“I promise to be MINDFUL and pay loving attention to you and the life we have built honouring one another with love and care.”

With this vow, we promise to always be aware and attentive to each other’s needs and treating each other with love, care, and mindfulness.

What does the vow mean?

A dictionary defines mindfulness as the trait of staying aware and paying close attention to your responsibilities. But being mindful in a marriage is not just about the responsibilities. It is about how well we can be tuned to our partner’s feelings, emotions, needs, and thoughts to be able to be attentive and accepting towards them without being judgmental. Being mindful is about being there for your partner at that moment and letting your thoughts concurring with your feelings.

Why do we need to be MINDFUL towards our spouse for a healthy and long-lasting relationship?

Mindfulness is a really great marital virtue when it comes to having a healthy and growing marriage. When we are in our “honeymoon phase” we have these very strong emotions and feelings about each other that usually cloud our eyes and make us overlook the flaws which might have been an issue had we not been blinded by love-crazed hormones. But before we know it the honeymoon phase is over and it is then that the disagreements begin to surface.

Marriage is a long journey and there come many moments when we are bound to have disagreements and arguments which may get escalated and heated up pretty easily. It is in those moments when we need to be mindful the most because most of the time we can’t possibly take back what’s been said in a heated moment when we don’t even mean it actually. So, when I say “I promise to be mindful”, it means that we are willing to regulate our own responses and to completely accept each other.

Abusing, name-calling and violence is a strict “NO” in our marriage, not even by mistake. Because we both know that once it gets started it can only get so mean and filthy from there. So, “I promise to be mindful” also means we are willing to be mindful and aware of not just our ways and words, but also our feelings. It means cultivating a non-judgmental awareness of your partner’s feelings and thoughts and not labelling them “right” or “wrong”. Practicing mindfulness early in our marriage has helped us steer clear of any major conflicts and hurling abuses because, with the value of mindfulness, we refrain from judging each other and be completely accepting of one another.

Mindfulness requires us to invest extra time and energy into understanding and being aware of each other’s feelings and emotion. But the thing it has to offer in the long run is totally worth it. Over the years our relationship has evolved exponentially. We have come a long way through our fair share of peace as well as challenging times. But by being mindful of each other through successes and failures, ups and downs, shining moments of glory and despicable moments of shame, we have grown and transcended into this blissful marital bond that’s beautiful beyond words.

Keep watching the space for the next vow with alphabet N. You can find the opening post to the vows “What marriage means to me?” here and the previous vow with alphabet L here.

Love,

Mrs. Sunshine

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