over, do you have to feed them a gourmet meal? Do you have to get your car detailed and perfectly clean every time it gets a bit dirty? There are situations where going above and beyond is asking too much.

How about a little balance and the ability to differentiate the important from the urgent? Revising the saying just a little means we can help put our lives in perspective: "If a thing is just barely worth doing, then just barely do it."

2. "Never put off till tomorrow, that which you can do today"

Actually, deliberate, selective procrastination is a necessary skill. Every day, there are things we planned to do that get replaced by more important things. Being good at deciding what you can put off and what you can't is a real attribute. You may have planned to go to the store to pick up eggs, but then the afternoon turned windy and your child begs you to fly a kite with him. You still could go to the store today, but you decide the kite and your son are more important, so you reschedule the errand for tomorrow.

Every time we make a list of our "to dos" there will be things to push to tomorrow. That's OK. Do you really want your life measured by whether or not you crossed every single thing off your list each day? Relationships, moments with loved ones and spontaneous adventures are all reasons to reschedule your schedule. Perhaps a better saying would be "Always put off a put-off-able task in favor of a now-or-never."

3. "Some things are better left unsaid"

There is certainly some truth to this one but there is still a communication problem. Way too much goes unsaid these days. Way too many feelings get bottled up and way too many marriage simply end because too much was left unsaid. Of course there is a right way and a right time to say things, and "biting your tongue" now and then is a good thing, but in real and valued relationships, we need to find a way to say more, not less.

An updated version to keep in mind might be, "Unexpressed feelings never die, they just get buried and come forth later in uglier forms."

4. "Don't just sit there, do something!"

Of course, our moms wanted us to be active and not to not waste time, but today, we live in a world where there is too much action and not enough quiet stillness. Perhaps we value action too highly and meditation and peace not highly enough. In this fast paced and competitive time we live in, there's a need for a saying to give us some stillness.

"Don't just do something, sit there"-sit there and think, sit there and meditate, sit there and plan, sit there and ask yourself the question "what really matters?" is more appropriate in today's world.

So moms, you who raised us, you who advised us, you who loved us-we love you, and we respect you and value all that you taught us ... but on just a few of the old sayings, we beg to differ, at least a little bit. We craft our own new clichés to fit the needs and challenges we face now. We hope that you, wherever you are, are OK with that.

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Going on an effective diet can be one of the best gifts we can give to our sweethearts (or to our children and our spouse)-it is the gift of a longer and better life together. Today we want to add a little to this thought in the form of what we now call...

The Sweetheart Diet, aka "The Cruise Ship Diet."

Talk about an oxymoron! Has anyone ever lost weight on a cruise ship?

Actually yes, someone has! We'll tell you who later.

Surveys show that the average person on a two-week cruise gains 14 pounds!* (an average of a pound a day!) It is the perfect environment for weight gain. Food everywhere, huge dining rooms and buffet lines, long hours at sea with nothing to do but eat, limited time and opportunity for exercise. There couldn't be a worse place to diet, right?

And having paid a lot for the cruise, people feel they need to eat a lot to get their money's worth.

But when you think about it, our normal everyday life has become a lot like a cruise ship. Food is so plentiful and available and cheap and fast. We are surrounded by food whether we are in our homes or driving down the street. It takes time to exercise-but not to eat! We can grab food fast, almost anywhere. Since time is scarce, we eat faster, but we don't eat less.

In the three earlier Sweetheart Diet columns in this series, we made the case that "portion control" is the key. Our basic premise there, and of Richard's new book The Half Diet Diet is that it is not so much about what we eat as it is about how much of it we eat; and the metaphor is that we need to bridle our appetites much as we bridle a horse to make it serve us rather than run away with us.

And the incentive and motivation for sticking with the discipline in eating and exercising that the diet requires comes from the fact that you are doing it as a gift to your sweetheart-the best gift there is to the person you love most! We thought that a cruise would be in line both with the "sweetheart" idea (we needed and wanted a second honeymoon) and with an acid test of whether the diet can work in the hardest dieting environment on the planet!

