Marriage Worksheets

40 – The Long Haul

2009-04-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Marriage is meant to last for as long as a couple is both living. You will go through many changes and challenges during a marriage that lasts a lifetime. One of the keys to making a marriage last is to mature in your appreciation for each other. Consider how you handle your differences.
We might see a male/female relationship go through these stages of attitudes toward our differences.
Blindness - When a couple is newly infatuated with each other, they tend to overlook many differences. They think their differences are cute or assume they will be dealt with later.
Annoyance - One of the great reasons not to marry too soon is to let some of the infatuation wear off so you can make a better decision about marriage. You may find that your differences begin to wear on each other. It will now take more maturity to develop your relationship and more effort to find middle ground that you can both live with.
Acceptance - Life gets easier when you accept each other's personalities. It has always been more important to me than to Shirley to be on time when we go somewhere. It has always been more important to her to be completely prepared to go, even if it means being a little late. This was once a source of conflict and annoyance. In time, we learned to each accept what was important to the other. Through communication and negotiation we have found that we can work together and not be in conflict. I may tell her that I want to leave on a trip at 9:00, when I can really live with leaving at 10:00. If it is essential that we leave at 9:00 (or we will miss a flight, for example), we will talk about it more than once and I will ask her in advance what I can do to help her be on time.
Appreciation - I used to get annoyed at Shirley for being late when we left on a trip. She, in turn, would get annoyed at me when I would ask to borrow things she remembered to bring that I never would have thought of (fingernail clippers, chewing gum, lotion, etc.). I have learned to appreciate the thoroughness of her preparation. I think she has learned to appreciate my ability to plan a trip and know when we really need to leave.
You marriage will get sweeter if you can learn to appreciate your differences.
The Seasons in Your Marriage - There will be seasons in your marriage that each present new challenges to your marriage. Consider what you will need to do to navigate your way through these changes.
Children – Adding children to your home is a great blessing, but it comes with added challenges. You will have less time for each other and more demands on your energy and finances. Keep your relationship with each other strong during this time, by making time for each other. This will be the most important time in your marriage for keeping a date night. Work at keeping your family relationships sweet, so that your entire family can enjoy one another with a minimum of conflict.
Children Becoming Adolescents – You may find your adolescent children challenging your values and rebelling against your traditions. You will need a strong relationship with each other to maintain a positive approach to parenting your children. You may find it useful for the two of you to get away alone for an occasional weekend to strengthen your relationship with each other.
The Empty Nest – While you were raising your kids, you probably found meaning and purpose in parenting. When the kids leave home, you will need to find new direction. If you have nurtured a healthy marriage, you will enjoy the freedom of an empty nest. You will enjoy each other’s company and the ability to do things together that you may not have been able to do when you had a family to consider. If you are not enjoying the additional time with each other, that is a signal that you need to work at nurturing your relationship.
The Not So Empty Nest – Sometimes couples with grown children find themselves raising their grandchildren or providing a home for a grown child who may not have left or may have come back to the nest. This may place new demands on your strength and finances at a time when you were hoping to slow down. We’re sure that entire books could be written on some of the circumstances people face with their grown children and their grandchildren. We want to encourage you to maintain your relationship with your spouse, no matter what added challenges you may be facing with your offspring.
Retirement – Retirement can create a huge change in your use of time. Be sensitive to each other in the adjustments you must make during this time. If you have worked on your marriage, the additional time you have together will be a blessing.
End of Life Issues – We aren’t going to live forever on this earth in these bodies. We’re leaving one way or another. One of you may have to care for the other and make decisions for the other at the end of life. This won’t be easy, but it may give you a great opportunity to express your love for each other in practical ways.
Life is challenging, but a solid marriage will equip you for each of life’s seasons. Build your marriage, invest in each other, and walk through the long haul together.
Talk About It – What season of your marriage have you found most challenging so far? What do you expect to find most challenging in the future?

