Tag Archives: marriage

The Purpose of Marriage

Posted by Oct 9, 2018 , , , Leave a Comment

According to my late sister Debbie’s favorite holy man, Rabbi Ezagui of Chabad La Jolla, marriage is the highest calling of mankind. He says:

“True love is loving the person for what they love, who they are, for what they stand for. If you go into a marriage loving what you love, not what they love, that is not love. Real love is not finding someone to hold your hand and find common ground with; the institution of marriage is to push you out of your comfort zone, to lift you up above what you need, so that you can provide what you’re needed for,” says Rabbi Ezagui.

Marriage is about finding out what you truly need. It also fulfills our need to be needed. Rabbi Ezagui quotes Rebbe Lubavitch, who said: “When you learn to love someone else as you love yourself, when you get to that level and you can truly authentically say that other person is me (at a soul level), that is the purpose of life.”

Rabbi Ezagui’s mentor Rabbi Mendl Futerfas claims that as long as the man treats his wife like a queen, he will be a king, an attitude that should be ingrained long before the wedding and carried on long after reality of life kicks in. People with strong marriages consider this idea as non-negotiable.

“Ultimately the purpose of marriage is to find in my soul what I am needed for,” explains the wise Rabbi.

Wow, now that is really deep. I think about it often….

Wishing you love, laughter and magical kisses,

Arielle


Want To See What LOVE Looks & Feels Like?
Watch this super short video:

The Real Purpose of Marriage

Posted by May 24, 2016 , , , Leave a Comment

 

My sister Debbie loved her rabbi, Baruch Ezagui. One day, the Rabbi and I had a conversation about love and the real meaning of marriage. He told me he believes “marriage is the highest calling of humankind” and that it includes the marriage between the body and soul, heaven and earth, spirit and matter, one human and another.

He further explained:

“This union of beings is reflected in the marriage between men and women. True love is loving the person for what they love, who they are, for what they stand for. If you go into a marriage loving what you love, not what they love, that is not real love.

Real love is not finding someone to hold your hand and find common ground with; the institution of marriage is to push you out of your comfort zone, lift you up and above what you need, so that you can provide what you are needed for.“

WOW.

Just ponder that last bit: marriage… lifts you up above what you need, so that you can provide what you are needed for.

For those of you who are wary of marriage or fearful that your past history is a precursor of your future, I urge you to consider the true nature of marriage and a soulmate relationship, which I believe is that it brings us not only great joy, but also the deepest possible level of healing.

Wishing you love, laughter, and magical kisses,

Arielle

I Was a Lousy Wife (a confession)

Posted by Oct 20, 2015 , , , Leave a Comment

Today I am in my 17th year of an amazing, deeply loving, fulfilling marriage to my soulmate Brian… and I almost blew it!

 

Soon after we got married, I made a horrifying discovery: I had no clue how to be a great wife. I was an excellent manifestor, and I was great at being “the boss” of my business, but I had zero partnership skills.

 

bad wifeHere’s just one example: One day, several months after we got married, I walked into the house all excited and started talking a mile-a- minute to Brian…no hello, no kiss, just this:

 

“Hey babe, guess what? We’re having dinner tonight at Deepak and Rita Chopra’s house, we need to be there by 7pm, I haven’t a clue what I’m gonna wear but I have to jump into the tub right now.”

 

I fully expected Brian to say something like, “Hey that’s great, should be lots of fun to catch up with them.”

 

Instead I got this strange look from him, that I immediately felt in the pit of my stomach, so I said, “what’s wrong?”

 

And Brian said, “You didn’t ask me.”

 

“What do you mean? Don’t you want to have dinner with the Chopra’s?”

 

“Well, it would have been nice if you had asked me first.”

 

“Why? I knew you would want to go.”

 

“Because asking me is the polite and considerate thing to do.”

 

I was really baffled. If I “knew he would want to go, then WHY, WHY, WHY did I have to ask him first?”

 

As a first time bride at 44, I was used to having everything my way, all the time. It never occurred to me that Brian would want anything different from what I wanted. It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t always see things “eye to eye” because we were soulmates.

 

Weren’t we destined to easily and effortlessly live “happily ever after?”

 

It became obvious that I needed to discover new, better ways to listen, to communicate, to be considerate, and most importantly to become a team player.

 

I didn’t know what I didn’t know about making a relationship thrive and grow into a joyous and sacred union.

 

Brian was a natural at most of these things, and most of the time, he was very patient with me when communicating about what was and was not working for him. (And, honestly it took me a L O N G time learn how to be considerate and ask him before committing him to any and all activities.)

 

If only he had arrived with an “Owner’s Manual” that outlined the one-two-three steps to happy and fulfilling marriage.

 

Alas, that book never arrived.

 

Instead, I decided to become a student of love.

 

In my heart and soul I knew that Brian and I were meant to spend our life together and I also knew that I had to take personal responsibility for my role in the partnership. We went to workshops together, I read lots of books, and best of all, I spent more that 130 hours interviewing the world’s top love and relationship experts for Evolving Wisdom’s Art of Love Series that I co-created and hosted for several years – many of them top researchers and social scientists who virtually never do interviews such as these… and I’m blessed that many of them became friends, and spent hours answering my endless questions and forever changing my understanding of love and how to make it last.

 

The result of these years of study (and personally road testing the various techniques and strategies to a happy marriage), are that Brian and I just grow closer and closer, and I’ve got him convinced that I’m the most loving and attentive wife ever!

 

I was so thrilled at the changes in my own relationship (and the peace of mind and security they brought me as well), that I am now sharing the best of the best of my own “light bulb moments” and most effective tools for transformation in my new book:

 

Turn Your Mate Into Your Soulmate: A Practical Guide To Happily Ever After

(It will be published on my birthday, December 29th, by HarperOne.)