So, getting to the point about the cruise: by coincidence, we were scheduled to speak on a cruise in the South Pacific in early January, just at the same time that our diet book was being published. Someone suggested that if we really wanted to test the viability of the diet and the "four habits" that it suggests, we should try to implement them on the cruise. "Give it the acid test," our friend said, "if it works on a cruise, it will work anywhere."

So we did. For the 13 days we were on that floating food court, we practiced:

• the water habit (drinking a glass of water before each meal or snack);

• the slow habit (eating small bites, and setting the fork down and smelling, sipping, savoring and swallowing each bite before picking up the fork again for the next bite);

• the exercise habit (20 minutes of aerobic exercise every day-these ships do have pretty good gyms);

• the ultimate half habit of splitting everything we were served into two halves and then only eating one of them.

Maybe we were only able to do it with consistency because we had told the people we were traveling with what we were doing, and they came around to our table at every meal like clockwork to check on us and see whether we were actually eating only half of the food on our plates.

And guess what, it worked! Instead of putting on 13 or 14 pounds, we each lost a few pounds, and what we gained was an increased confidence that we can keep on doing it. We actually said to ourselves, many times, "if we can do this on a cruise ship, we can do it everywhere."

The only thing we lack, now that we are off of the boat, is all those folks checking on us and keeping us monitored and motivated.

So perhaps we can re-commit ourselves by telling you, our readers, right here in this FamilyShare column, that we are going to stick with this eat-half diet. And in the days and weeks ahead, either in reality or in our imagination, you might run into us in a restaurant or a food court or even in an airport-and you might be checking to see if we practice what we preach. And that very possibility might motivate us to keep working at it and to keep feeling as great as we always do when we just eat half.

Join us! If you do it right you will actually enjoy the half you do eat more than you used to enjoy the whole thing. And remember, it's for your sweetheart, and either now or in the future, for your spouse and your kids!

Good luck!

Note: This is the fourth and final article in the "Sweetheart Diet" series. Read part one, part two. and part three here.

The post Losing weight for your sweetheart with the ‘Cruise Ship Diet’ appeared first on FamilyToday.

There was widespread interest in our previous article about starting a more logical and practical diet for the benefit of our spouses or sweethearts. It seems that a straightforward diet based on simply reducing the quantity of food you eat has a lot of appeal; and doing it for the one you love most is a greater motivation than doing it for yourself.

Too often, dieting is thought of only as a health issue, and people's incentive is about themselves and their desire to feel better, live longer, and look like they want to look. These are pretty powerful motivations, but usually not powerful enough to reach weight loss goals or to keep weight off once it is lost. And there is a stronger incentive-love! When you undertake a difficult diet and when you do it as a gift to the person you love most-you have maximum motivation. And the best and most natural kind of diet to use is not some complicated or expensive or fad-of-the-month plan, but a simple commitment to eat only half of each meal and to only snack between meals on fruits or vegitables.

The best metaphor for this type of disciplined "portion control" form of dieting is the act of bridling a head-strong and powerful horse so that you can control him rather than him controlling you. If we can learn to bridle our appetites and gain enough control that we can stop halfway through a meal-half of what we normally would eat-we gradually begin to train our appetites to seek quality food rather than quantity, and our enjoyment in eating goes up even as the amount we eat goes down.

As we were thinking about it after that first article, we happened to listen to an episode of the Diane Rehm Show on NPR on which four scientists concluded that getting more fruit and vegetables, along with reducing the amount of food people eat, is the most effective way of losing weight and keeping it off and can have a powerful effect on preventing disease and living longer lives.

But here is the problem: it's so much easier to say it than to do it.

Most people know if they could just limit their intake by half - if they could eat only half of each meal and only snack between meals on fruit or vegetables - they would lose weight and feel stronger and healthier. And they know they should become masters of their appetites rather than slaves to them. And they know that losing weight and feeling better would be the best gift they could give to their spouses and children.

But appetites are strong - very strong. And denying oneself food, or stopping eating before feeling full, is very hard indeed.