39 – Fresh Air

2009-04-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes people feel stuck. Stuck in the same old job that you don’t know how to get out of. Stuck in the same old house that you don’t feel like you can afford to move from. Stuck with the same old car that needs more repairs than you can afford. Stuck in a marriage that lost its spark a few years ago. Sometimes a person who feels stuck and restless will make foolish and destructive choices.
We were not designed to keep our nose to the grindstone day after day, year after year. We were designed to lie down and get a good night’s sleep each night. We were designed to take a day off from work each week, thank God for what He has done for us, and reflect on where He is leading us. We were designed to live in seasons, so that there is a rhythm to our lives that changes somewhat throughout the year. Relaxing, taking time off, and getting away from it all can take some faith that God can take care of us without our constant work.
The Bible warns us about working too hard and neglecting rest and relaxation.
In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for He grants sleep to those He loves. (Psalm 127:2)
Here are some suggestions for avoiding burning out and for keeping your marriage refreshed.
Sleep – Make a habit of winding down each night and getting a good night’s sleep. If at all possible, keep a similar schedule with your spouse. If your husband has to get up early and you make a habit of staying up late and sleeping late, you limit the amount of time you have for each other.
Time Together – Make whatever adjustments you must to your schedule to be able to spend time together every day. If you both working on different shifts, this may seem like it makes childcare easier, but it will take a toll on your marriage. Pray earnestly for God to change your circumstances or give you different jobs so that you have more time together.
Church – Make a family habit of going to church together each week. Find ways to make it a joy and not a burden or a lifeless duty. If you start this habit when your children are small and have a positive attitude yourselves, you will be likely to maintain this habit as your kids grow older. If you have a negative attitude and are critical of the church or its leadership, your children will wonder what is the point of going to church and will begin to rebel against the idea as they get older.
Date Night – Particularly if you have small children, you need to find a babysitter and go do something fun as a couple. It doesn’t need to be expensive. If you don’t feel you can afford a babysitter, arrange to exchange babysitting with another couple. Most couples that take the time for a weekly date night find their communication and appreciation for each other is greatly improved. Most of the couples we have ever met with who were having trouble in their marriage had been neglecting doing anything fun with just the two of them. Almost all of the couples we know that keep a regular date night are succeeding at marriage.
Vacation – Get out of town at least once a year as a family. Find ways to make your vacation something that everyone enjoys. A common mistake with vacations is cramming in too much activity, too much travel, and too much stress. People often joke about needing to get back to work to rest up from their vacation. Your vacation will often give you a fresh perspective on life and refresh your priorities. Choose a vacation that fits the whole family and that the family can enjoy doing together.
There can also be financial stresses during a vacation, as you and your family find many ways to spend money on food, gas, lodging, and activities. Plan with your spouse in advance what you plan to do and what it will cost. You won’t be able to take all the surprises out of the cost of a vacation, but you can certainly limit them. I have found that the more I can pay for in advance, the less concerned I am with the cost of a vacation.
If you are working with limited finances for a vacation, consider inexpensive alternatives such as camping.
If you are self employed, you may find it challenging to take a vacation because of the income you will give up for the time off you are taking. However, you need to regard a vacation as an investment in your family and your health. In the long run, you will be glad you took the time off.
Talk About It – What changes do you need to make in your daily, weekly, and yearly schedules to keep your marriage fresh.

38 – Margin

2009-04-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

Healthy relationships need margin! If Shirley and I had a blanket that barely came to the edges of our bed, we would be pulling it off of each other all night. With a blanket that comes to the floor on each side of the bed, we have margin that assures we will both stay covered all night.
Margin in relationships is created when people are willing to do more than they must - do more work, show more mercy, communicate more, and exercise more patience.
A 50/50 relationship will break down into disagreements over tiny details. We will argue over where my 50 ends and your 50 starts. It will further break down in times of illness or difficulty, because someone won't be able to fulfill their 50%.
Jesus taught: If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. (Matthew 5:41) At the time Jesus made this statement, a Roman soldier could force a person to carry the soldier's belongings for one mile. During the first mile, a person was only doing what they had to. On the second mile, they were serving willingly. Going the second mile in a relationship will give it life and strength.
Here are some practical examples of going the second mile in a marriage, versus the way couples would behave in a 50/50 marriage.

A MARRIAGE WITH MARGIN - He usually mows the lawn, but has been particularly busy this week. The lawn needs to be mowed, so she mows it.

