this is a double comment but an absolute pleasure of a couple in val and my lives because this was the bride at the third wedding i ever preached at and one of our favourite couples of people in the whole world: Michelle and Frans:

Michelle van Eeden

Hey Brett. Sorry I forgot to reply to your question earlier. I married my best friend. For me, one piece of advise that I keep having to tell myself is “DON’T compare your marriage/relationship to others or to standards that society has created. This could lead to disappointment and confusion within the relationship.

Frans van Eeden

yo B-boy!

communication is a master key for opening the doors to successful
navigation through the amazing journey (around the sun) that is
marriage. Mish and I have only been married one year but we are
learning such a lot from each other ! We are both blessed with a large
amount of understanding and patience that balance out our lack of
descriptive language abilities…which is the premise of my short
story:

This weekend we got a bit lost looking for a specific place in a
strange area just because we assumed too much. We got directions from
someone (and their directions were spot on). But the problem was that
we assumed the person giving them knew from which way we approached
and they assumed we approached the place from the same direction they
did. But we didn’t and they assumed wrong. We eventually found it
after 30min.

Thus 2 things:

1) Don’t just assume you think you know what the other person is
feeling / thinking. Ask questions in love and try to understand with a
gentle heart and kind questions. Sometimes it takes a while to
understand each other but that ‘while’ is time well spent.

2) Understand that you both are going to make mistakes and it is OK to
do so. In a relationship most mistakes are out-of-control best
intentions.

love

frans and mish

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