The first article in this mini-series suggested the approach of simply eat half of each meal and to bridle appetites until eating half becomes a habit.

Just trying to instantly adopt the eat-half habit is extremely difficult, but there are two "pre-habits" we can develop first which help prepare to put our appetite more under control so we can reach the eat-half habit.

Think of these two pre-habits as the bridle that controls the horse of appetite:

1. The water habit

Commit yourself to drinking a tall glass of water immediately before every meal. This will partially fill your stomach, take the edge off your hunger and make it easier to eat only half of your usual meal. Extend the water habit by also taking a drink of at least a cup of water before snacking or eating anything between meals.

Dr. Noall Wolff, who wrote the preface for our new book "The Half-Diet Diet," tells us that few Americans drink enough water and that many are chronically dehydrated without even knowing it. As a byproduct of helping you eat half, the water habit will keep you hydrated.

2. The slow habit

Forming patterns that help you eat more slowly and deliberately will make the eat-half habit easier. Start by taking smaller bites. Big, full-mouth bites can smother your taste buds and actually make food less enjoyable. Small bites and slower chewing and swallowing allow you to taste your food more and can make your food taste better. We need to quit the gulping, gorging and guzzling of gluttony and start the smelling, sipping and savoring of a more sensory and artistic form of eating.

A simple way to get into this habit is to put your fork down on the table between each of your small bites. As you are chewing and savoring a bite, instead of heaping up your fork with your next bite, set it down until you swallow. Then pick it up and arrange your next small bite.

Once you feel you have mastered the water habit and the slow habit, you are prepared to make a serious attempt at the eat-half habit. When you are ready, set up a check-off calendar and see how many days in a row you can observe the water habit, the slow habit and the eat-half habit. Once you reach 21 straight days, you will have officially gained three new habits that can benefit you, your sweetheart (or your spouse and your children) for the rest of your life.

Watch for the next article in this series which will outline an easier way to approach the one other essential element in the "for your sweetheart diet"-the oft-dreaded element of exercise.

Note: This is the second of four articles in the "Sweetheart Diet" series. Read part one and part three here.

The post The very best gift to your one and only: a new, slimmer you appeared first on FamilyToday.

When we diet for our families, the purpose is to get ourselves in better shape so we can be the best spouses to our husbands or wives and the best parents to our children.

"All you need is love" might be the mantra for the new "eat-half" diet. By undertaking disciplined eating for your sweetheart instead of doing it for yourself, you increase your chance of success.

But the Half Diet Diet will still not reach its full potential for taking weight off and keeping it off unless one more habit is added, and that habit is-you guessed it-the exercise-habit. We are in Australia as we write this article, and it seems like the perfect setting. Are there any people in the world more active, more into fitness, and more outdoorsy than Ausies? We doubt it.

And the fact is that while putting less (and better) food into your body is going to make your body work better, you still have got to make your body work!

Should it be a chore, a task, a constant struggle to force this work to happen-to force your body to exercise? Does it have to be something you hate doing but keep motivating yourself to do anyway for your own good, like taking cod liver oil?

No! Exercising, like eating, should be one of the natural and simple and pure joys of life. It should feel good while you're doing it as well as when you're through, and it should be a way of rewarding yourself, not a way of punishing yourself.

The key is to find a form of exercise that you love, one that makes your body smile while it's sweating out that pore-cleaning water and pumping those endorphins around through your expanded lungs and your healthier cardiovascular system.

For me, Richard, it's tennis. It used to be basketball, but now it's tennis: hard tennis singles, without breaks between games, so that it's aerobic. For my, Linda, it's the bike: the road bike if the weather is good, the stationery one at home if it's not. For one of our daughters, it's running; for another daughter, it's hiking. For a good friend, it's the aerobic yoga class at the gym that has a good nursery for her two preschoolers. For another friend, it's the StairMaster while he reads the morning paper every day. For yet another friend, it's early-morning lap swimming.