A 50/50 MARRIAGE - She stays after him until he gets it mowed.

A MARRIAGE WITH MARGIN - They don’t usually go out to eat on weekdays, but this day she had a hard day and didn’t find time to prepare anything. He takes her out to dinner.

A 50/50 MARRIAGE - He throws a fit when he finds that dinner isn’t ready, reminding her of how hard he works, and how little he expects of her.

A MARRIAGE WITH MARGIN - She usually cleans the house, but is feeling ill. He cleans the house.

A 50/50 MARRIAGE - He complains that the house is dirty, reminding her that his mother always kept their house clean.

A MARRIAGE WITH MARGIN - He forgot to take out the trash and went to bed. She is still up and realizes he forgot. She takes out the trash for him.

A 50/50 MARRIAGE - She wakes him up to tell him that he forgot to take out the trash.

Some people may be hesitant to go the second mile out of fear that it will become a pattern and that they will always be the one to be taken advantage of.
Most married couples are going to find, however, that the more they go the second mile, the more their spouse will do the same in other situations. The respect you show your spouse will come back to you on another day in another way. However, the positive impact you could have made from going the second mile can be cancelled out by one of the following.
Complaining – We can’t imagine that Jesus wanted us to go the second mile with the Roman soldier, complaining all the way, telling him how much we dislike the Roman government and how unfair he was asking us to carry his stuff in the first place. If you complain about the extra things you do, they will not convey respect.
Scorekeeping – If you do something extra for your spouse, don’t do it with an expectation that they now owe you one. Give freely and your spouse will feel respected and appreciative.
History Keeping – This is related to scorekeeping, but involves reminding your spouse of the times you have gone the extra mile. Let your spouse be the one to remind you of the kind things you have done.
Your marriage is not healthy if you don’t give each other margin and you are only willing to do your “fair” share. Your marriage is also unhealthy if you are keeping score of who has more frequently gone the second mile.
If only one of you knows how to go the second mile, it shows that your marriage is out of balance and you do not have healthy mutual respect. You need to discover why your marriage is out of balance.
Talk About It – Give each other examples of times you have appreciated your spouse going the second mile for you.

37 – Parenting Adolescents

2009-04-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

When your children hit adolescence, you are going to have to face some facts:
· Your children are likely to increase their interest in the company and approval of peers. Your influence on their lives may seem to decrease.
· Your children will go through physical changes that are hard for them to deal with.
· Your children are racing toward an age at which God intended for them to make their own decisions. They need your continued guidance through their teen years, but you must begin to let them go. If you try to control them as they become adults, the result will be unhealthy.
Raising teenagers can be fun, but can also be very challenging. Here are some keys to the process.
· Pray a lot and leave the ultimate result to God.
· Pick your battles carefully. Your children are going to have opinions and interests that are different from yours and most of these aren’t worth fighting over. We believe that many parents enter into unnecessary conflict with their teenage children because they feel threatened by the fact that their children are expressing new opinions and don’t necessarily take the parents views at face value as they once did. You need a short list of values that cannot be compromised, but a much longer list of opinions and ideas that are open to discussion and negotiation.
· Stay involved. Because your children’s interests are changing, it will take work and attention on your part to remain a meaningful part of their lives. If you make it a priority, you can find things that the whole family enjoys doing together. If you establish a commitment to going to church together when your children are young and you have a positive attitude toward your church, you will be able to maintain this as a family activity through your child’s teenage years.
· Work to maintain trust. Your teenage children may lie to you, but they are less likely to if you have made a practice of speaking the truth to them. They are also more likely to be trustworthy if they know you trust them. When your children violate your trust, you need to work to reestablish trust. This will require forgiving them for what they did and not bringing it up in times of conflict.
For your children to maintain sexual purity, they are going to need four things from you.
· Teaching the reasons for waiting for marriage to have sex. The church can help with this, but your children need to hear it from you. They need to hear it in the informal day to day situations that Deuteronomy 6 speaks of.
· An example of marriage that they can see is worth waiting for. If you tell them that they need to wait for marriage, but the only marriages they are familiar with are plagued with conflict, it will be hard for them to see what they are waiting for. If your marriage has failed, you need to see that your children are involved in a church, or are connected with relatives, where they can see some successful marriages.
· Some boundaries and expectations. Examples of boundaries might include, not letting your children date when they are too young, not allowing them to have a member of the opposite sex alone with them in the house, etc. These limits will ultimately fail, though, if you don’t give your children the teaching and example described above. You can’t give your children enough supervision to stop them from immorality if they don’t have it in their heart to avoid it.
· Lots of prayer.
Talk About It – If you have, or will soon have, adolescent children, talk about your attitudes toward staying involved in their lives while letting them go as they grow up. What do you need to do to improve your relationships with your teenage children?

