What does a modern revolutionary dating and marriage love tale look like?

My bride and I have a modern revolutionary dating and marriage love tale.

The journey began online at Eharmony.com.

Wladimir and Elyssa Eharmony matched email 

Then built over the 24-hour driving distances between Chicago and Texas. We met at unlikely locations around the country: in Baltimore MD, (First Steps to Success); in Atlanta GA, (Creating a Dynasty); the memorial site (World Trade Center-Ground Zero), the funeral of my grandmother (Long Island NY), and in Orlando Florida (A.M.T.C. Summer Shine 2014). 

Wladimir & Elyssa at AMTC Family Runway Shine 07/14

Wladimir and Elyssa at AMTC Red Carpet

These are the short list of our dating exploits. We trekked a remarkable set of destinations, had a fantastic wedding and honeymoon beginning, and now we lead an unusually confident, loving, grounded, inspirational marriage.

A lot of people ask us “how did you two date so successfully?” 

We don’t have previous marriage relationship experiences as our reference point from which to become wizards in dating or marriage. (In that stated thought, I don’t seek to shame any person who has a previous first marriage. I feel your pain. In fact, my strong language or imagery was intended to stress how much of a conundrum there exist (and is passed on from generation to generation) regarding marriage. The conundrum that marriage has no manual, and it is based on may-good-luck-go-with-you to those married. Lastly, that a married couple should approach marriage with little to no genuine confidence, guard a-little their hopes, even including two Christians as spouses.) Nor do we have masters degrees in relationship dating management (if that exists). Nor did we do the other things that our modern culture said ear-drum-blasting loud to do to ensure compatibility and successful dating or marriage relationship outcomes. Some people around us chided either my now bride Elyssa or I with these, “how will you know if she is a compatible kisser for you, if you don’t first kiss during your dating”; or “how about sleeping with each other to also confirm that chemistry will exist between the two of you”. They looked at us with a straight face as they advised us on these real safe supremely typical rules. Some said, “You mean, you didn't kiss each other yet, and yet you are now engaged?” Another said, “what if you convulse at the wedding altar when you first kiss because of your bodies' incompatible chemistry?”

Revolutionary advice #1. For the success of our dating and marriage relationship, we urgently needed to break all the typical modern rules about dating (and also the standard rules about marriage).
Part one, you are going to have to start to notice some things about your dating or marriage habits. Start wondering at what you are doing, and which habits you are doing, in an unthinkingly or supremely natural fashion, void of spiritual freshness.
Part two, stop doing what comes supremely natural to you, those things that are only instinctual and common sense for you which are done without much thought or needful of spiritually fresh insights. 

Revolutionary advice #2. We started going opposite our comfort zone in our life and supercharged the priority we placed on nurturing our spiritual senses, then those choices gained us the guidance we needed to navigate our relationship. For example, while listening to some Christian radio, we heard about a useful statistic. It stated married couples who prays and or do devotionals together, at least four days a week; they do have a remarkable above 90% marriage satisfaction and success rate.
From that discovery, while dating, we embraced we would personally do our spiritual devotional quite times at least four days a week. (The lesson here is prioritizing our spiritual senses permitted us to choose more spiritually nourishing practices, which increased our confidence and clarity about our future individually and together).

Surely we can and will say a lot more on this subject if you are interested to hear more. (Please join us in the revolution, to drop us a note or hear more about this revolution, go here).

To those married, or single persons (who sense they are meant to be married):
Here is a simple challenge equally applied to either the single or married person: in the next day or (as soon you can get your hand on the prayer books referenced in a previous post). Go here to that post, and apply yourself to the journey recommended in that post. (Go for a full 14 days, to start with)

Extra instruction for the single person: using the prayer challenge directed at married folks seems super dangerous, and may be cruel. As a single person, to embark on this challenge, it may cause you to go that extra mile. Fortunately, my wife and I went the uncommon extra mile path in our dating (not doing this prayer book, as we didn't know of it then). (As a side note, I learned of these power spouse prayer book while creating our wedding registry and requested them as a wedding registry gift, the wedding gift that powers the other gifts.) We did other things, of a comparable intense extra mile, like doing couples devotional readings, etc., which made the difference in our dating life and even now into our marriage life. Part of our marriage success is based on what we spiritually did during our dating.

We could alternatively title this post:"What is the most optimal path to gaining clarity in my dating or marriage life?" We could make it a lot more sophisticated, but we instead prefer to get you having the real fun of a confident, a loving, a grounded daily living and utmost fruitful relationships as fast as possible. If you like this post, please share it with a friend, please leave us your note here.

Cheers!

Wladimir and Elyssa Joseph, Honeymoon Living