The Forgotten Vow

“...to honor and love all the days of my life.” Though many couples choose to write their own vows these days, this old language still captures what most couples hope for. But love gets all the glory. It is the focus of the hit songs, the romantic movies, the classic poems. Honoring is the forgotten vow.

In over thirty years of working with couples in distress, I rarely consider an absence of love the primary problem. Lack of honoring is what undermines love. Sometimes the honoring breach is shattering: someone breaks a sacred trust by not “forsaking all others” (more old language). As painful as affairs are, by far the more common problem with honoring is day-to-day habits of failing to treat the other person with the respect, tenderness, kindness, and appreciation they deserve. Over time that kind of honoring problem erodes the foundation of a relationship, making it harder and harder for each person to feel and express love to the other.

Here’s a nested meditation from Now is Where God Lives about honoring. I like the way, in the second stanza, it reminds me that honoring another begins with honoring myself. Self-criticism and self-judgment are the roots of other-criticism and other-judgment.

I honor you.

I honor you,

my soul.

I honor you,

my soul

companion,

as you are.

I honor you,

my soul

companion,

as you are

Divinity in disguise.

From Now is Where God Lives: A Year of Nested Meditations to Delight the Mind and Awaken the Soul

Copyright 2018 by Kevin Anderson

Kevin Anderson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author, and speaker who lives in the Toledo, Ohio area. His latest book Now is Where God Lives: Nested Meditations to Delight the Mind and Awaken the Soul is available at Amazon or thewingedlife.com