What we're saying here is simply that you've got to find or develop a physical passion of some kind-a form of exercise that you love. You don't need to instantly love it. It can take a little time to get into something, to get good enough at it that it's enjoyable, and to get hooked on the way it makes you feel. If you don't know what your physical passion might be, start trying things until you find one.

The point is that we all need an "output" to go with our improved "input." Disciplining ourselves with regard to input into our bodies-less and better food, eaten more slowly, and more water-has to be accompanied and enhanced by the passion and rigor of the output of our exercise. One side is working on the quality and quantity of the calories we put in, and the other side is developing the most enjoyable and beneficial way of burning and sweating them out!

The very best kind of exercise habit is one you can enjoy with your family. Families who have a favorite sport, one that they enjoy together, gain the win-win, double benefit of physical improvement and emotional improvement. It's all been said before: "The family that plays together stays together."

If you are a skier, you will be motivated to get more in shape and stay in shape for skiing with year-around exercises or a ski-like elliptical machine. If you are a tennis family (like we are) you will play more often with others to become better for when you play with your family. If you run together with your sweetheart, swim together, hike together, bike together-whatever it is, it will help you both with your exercise habit and with your family's communication habit.

Then, put these good habits together with the water habit, the slow habit, and the eat-half habit from articles one and two-and you will find that all these positive addictions will begin to work together for the benefit of your partner, your lover, your sweetheart as well as the benefit of your body!

_Note: This is the third of four articles in the "Sweetheart Diet" series. Read part one and part two.

The post Losing weight for your spouse or sweetheart appeared first on FamilyToday.

Note: If you are a man, read every "him" in this article as "her."

There are a lot of gifts you can give to the one you love most, but perhaps there is none greater than a better version of yourself. You've already given yourself to him; now, how about giving yourself again but better? How about giving him a new, improved, healthier version of yourself in 2016?

If you give your spouse a fitter, healthier you, you are giving him the gift of more quantity and quality of time with you. You will live longer and help him to live longer. You will live better and help him to live better.

You may think you can't do it. But you can because there is a secret about true love that is also the key to a healthy lifestyle: there are things you lack the discipline to do for yourself that you can find the strength to do for him.

If you believe that, read on because we are going to tell you exactly how to do it.

First, you should know we have been long-time critics of fad diets-the kind of weight-loss programs that come and go; the kind where you count everything from calories to carbs to proteins and take all the pleasure out of eating; the kind where you lose a few pounds, then promptly gain them back.

We have found what matters more than just a weight-loss program is to truly understand our appetites and our capacity to love.

We have always liked the appetite metaphor of a horse that needs to be controlled with a bridle. In this view of things, appetites are not inherently bad or ugly, and neither are they things we want to overcome or get rid of. Rather, they are things of great beauty but so strong that they can hurt us if we do not channel and control their power with a "bridle."

You don't curse the horse or kill it. You appreciate it and control it in a way for it to serve you and bring you joy. Appetites are the same.

At its best, your food-appetite (far from being your enemy) can be the sensor that tells you what your body needs. Your appetite probably isn't doing that for you right now because you've messed it up a bit. But you can fix it to where the things that sound, look, smell and taste the best to you actually are the best for you. So the basics of this new way of living is that our appetites are good, our senses are good, the earth is good and natural food in variety is good.

Our philosophy is to eat what you want, but only eat half of it (half of your normal portion, half of what your appetite wants). Along with eating only half as much, eat twice as slow. Take smaller bites, set your fork down in between bites, savor, sip and smell instead of gulping, guzzling and gorging. It turns out eating half as much, twice as slow takes the same amount of time, and you end up enjoying it more!

Our observation and theory is Americans eat about twice as much as they need. The job of our food-appetites is to get enough nutrients into our bodies, and the way our appetites go about their jobs is to give us the urge to eat until we consume enough food to give our bodies adequate nourishment. Your appetite doesn't care if you are eating junk food so long as it gets you to eat large enough quantities to get the nutrients.

Interestingly, by controlling the quantity of food we eat, we also begin to control the quality. As we discipline the size of our portions and as the appetite finds it can't change those quantities, its only other option for getting the nutrients it needs is to demand higher quality. So, if we stick to the half-portions, vegetables and fruits and other wholesome foods begin to look better and better to us, while junk food gradually loses its appeal.

