The main thing is during this time of uncertainty please remember your wedding vows. For a lot of us, those wedding vows stated these words: “I, take thee, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you.” Hopefully, when most of us said these words, we meant them.

However, even the strongest marriage goes through some tests, at some point. Most of the tests involve some parts of that vow. We may have forgotten to love and cherish each other. A spouse or child being sick may cause stress to the household. Forgetting to love and cherish each other, as well as sickness, causes their own set complications. Nevertheless, one of the biggest problems I have seen with some of the best marriages is when the house comes under financial distress.

This coronavirus outbreak can cause many families to go under financial distress. COVID-19 is causing a lot of travel, events, schools, businesses, etc. to close down. This means people are out of work. Not everyone has the luxury of working from home. Many people go out day to day working a 9 to 5 that is barely enough to keep life going.

Let’s face it many families are one paycheck away from losing everything they have. When people are under stress from finances they tend to start taking it out on the person that they love. Fingers start to be pointed. People saying, “You could have done this or you could have done that.” When actually they are worried and don’t know how to handle the stress that comes with it.

None of us want to feel financial stress, but the reality is at some points because of certain things such as the coronavirus we may feel them. We said for “Richer or Poorer,” and we have to remember that, during this time. There is nothing we can do about the economic stress that the coronavirus is causing, but there is something we can do about our marriages. Don’t let this thing that we can’t control break-up our happy homes.

We try to do the best that we can together until we can get through the crisis. We as a couple have to pray that God keeps our homes and family covered. We have to pray that God provides us with all we need to keep going. We pray for strength for us to mentally and emotionally maintain, through this crisis. Last, but not least we pray that even if we do face a financial crisis that our marriage comes out stronger than ever.

It took me a long time to learn how to take care of myself. However, since I have learned it allows me to be a better wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, etc. I have learned to love me first, and then I can love everyone else.
As far as the depression and anxiety go, I pray that one day God will completely lift them off me. Until that day happens, I will just keep looking to the hill which cometh my help and all my help come from the Lord.
I think I will add this permanently to the blog. My little personal diary insert. What do you all think?
2 Timothy 1:7 (NLT)
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

I am honored for her to nominate me today, when I was just commenting on her Facebook post. I think Esme so much for nominating me and my blog DaRealTalk.com for this award.

This award was originally launched by Cindy at CINDY GOES BEYOND Living Life Beyond the Edges.

Thank you Esme so much for the nomination!!!

The rules are simple:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to her blog.
2. Copy and paste these rules to your post and please include a link to the Fix Her Crown Award post.
3. Post three photos of just yourself and write a short caption beneath each about why you chose that photo.
4. Nominate seven women for the Fix Her Crown Award, women who lend a helping hand to the woman whose crown seems too heavy, who appreciate the sister who dares to be her own glorious self, who raise strong young women, who smile at the sister journeying alone and walk alongside her for a time, who stand with the sister whose crown has been knocked off her head time after time and women who shine as their own beautifully unique selves.
5. Link to the blogs of the seven nominees.

My 3 Photos

Ok this is me at my three job, lol.

The first is home (Wife and Mom): My big job!!!

The second is Me the Therapist.

The third is Me the Victim Advocate

My Nominees for the Fix Her Crown Award

https://ourfavouritejar.com/ Claire

https://northfourthst.com/  Amy

https://faithhealthandhome.com/ Makeba

http://www.jamesdavisandassociates.com/ Janeane

https://ginlemonade.com/ Lorena

https://nolongerastayathomemom.com/ Monica

https://achronicvoice.com/ Sheryl

Please take a moment, and visit these blogs and shower them with some love.  Read a post or two, leave them a comment and share it on your social media.  I know you will enjoy reading some of their post, because I sure do. I am sure they will all love the support.

You can also Spread the Love

If you have received the Fix Her Crown Award, it will be greatly appreciated if you have the time to spread the love to other women who are making a difference in their communities and the world and your blogging journey.

Any other bloggers visiting and reading this post you are more than welcome to also enjoy the Fix Her Crown Award. Create your own post, following the rules listed above, and nominate your fellow blogging sisters whom you treasure and value.

We as bloggers unite. We create, we connect and we share!

So, I ask this question again. Have you ever tried looking at yourself to see where you were erroring, in the relationship? If the answer is no, then maybe it is time to do a good self-evaluation. If the answer is yes then, how did you go about improving the error of your ways? And did it improve your relationship?
We must be considerate of the other person. If you speak harshly, change your tone. If you don’t help your spouse or significant other around the house, get up and help. If you don’t show your spouse or significant other the attention that he or she may need, do so. Whatever you are doing wrong try to fix it.
You can’t change other people, but you can change yourself. However, if you make a conscious effort to do better your spouse or significant usually take notice. This often encourages them to want to fix the error of their ways.