 

 

PLEASE KEEP READING, I have special gifts for you.

 

I am beyond excited about the upcoming release of this, my 10th book. I truly believe it’s my best work yet, and I know that the information in it provides myriad ways to create loving, long lasting, soulful relationships.

 

(And if you’re not in a relationship, reading his book will send a big message to the Universe that you are “living as if” and give you great new techniques and tools to use when you are in one.)

 

Turn Your Mate into Your Soulmate explores and reveals:

  • How to make your own grass greener, and save everyone tons of heartache and why changing partners may not be the answer and why re-envisioning the partner you have can be that path to happiness
  • What love really is and is not and how to stop being confused from now on
  • Why we yearn to be connected to another person (hint: you’re not needy or insecure – it’s healthy and almost universal to want that level of connection with another…)
  • Our soul and our sacred contracts around love
  • Why giving up perfectionism is the key to happiness (and so much easier for YOU!)
  • The purpose and benefits of marriage (science has proven it’s so much more than “just a piece of paper”)
  • Moving beyond ourselves to infuse our relationship with God/Spirit/devotion (no matter your beliefs or religion)
  • Breathing new life into old love by kick-starting the fun (you really can “get back that spark” – quickly and without embarrassing yourself)

 

“Arielle Ford is a priestess of love, bringing forth the highest wisdom and placing it down on earth where it belongs. She has lived the love drama, learned from the love drama, and succeeded at the love drama. She has a lot of information to deliver, and in this book she does so compassionately and wisely.”

~Marianne Williamson, author A Return To Love

 

I consider you, dear reader, one of my friends and I have a special offer for you:

 

When you pre-order the book, you will instantly receive a free bonus package that includes special gifts from resources I consider to be among the “best of the best”.

 

Five part Video series (instant access) featuring:

John Gray

“How Women Can Get Their Needs and Desires Met by Their Mate”

Dr. Pepper Schwartz

“How Sex Can Save Your Life”

Iyanla Van Zant

“The best way to apologize and how to forgive “

Gay & Katie Hendricks

“You’re Too Fat” (and other hard conversations to have)

Dr. Laura Berman

“How to Affair Proof Your Relationship”

 

Plus there are two great bonus audios (on sex and intimacy) and The Everything Book, an e-Book for you & your mate to fill out an exchange that shares juicy details of what you both most want!

 

Now here is the offer for YOU only (I’m not making this offer to anyone who is not on my newsletter list)

 

If you pre-order Turn Your Mate Into Your Soulmate online you will get instant access to all the bonuses – click here (www.matetosoulmate.com)

 

And will be on your way to take your relationship go from ho-hum to happy, happy to ecstatic, and ecstatic to EXALTED – for life.

 

Wishing you love, laughter and magical kisses,

Arielle

Survey Says: Online Dating leads to marriage!

Posted by Jun 11, 2013 , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Did you know that more than one-third of marriages now begin via online dating sites?

Did you know that couples that meet online are twice as likely to marry than those who meet offline?

And, did you know that couples that met online are happier than those who didn’t? These are just some of the most recent statistics from surveys (including a really important one from eHarmony) and studies about online dating that ran in a recent USA Today article.

My friend, Jeannie Assimos, is the Director of Content at eHarmony and has some really interesting tips (from interviews she did with eHarmony success couples) to share about online dating:

1. Make sure you are ready to commit. If you are, then you need to commit to eHarmony (or other online dating site) as well. Translation: Be patient with the process, and it will pay off. You are looking for lifetime love, and this isn’t something that usually happens overnight.

The amount of time it took before these couples met really varied – for some it was only two weeks, for others, two or four months. One guy even stayed on the site for two years until he met his now-wife. And he told me it was absolutely worth it. But every single one of them mentioned patience as an absolute must.

2. Be completely honest when filling out the questionnaire and profile. One woman told Jeannie she wasn’t getting matches she thought were a fit for her initially. She remembered that when she filled out the questionnaire, she wasn’t in a great mood. So she called customer care at eHarmony and requested that she take it over again. She did, and met her now-husband a month later on the site.

3. Know what you are looking for. One man said he considered all of his past relationships and actually wrote down the things he liked about the women he had dated, and what qualities were not a fit for him. This helped him clarify what he wanted. He then made a list of the values and character he wanted in his partner. The key here is that he got totally clear about what was going to work for him and created his intention. He met his now-wife on eHarmony about four months later.

4. Look at what you have to offer and make sure you feel good about yourself.Norman shared that he went onto eHarmony twice. The first time he wasn’t really in a good place – not happy with himself in many areas, emotionally or physically. When he asked himself what he had to offer someone else and the answer was, “not much,” he left the site and took about two years to get his life together and achieve some personal goals. He then returned and was connected with his gorgeous wife.

5. Keep coming back! As one guy put it, “Sometimes it’s just the wrong time of year, the wrong season, or you have hit a dry spell. Come back to it later. I just put it down and came back to it.” His third time on eHarmony turned out to, in fact, be the charm – he finally met his wife.

The overall takeaway for Jeannie was that all of these couples were absolutely ready to find a lifelong partner. They didn’t half-ass it. They all put a lot of thought, time and energy into the whole process, and understood that being patient and having a positive attitude was necessary. They were also self-reflective and aware of what they were looking for, wanting to be sure that they had something to bring to the table as well. It wasn’t all about what someone else had to offer them.

Now, I realize that some of you are a little apprehensive about online dating, or have had bad experiences in the past, but think of it this way….we’ve all had some really negative experiences at work but that doesn’t stop us from finding another job and being productive. Maybe now is the time to try again….

Wishing you love, laughter, and magical kisses!

Arielle