There is a little more to it than that like drinking a tall glass of water before each meal and finding a type of daily exercise you enjoy, but the basic core of what we believe will get you healthy is to simply eat half of 3 meals a day and to have no snacks in between other than fruit or vegetables.

Now is a great time to begin because the number one New Year's resolution every year is to be healthier. And, if you have tried it before but failed; or, if you have lost weight, but gained it back; you may need a new approach-something simpler and something you can sustain over weeks, months and even years.

And now we get back to the suggestion of doing it as a gift for your spouse. It is hard to eat slowly when you feel hungry, and it is very hard to stop when you have eaten half of a meal. Many who have tried to do this for themselves find they simply don't have the ongoing motivation to do it.

So, the thing to do is ask yourself a simple question: Who do you love more than yourself? Hopefully the answer is your spouse. Reframe your reasons and your motivation for wanting to get healthy. You are doing it for him. Simply try to remember you are doing it for the one you love most and also for your present or future children. As you think of it in that way, you will find you can do it and that it gradually becomes a habit-a good habit that can save your life and be the greatest gift to those you love.

The post Give your spouse a new, healthier you in 2016 appeared first on FamilyToday.

It seems like every time we turn on the TV, day or night, we are bombarded with advertisements for prescription drugs! While we are grateful that doctors and scientists have given up big portions of their lives to help us feel better, the list of potential side effects can be staggering.

Can you believe what they say might happen to you if you take the drug they are advertising? Rapid heart, muscle weakness, disorientation, suicidal thoughts, strange dreams, constipation, paralysis, even possible death!

But to parents, some of those side effects sound strangely familiar.

The more we listen, the more it seems that many of them are also apt descriptions of the side effects of parenting. I (Linda) went to the website of just two of the prescriptions that I was aware of and calculated.

Some of the side effects from those prescription meds match pretty well with the possible side effects of those sometimes wild, weary, and worrisome days of raising children.

The lists included more than two dozen side effects, such as headaches, trouble sleeping, back pain, heartburn, anxiety, confusion and indigestion.

The last few side effects are some of the most interesting of all: "quick to overreact emotionally, voice changes, irritability" and, best of all, "euphoria."

Let's talk about that last one for a minute. It seems that just when you are the most exasperated, especially with little children, they come back with something that makes you feel almost euphoric - like maybe you've taught them something after all.

We remember our daughter telling us a story about her oldest son when he was about 5 years old. He was dawdling over his lunch, as always, and she was frustrated, trying to get him to finish his peanut butter and jelly sandwich so she could clean up the lunch.

She said, "Ashton, here is a chocolate chip cookie, which you can have after you finish your sandwich. If you don't hurry, I'm going to be tempted to eat it myself." Several minutes later, with Ashton still dawdling, she got a little more impatient and said, "Ashton, I am so tempted to eat your chocolate chip cookie!" Undaunted, he replied, "You won't eat my cookie, mom. Just believe in yourself!"

Anxiety, irritability, euphoria. We get them all with kids.

Of course, there are problems that are a lot bigger than peanut butter sandwiches, and that also produce those side effects listed, including potty training, screaming, bullies, violin lessons and teenagers with minds of their own.

And contrary to what some believe, the problems don't end when children fly away from the nest. When people ask us how our children, who have now all left home, are doing, we always reply, "They are all just great except the ones who are in crisis this week!"

Those side effects of parenthood hold true when grown children are struggling with homesickness at college, finding the right person to marry, getting a job, losing a job, miscarriages, troubled children of their own, and complicated health issues.

But even then there are also periods of euphoria when they do get a job, even if it's not what they had in mind. There is euphoria when they say they have found the perfect person to marry and don't want a big reception, or that they are going to have twins.

Parenting is the hardest thing we do, and the most joyful. The side effects are dramatic, and they change us in fundamental ways. Parenting is life's greatest adventure and introduces us to "symptoms" we never dreamed of.