For me personally, as I begin to grow in Christ the Holy Spirit began to reveal to me things I needed to correct. I am not saying I do it perfectly all the time, but what I am saying is I try. I make it a practice to try to think about what and how I am saying it before I let it come out my mouth. I still get my point across. I just try to make sure I am not disrespectful to my husband or our marriage. I even notice he does it now as well.
I could have kept on doing the same thing, hoping to see different results. The chances of that happening were probably slim to none. Plus isn’t that the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results? As we learn better, we just must do better.

Now there are a lot of people who don’t believe in God, but there are many of us out there that do. I believe with everything within me that he exists and sustains me. With that being said, I believe in keeping him first in every aspect of my life especially my marriage.

Marriage a beautiful thing, but it has its shares of difficulties, from time to time. One reason is that you go from being a single individual to be a married couple. And though you may share a lot of things in common, you are still two different people trying to bring two individuals into one world.

I believe in putting God first because he provides you with wisdom and patience to be able to bring these two individuals into the one world. Also when difficulties arise he brings gives you wisdom and patience to overcome those obstacles too.

Let’s just put it out there. No marriage is perfect, but God makes it perfect for each couple. You don’t have fairytales like on tv where you never have any trouble. God gives you a marriage that teaches you how to work through the troubles.

God is love. He provides a perfect example of what it means to love and forgive. Jesus loved us all the way to the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. If what he did for us was not love, I don’t know what is. He teaches you how to love your spouse and forgive them if we feel like we may have been wrong.

I could write more on why it is important to let God be first in your marriage, but I am pretty sure by now that you get the picture. Just know that worshipping, praying, and loving God together, brings many many benefits to your marriage.
^“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder (Mark 10:6-9 KJV).”

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Last year December 11, 2017, I felt the love of my life slipping away, from me. No, he was not emotionally detaching. He was physically on his way to leave me because he had a massive stroke. I had never been so scared in my life.

I said all that to say this. Tomorrow is not promised to you, so we have to live each moment that we have with the person we love, as if though it was our last. Because honestly, we never know when it will be our last.

I know a lot of times in the past before his stroke that I took for granted that he will always be there. I knew better, but that did not stop me from taking moments shared with him for granted. However, after he was almost taken from me I stopped taking our moments, for granted. I realized that our moments could become no more at any given moment.

So love fully, cherish each moment, and kiss the love of your life often, because each moment you have is very precious. I know from now on I will try to make the most of each of our moments together. I love him with all my heart, and will no longer take for granted our time that God has given us.

As a Christian, I really believe the marriage bed is very sacred and I believe it should only be shared between husband and wife. However, as a Therapist, I have heard my share of stories, about what takes place when people allow other people to enter their marriage bed, to please their spouse. I am here to tell you as a therapist every relationship that has come through my office, with this problem, has ended terribly. As a Christian, this is why the marriage bed was designed by God to remain sacred because he has seen all the complications that could arise.

When you choose to go this route you are playing with a double edge sword. This really harms the marriage. I hear so many say that they went this route to please their spouse. However, my question then becomes~ were you not good enough for your spouse, that they felt the need to add a third party? I know everyone’s grown and entitled to their own opinion, but I would feel disrespected.  I even have those saying that it is better than them cheating on me. Well, my response to that is you are just signing consent for both of you to cheat, with the same person.  In a lot of cases when this happens the intimacy, between the spouses go straight out the window. Why risk it? You know there is a chance this could blow up in smoke. My advice is to do it God’s way and this is one problem you can cross off your list.

The day is gone so what now? Well, I wanted to post this on Valentine’s Day but didn’t think that it would have much effect on the day everybody was receiving so much love. So I figured I would what to post this on a day that you would really think about it, to get the effectiveness that I wanted. Okay, the main question I wanted to put out there; do you give and receive the same amount of love any day of the year, as you do on Valentine’s Day or another significant calendar date. My friend and I had a discussion about it because we have seen people in relationships that the only days of the year they felt they received any love and appreciation on is on significant calendar dates. I myself know that my husband doesn’t just wait for significant calendar dates to make me feel special he does it when he gets the notion. I do the same for him as well.

I personally believe that you should treat others and be treated like that yourself more than just on certain calendar dates. You should be able to make any day a special occasion. You should always want to show love and appreciation to the one you love often and you should want to receive it often.

I mean making someone feel special or someone making you feel special usually feels more authentic when it is just done at random and not just on Valentine’s or other significant calendar dates. Don’t get me wrong to get extra love at any time is good, but it just carries more weight to me when it’s not a holiday. What do you all think is it just me or should the affirmation of love be shown on more than just a specific date?