Eric Ludy - The First 90 Days of Marriage: Building the Foundations of a Lifetime

The First Ninety Days of Marriage

Eric and Leslie Ludy

2006 Eric and Leslie Ludy.

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Scripture quotations are from the following sources: The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers; The King James Version of the Bible (KJV); The New King James Version (NKJV), 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers; New American Standard Bible (NASB), 1960, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation; The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV). 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ludy, Eric.

The first ninety days of marriage : laying the foundation for forever / Eric and Leslie Ludy.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8499-0524-7
1. Marriage. I. Ludy, Leslie. II. Title.

HQ734.L783 2006
248.8'44dc22

2005036491

Printed in the United States of America
08 09 10 11 QW 11 10 9 8 7

CONTENTS

- Leslie

Last week Eric and I attended a lovely wedding. The bride was radiant as she looked at her new husband. The grooms eyes were full of adoration as he gazed back at his bride. Their love was fresh, exciting, and full of wonder. As the crowd showered the pair with rice and best wishes, they went off into the sunset to begin their own happily-ever-after journey.

Later that same afternoon, we were in a coffee shop talking to a man who was in the midst of a bitter divorce. I hired a private investigator and got photos of my wife cheating on me, he ranted in disgust. So I took all of her expensive lingerie and burned it in the backyard. For five minutes he berated the woman he had once loved and committed his life to serve. He spoke about her as if she were a piece of worthless mud caked on his shoe.

Once upon a time, this man and woman had been just like the radiant young bride and groom at the wedding. This bitter couple had once gazed at each other with the same kind of love and adoration. They, too, had gone off into the sunset with hopes and dreams of happily ever after.

But, like that of all too many modern couples, their fairy tale soon began to take a nightmarish turn. Tenderness and respect were replaced with selfishness and resentment. One marital mistake piled on top of another, until suddenly one day they couldnt find anything left of the love that had brought them together in the first place.

In todays world, the idea of happily ever after can seem almost ridiculous amid heated divorce hearings, scandalous affairs, and broken homes. And yet each new bride and new groom who together walk down the aisle still dare to hope that their love story will be the one in a million that somehow stands the test of time.

As a newly married couple, you might have heard a common piece of advice from friends, counselors, or marriage experts. It goes something like this: Dont let your expectations for marriage become too high. It is important to have a realistic view of what you are headed into. If you expect a fairy tale, you will be disappointed.

Yet when we are young and in love, its hard not to hope for happily ever after. Despite the raging divorce epidemic, something inside us longs for more than a mediocre love story.

If you are among those who desire that something more for your marriage, this book was written for you. This book isnt about lowering your marriage expectations to help you avoid disappointment. This book is about raising your marriage expectations to help you experience a spectacular, lifelong love story. Contrary to popular opinion, Eric and I believe that fairy tales do exist and that happily ever after can be preserved for a lifetime. We believe that a successful marriage is not found when you lower your expectations. Rather, we believe that success comes when you exchange your human hopes and dreams for Gods heavenly ones. We believe that success is a by-product of having a far loftier marriage ideal than that of the modern-day massesGods ideal.

After eleven years of marriage, Eric and I can honestly say that we are more in love today than when we stood at the altar and exchanged our vows. We are living out a God-scripted fairy tale. In fact, we are a little biased, but we believe we have the most beautiful love story in the history of the world! Does that mean our marriage is without challenge and conflict? Absolutely not. But it does mean that every challenge and conflict only serves to deepen our relationship and enhance our lifelong commitment to each other. Does it mean our life has been easy? No. We have faced many intense difficulties in our journey together. But through the storms of life, our relationship is preserved and beautified, because the Author of romance is writing each chapter of our love story.

Happily ever after is impossible without the God of the universe backing you up. But when the Author of romance takes the helm, you can go off into the sunset with the utmost confidence that your fairy tale will end even more beautiful than it began. So allow yourself to dream fairy-tale dreams once again. Our hope is that this message will catapult your expectations of God-built marriage through the roof.

This book is made up of five chapters, specifically designed for your first ninety days of marriage. The first few months of your life together are when habits are formed that will affect the rest of your marriage. So we encourage you to use these precious weeks and months to lay a foundation for happily ever after.

Though some portions of this book are written to men and women individually, this is a book that is designed for you to work through together as a couple. Each chapter begins with a specific foundational principle for lifelong romance. And each chapter ends with a corresponding Putting It into Action section to help you practically apply that principle to your marriage right now. As you work through these Putting It into Action sections, you may find it helpful to use a separate notebook to record your thoughts and ideas.

We use many examples from our own marriage throughout this book to provide you with real-life illustrations of this message. But this is not done to imply that your marriage should be a replica of our own. In fact, we are confident that your relationship will be a unique testimony to Gods amazing creativity and romantic flare.

Note that when we use the term lover in this book, we are referring to a faithful, Christ-centered spouse rather than the cultures loose and often ungodly definition of lover.

Also, please know that the names of some people and places in this book have been altered in order to protect privacy (e.g., Chuck, the guy competing for the Beer Belly Hall of Fame, goes by a different name in real life!).

Eric and I are cheering you on as you go off into the sunset to start your new life together. We believe that if you make the right decisions in these early months of your marriage, you will lay the foundation for a forever kind of love. And someday, while other couples are burning each others clothes in the backyard and hiring private investigators, you will be experiencing something altogether different. Through Gods amazing grace, people will look at your life and say, They truly lived happily ever after.