But those euphoric moments make all the other side effects worth it.

Part of this article was originally published in the Deseret News. It has been republished here with permission.

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Things have changed a lot during the 35 years we have been writing and speaking about marriage, parenting and families. It used to be that we could assume the majority of people wanted to be married, wanted to make a total commitment to that marriage, wanted children and wanted to prioritize those children and raise them responsibly.

Today, however, we sadly can no longer make these assumptions in many places we go.

Across much of the world, the trends that discourage happy family life have become so dramatic that majorities have turned into minorities and minorities have turned into majorities. Here are some of the turning points society has taken that we have documented in our new book "The Turning":

In terms of wanting to be married

• For the first time in our history, the majority of adults in the U.S. are single.

• Only 25 percent of 20- to 29-year-olds are married today compared with 70 percent of the same age group in 1960.

• In many major world cities, many households are now occupied not by a family or even by a couple but instead by a single individual.

In terms of wanting to make a total commitment to marriage

• Far more couples now move in together in cohabitation than in marriage.

• More than half of U.S. marriages now end in divorce. Similar percentages apply in most Western countries.

In terms of wanting children

• "Having a family" is no longer the stated goal of the majority in many countries.

• The majority of women between 20 and 40 in some Asian countries now say they do not want kids.

In terms of both parents wanting to prioritize children and raise them responsibly

• In the Western world, more children are now born out of wedlock than to married parents.

• 70 percent of African-American children and 50 percent of Hispanic children in the U.S. are raised in a home without their father.

As our culture overemphasizes career achievement and the personal freedom of keeping all options open, and as it becomes exponentially harder to raise children, more and more people are turning away from traditional family ideals and aspirations.

And, the question is: If families no longer fulfill the essential functions of (1) procreation, (2) raising the next generation of responsible citizens and (3) giving children the unconditional love and sense of identity they need, what other element or institution of society can accomplish those things?

But before we all get too discouraged and decide the world is doomed, consider some positive signs that actually indicate the pendulum is swinging back and families are getting stronger in some ways:

Greater focus on parenting

Most parents seem to be thinking and working harder at parenting more than ever before. "Parenting," a verb we didn't even use a generation ago, is becoming something of an art, science and skill set people work on.

More involved dads

Dads are more involved than ever before, taking more interest in their kids and forming parenting partnerships with their wives.

Higher education

Data show the more educated people are, the more likely they are to get married, stay married and adopt a stable family lifestyle. People with higher education generally set the trends for the rest of the population.

So, there is a lot to be concerned about in today's world when it comes to marriage, families and the destiny of our children, BUT there are some optimistic signs that more and more people are realizing that a married, committed, family-centric life is not only the right way to live but also the happiest and most fulfilling way.

The post A brief (and disturbing) history of marriage appeared first on FamilyToday.

Editor's Note: This is the third installment in a three part series on Commitment. Click here for the preface to this series, here for article 1 and here for article 2

Singer John Legend was the commencement speaker at our son's recent graduation from U Penn, and he talked about his song "All of me." It is a song about the magic of commitment, where "All of me loves all of you."

But before we get to that, here is a quick overview of this series for you who have been following it or those who may want to go back and catch up.

The first article or preface was about Marriage as the deliberate trading away of independence for something better - interdependence.

The first article of the trilogy was about Marriage as Synergy.

Part two of the trilogy was about Marriage as Adventure.

And this article, part three, is about Marriage as Magic.

Of course marriage can be thought of as a responsibility, which it certainly is. It can be thought of as a duty and as a sacrifice and as a challenge too, all of which would be accurate. And these words would also be fitting descriptions for the children and family that usually come with marriage.

But if those were the only contexts for marriage, we might miss the most important and the most fantastic aspects of what it is and what it can be. We might miss the "all of me loves all of you" part, and we might miss the magic of knowing Marriage as synergy! Marriage as Adventure! Marriage as the ultimate security and joy!

