It’s frus­trating that with our emphasis on the impor­tance of the wedding, we fail to under­stand that marriages are made day by day. Sure, in your wedding cere­mony you announce your vows. But really, these are promises you’ve been working out over the span of your rela­tion­ship. They will continue to trans­form and become more clear and more useful along with the relationship.

But some­thing else is true about vows:

Promises are some­thing you make and keep every day. Your wedding day is simply the start of your promise-​​making. Everyday is the day you agree to the impor­tance of these vows. Every day is the day you decide to make your marriage happy and healthy.

Tip: If you under­stand that your promises are a work in progress, that every day when you roll over in bed to greet your beloved, that you are recom­miting to marriage, your marriage will be richer. Every day you have the oppor­tu­nity to do what is right for you, right for your partner and right for your part­ner­ship. It’s up to you: are you going to guard your promises and work hard at loving, honoring, cher­ishing and respecting. I hope so. No reason not to make your marriage a work of art and love.

The old saw, “Love means never having to say I’m sorry,” has pretty much been consigned to the trash heap along with the rest of the rusty notions about rela­tion­ship. The fact is good rela­tion­ship thrives on each partner’s ability to be self reflec­tive. Here’s what that means with regard to your wedding vows:

That you will recog­nize, admit, repent and make amends to trans­gres­sions, both large and small of those vows.

Being able to say “oh, I could have done that differ­ently, I’m sorry if my actions hurt you” is an incred­ibly impor­tant activity in a marriage. Obvi­ously, there are times, when trans­gres­sions are larger, that you will need more than an ‘aw shucks, honey, I didn’t mean not to listen (when you said it hurt you that I was having an affair!), but even when you blow past the inten­tions of your promises, you want to recon­sider and recommit to their value in your life.

I found someone to agree with me as I was running past twitter on my way over here: Lonnie Hodge: “I think true integrity lies in the ability to express remorse –espe­cially when there is nothing to gain except the truth.” But in marriage what there is to gain is a great relationship.

Tip: Keep your marriage vows close to your heart and your mind. You know it’s not always the big ways we offend our vows that breaks them down. It’s the tiny little slights and indif­fer­ences. How well do you cherish your partner? How does that reflect on you? Do you want to be a person who doesn’t keep your vows, who doesn’t cherish your partner? No. you don’t. So, you want to do your work here!

It may be that one of the most impor­tant pieces of being human is the ability to make and keep promises. (Breaking them? Not so much!) I feel as if this isn’t really explored in our world today. There’s been so much emphasis on how we get ahead recently, that there’s less atten­tion paid to being true to who you are. Well here we are. the getting ahead thing didn’t work out so very well for the economy or even the indi­vid­uals involved!

I don’t mean to say that people haven’t been keeping wedding vows. Many do. (Although there are disturbing new stats that say some­where north of 20 percent of couples are unfaithful in the first year of marriage.) It’s just I don’t know that the impor­tance of this is empha­sized. I don’t know if people under­stand how much it matters to each indi­vidual to be a keeper of promises!

Today’s message about the work of vows (or the work IN vows) is that you will police your keeping and breaking of those vows. There are personal and familial conse­quences to not keeping your word. Your marriage suffers when this happens and your sense of self is eroded. You could easily make this simply a legal issue, but what’s real here is paying atten­tion to the spirit of the vows.

Tip: If your wedding vows are rules for living that you and your partner have constructed and agreed to, then you want to be the person reflecting on whether you are keeping them. Marriage isn’t a police state, it’s a covenant.
Are you living into yours? Are you altering behav­iors when you notice that you’re not? They’re your vows, are you going to honor them?