Hi.
I'm Mort Fertel, creator of Marriage Fitness, a system for marriage
renewal.
I've been where you're at and I have
answers for you. Before I share with you some secrets to marriage
success (below), I want to offer you FREE help and a FREE marriage
assessment. No strings attached. All you have to do is sign-up
in the box to the right and I'll email you both.
After your free sign-up, you'll go to a web page that'll explain
further how I can help you fix your marriage.
Let me guess, you
have found yourself in the position of seeking out marriage
help. I can start you off with some great advice, but first
let me share with you a quote I came across today. You may find
that it relates to your marital situation.
"The difficultly with
marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but we
must live with a character."
- Peter Devries.
The profundity of
this statement can only be appreciated if we understand what
is meant by "character."
"Personality" is easy
to understand. Your "personality" is how people experience you.
It's your public persona.
But what is "character?"
What's your "character?" What's your spouse's "character?" And
why is "character" so crucial for marital success?
Character is who
you are when no one is watching.
Let me say that again
so you can read it slowly and really digest it this time.
Character is who you
are when no one is watching.
You see, when you
and your spouse met, you met each other's personalities. You
showed your spouse (and you were shown by your spouse) a public
persona. I'm not saying you tricked each other. It's not something
you can help, it’s just your personality…how you display yourself
to others.
But marriage lasts
too long in too close quarters for anyone to sustain a public
persona. Personalities give way to an inner self that you can’t
help but reveal eventually. And there you each stand, naked
as if no one is watching. But someone is watching. You're watching
each other. And you meet for the first time…again!
You don't meet the
person who charmed each other's friends, bought gifts for each
other's parents, and always smiled from ear to ear. No, this
time it's a meeting of your CHARACTERS. And it's a first meeting…for
both of you.
In many cases, it's
not only that you're meeting each other for the first time,
but it's that you're meeting yourselves for the first time.
Most people wouldn't be caught dead treating anyone the way
they treat their spouse. Most people don't recognize their own
behavior. "I can’t seem to help it- I'm just not myself with
him/her." Well then who is that person? That’s YOU…it’s
your character. (And your spouse meets their character.)
And this is why so
many people fail at marriage and an attempt at marriage renewal.
It's not that they don't like their spouse. It's that they don't
like themselves. And while everyone else in their life is like
a mirror reflecting their personality; their spouse is a mirror
reflecting their character. And most people don't like what
they see.
Many people would
rather choose to be with someone else than remain with their
spouse and have to continue to be with themselves. (Did you
get that?)
Balthasar Gracian wrote in his 17th century manual on success,
The Art of Worldly Wisdom, as follows: “You are as much
a real person as you are deep. As with the depths of a diamond,
the interior is twice as important as the surface. There are
people who are all facade, like a house left unfinished when
the funds run out. They have the entrance of a palace but the
inner rooms of a cottage.”
Marriage renewal
and individual character development go hand-in-hand.
This is the secret
to Marriage Fitness. Marriage Fitness will not only help
you change your relationship, but it does so in a way that helps
you and your spouse feel better about yourselves.