We knew a very successful coach who seemed to somehow be able, every season, to create a winning team out of mediocre talent. When we asked him how he did it, he said, "It's all about the commitment!" Commitment, in his mind, meant loyalty and teamwork and unwavering determination. Total commitment, he told us, was much more rare than talent. Commitment meant you never gave up, no matter what the score, no matter how long the odds. Commitment meant you cared more about the team than about yourself.

To that coach, courage and risk and devotion and determination were all manifest in the concept of commitment. It was what got you through tough situations. It was what freed you from doubt and from second-guessing. It was what made you "all in" and banished any thought that perhaps this was not the right game or the right team for you.

It can be the same in marriage. Once there is the total commitment of marriage, things become much more simple and much more positive. When disagreements happen, you just do what you have to do to work through them. There is no thought of jumping ship or second-guessing about whether you knew each other well enough before marriage. Total commitment is unquestioned, and it is so strong that it makes mow-hills out of what could otherwise be mountains.

When marriage is built on total commitment - when we absolutely mean our vows of "in sickness and in health," "in easy times and hard," life takes on a certain purpose and clarity. Bailing out or giving up is never an option, so you don't waste time or mental energy contemplating it. You just work through things, believing in each other and believing in your commitment.

Don't fall into the trap of saying you don't need some ceremony or some ink stains on a piece of paper to prove your commitment. Don't look for ways to commit without formalities and rings and vows. Instead look for more of these symbols to safeguard and solidify your commitment. Marriage is the ultimate manifestation of commitment!

And there is a certain magic in this kind of total "never-look-back" commitment. It makes you strong. It makes you resilient. It frees up your mind and your heart to know things and feel things you couldn't access without it. And it allows you to give your partner the greatest gift and the most profound security imaginable - the gift of yourself and the security of knowing that you will always be hers - only hers, and she will always be yours - only yours.

Paraphrasing the words of John Legend's song:

I love all of you"¦.I love your edges, your imperfections, your craziness, all of you, all in, always. You're my end and my beginning, even when I lose I'm winning. The world is beating you down, I'm around through every mood. My head's under water but I'm breathing fine 'cause I give you all of me and you give me all of you.

That is magic!

The post The magic of total commitment appeared first on FamilyToday.

Editor's Note: This is the second article in a three part series on Commitment. Click here for the preface to this series, and here for article one. Watch Family Share over the next few days for part three.

One of he most frequent reasons we hear from the Millennial generation for wanting to avoid marriage or at least delay it for a long time is that they still want excitement, independence, freedom and adventure in their lives.

We tried to dispel the freedom and independence arguments in the preface and the first article of this trilogy. In this one we want to take on the excitement and adventure reasoning.

So let's just hit it head on and say that while sky diving or kite surfing or traveling the globe might seem adventurous and exciting, they pale almost into insignificance when compared to the ultimate adventure of marriage and the incomparable excitement of bringing a child into the world.

We know that everyone has their own timing and that there is no one-size-fits-all formula for marriage and family. We are all unique and "our way" is not necessarily the best way for you.

But adventure? Excitement? Deliberately making the commitment of marriage is like jumping off a cliff. The risk and the rush of it is breath taking. And fighting through the inevitable differences and difficulties is the challenge of a lifetime with potential rewards that outshine any gold medal.

The irony is that many are avoiding marriage today because they think it will be dull. Ask 100 married people if marriage is dull and see if you can find one who says it is. Hard? Yes! Often unpleasant? Yes! Containing doubts and a certain amount of second-guessing? Yes! But dull? Never!

Family life, particularly with kids, is like surfing a wave. Sometimes you wipe out, and even when you do ride one, there is constant adjusting and weight shifting and rebalancing. You are always in danger of hitting something or losing the curl. But when you catch a perfect wave, and the pipeline opens up and its just you and the energy of the ocean, it makes it all worth it and you are up at dawn the next morning to have the adventure again because there is always the unknown and no two days and no two waves are the same.

Teddy Roosevelt hoped to never be among "those cold and timid souls who never knew either victory or defeat." Instead, he wanted to be one "who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause."

