Here are some generic vows I found with the help of my friend go-gle:
I promise to love you without condition
to honor you each and every day
to laugh with you when you're happy
so support you when you're sad
to guide you when you ask for direction
to challenge you to be a better person
and allow you to do the same for me
to be your biggest fan and your
ever present listening audience.
How lovely! How sweet and selfless and considerate. I wonder how that has worked out for whoever wrote these? In the interest of thinking through the reality of this commitment we walk in day after day, year after year, I wrote what we actually should perhaps have promised.
I promise to love you without condition, and even on days I'm not really liking you or feeling it for I know now that love is not an emotion but a choice of action.
I promise to try to encourage you with my words, except when I yell in hormonal overtired mood swings and then I promise to apologize in all sincerity.
I promise to forgive you as well, and to bite my tongue when I really really really want to bring up past wrongs so I truly leave the past in the past.
I promise to laugh with you in happy times, as well as to make you laugh with all my crazy antics that really drive you crazy-but laughter is better than tears so that's why I'll laugh with you even when I find it funnier than you do.
I promise to hurt with you, in fact, I promise to carry hurts of yours far deeper in my own heart than I ever realized I could carry pain.
I promise to stand up for you fiercely when others come against you, you can count on this.
I promise to give lots and lots of advice and counsel and share every single idea with you.
I promise to try to remember to ask before I give you direction.
I promise to challenge you to be a better person - I am quite certain I will excel at this one every single day!
I promise to allow you to challenge me, even if it results in myself rising to the challenge to also challenge you right back.
I promise to be your biggest fan when you do things my way, and to be your biggest coach when I see a different way.
I promise to listen to your ideas and collaborate on them together.
I promise to climb into bed at the end of every day and realize that tomorrow we get a new opportunity.
I promise to stay in this relationship we are committing to, even when I've betrayed and wounded and disappointed and abandoned all concern for your own feelings.
I promise to ask forgiveness often and quickly, to forgive you as well, to kiss you even when we have morning breath, to laugh and cry together at the wonder and frustration of parenthood.
I promise to follow you around the world.
I promise to stay home and love the kids well when you work around the world.
I promise to share all my love of travel and adventure with you, and even plan long walking routes all over famous cities such as Paris just so you can also learn to love all things history and adventure with me.
I promise to read long text books with you, help edit college papers and write budget proposals with you late into the night before they are due.
I promise to do my best to blend 2 completely different family cultures into a new totally unique and wacky culture of our very own doing.
I promise to sit silently by your side holding your hand in the ER in the early hours of the morning when we are not sure of the outcome.
I promise to put one foot in front of the other, to make the choice to stay by your side, to not complain about how I look as I age even if I think differently than what I say, and to not rely on my feelings to tell me if I still love you or not.
I promise to love you every single day.
This might have been more accurate as to what I should have vowed. This ride we are on is one crazy adventure and I certainly have hurt my hubby more than I've loved him some days! He is the most consistent and steadfast man of integrity I know and I am honored to say I still love you Ty. Thanks for loving me day after day as well. To everyone else, it's a good idea to stop and take stock of our own hearts sometime and re-evaluate. Where are we in our commitments with our spouse? If you don't have a spouse yet, what commitments do you have in your own heart for that day? Marriage is a whole lot of work! It is also a great gift! Oh, I almost forgot, in the spirit of our friends who love steak and vowed about it, I also promise to grow in my love of steak and learn to eat it less well-done.