Did you ever hear a better description of what it is like to have and live with a family every day?

Everyone is unique. Everyone needs to find what is best for him or her. There is no pattern or timetable or sequence that works for everyone. But the danger is listening too much to the current trends and the prevailing wisdom of staying vital and fulfilled by doing your own independent thing and keeping all your self-entertaining options open for as long as you possibly can.

What looked exciting in your 20s will start to look a little stereotyped in your 30s, and may look like an absolute drag in your 40s and beyond.

You can keep looking elsewhere for excitement and adventure - trying all kinds of thrill-seeking, from extreme sports to video games to buying a better car or finding a flashier boyfriend or girlfriend. And you can seek peace and contentment in everything from meditation to religion to a new app on deep breathing.

Or you can up the ante, double down, take the biggest risk of all with the biggest potential rewards of both excitement and peace; and this one, this ultimate and unmatched adventure, is marriage and family!

The post Want real adventure and true excitement? Get married! appeared first on FamilyToday.

_Editor's note: This is the first article in a three-part series on commitment. Read the preface to this series, "Should you trade your independence for interdependence?"

In the preface to this series, Should you trade your independence for interdependence, we suggested that exchanging independence for interdependence is usually a good trade. As we expected, there was major pushback on the idea of giving up independence for anything!

We hope this article will clarify why we advocate interdependence and convince you that real commitment to the one you love - formal commitment, forever commitment - is something that adds to your freedom, your joy and your options, not something that subtracts from these things.

If you know you are in love but are having a hard time deciding if your partner is really the person for you, if the commitment of marriage frightens you a bit, here are three points of advice:

1. Understand that, while you want to be as "sure" as possible, marriage is always a leap of faith.

If it feels right to your heart and to your brain, if you've asked the right questions and thought through any major potential problems in the relationship, then what you need to do is to make a decision. If you are a person of faith, take your decision to God in prayer and ask for confirmation, for peace, for a feeling of light and right about the decision you have made. Do this individually and together with your partner. If you feel the peace of confirmation, set your marriage date!

2. Understand that commitment is not something you do after a lot of experimenting, living together and trying to prove to yourselves that you're completely compatible.

That's just not likely to happen, and this misconception is why the split-up percentage is far higher among cohabitating couples that it is among married couples. The simple fact is that every couple has tough times, but it's the commitment that gets couples through those tough times.

3. If you hope to have children, think of those children now!

Are those children better off coming to a couple that has made the commitment of marriage? Even if you want to put off having kids (as many cohabitating couples say they do), things don't always work out that way. A child's chances of living with both parents throughout his childhood are dramatically higher if his parents are married. And the idea that you can't afford marriage usually doesn't hold water. Marriages don't have to be expensive affairs, and the fact is that two or three people can live together more economically than they can live separately.

Now, before this article starts sounding too preachy, lets pull back and think of an analogy or a metaphor. The reason so many from the millenial generation shy away from marriage is that they prize their independence and they love the freedom and options that come with being single. When they find partners, cohabitation seems a more gradual step, one that does not sacrifice their independence quite as much.

The reality is that commitment will not lessen you as an individual. It enhances you. You are still you, and you still have your views, your opinions, your skills, and your own unique nature as much as you ever did. When approached with love and commitment, marriage creates an almost magical synergy where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. There is still you, and there is still your spouse, and neither gives up any of his or her essence; however, there is also the combined entity of "us," complementing individual strengths and compensating for individual weaknesses.

The metaphor is water. Hydrogen, by itself, is a gas possessing many unique properties. Oxygen is another gas with its own set of qualities. But when they are combined (in a committed, fused sort of way), they become the clear, flowing, life-giving marvel called water!

Life is not always easy for water. It can be evaporated, frozen, even dammed. But what a miracle water is! Water can do things, go places and bring about results that neither hydrogen nor oxygen by themselves could even imagine.

The hydrogen is still hydrogen. It has not lost or given up any of what it is. The same with the oxygen. But by combining, by joining, by committing to each other, the two become something more - something much more. And they and the whole world are better off for it.

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