36 – Parenting Little Kids

2009-04-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

This topic of parenting small children is well worth entire books, and many good books have been written on the subject. Our purpose in including a short chapter on the subject is to share a few key thoughts that we consider very important. These principles apply to the first 10 or 12 years of your child’s life. The next chapter talks about some of the changes in parenting style you will need as your children enter adolescence.
Learning Mutual Respect - Your small children need to learn from you that they are important and that they are loved. They also need to learn from you that others are important and should be treated with respect. You are going to lay the foundation for your children’s future relationships in the way you treat them. If on the one hand, you crush the interests and expressions of your children, you will leave them with a fractured sense of their own worth, and they will have trouble relating with others. On the other hand, if your entire lives center on your children, they will be selfish little rascals and will have trouble valuing the interests of others. This will leave them with a damaged ability to have meaningful relationships with others.
If their feelings are never considered, they will not know how to expect respect. If their feelings are always given top priority, they will not know how to give respect to others. Mutual respect is crucial to marriage and many other relationships throughout your child’s life. They should learn mutual respect in childhood.
Learning Genuine Faith - You will have the primary opportunity to instill faith in Christ and godly values in your children. The Bible instructs us:
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)
This passage shows us that to be qualified as a parent, you first need to love God and have His commandments on your heart. You then impress them on your children in the day to day activities of life. There is little hope of impressing anything on your children that you don’t first have on your own heart. Your children will easily be able to see what you really believe. Your words will be empty if they don’t agree with your actions.
Time Together - To have the teaching opportunities that Deuteronomy 6 talks about, you are going to have to do things as a family. The ideal environment for raising children has been defined by researchers as
an enduring two parent family that engages regularly in activities together, has developed its own routines, traditions and stories, has minimal conflict, and provides a great deal of contact time between adults and children.
Being a Healthy Parent - To be a good parent, you first need to have a healthy understanding of who you are. Weaknesses in your own character will show up in the way you treat your children.
Unfulfilled - If you feel unfulfilled you may try to live your life through your children, hoping that they will accomplish the things you only dreamed about. You may put unreasonable expectations on them that make their lives miserable. It is natural and healthy to want your children to go beyond where you have gone, but not to insist that they fulfill your dreams. They will have dreams of their own. The Bible compares children to arrows.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. (Psalm 127:4)
Warriors don’t shoot arrows at their own feet. They shoot them at places they haven’t been yet. But to shoot them you have to let go. Your children need to be allowed to become who God intended them to be. We will say more about letting go of your children in the next chapter.
Desperate for Approval - If you are desperate for your children’s approval, you may be too permissive with your children and raise them to ignore boundaries. To be a good parent, there will be times you must tell your children what they don’t want to hear. You are going to have to tell them “no” some of the time. Particularly when your children are small, they need you to set boundaries.
Fear of Embarrassment - If you fear embarrassment or failure, you may react harshly to your children when they inevitably do something embarrassing or they fail at something. You will likely pass onto your children your fear of embarrassment.
Balance - If you love God, know that He loves you, and enjoy life while considering others, you will have the balance you need to be a good parent. If you find that there is unhealthiness in you that hinders your ability to be a good parent, talk honestly with your spouse about it. Work on it together. Ask God to bring growth to your life.
Talk About It – Are you spending enough time with your children to instill faith and character in them? Are you giving them a balanced sense of their own interests and the interests of others?

35 – Running the Whole Race

2009-04-23T19:09:00.000-07:00

A distance runner doesn’t consider himself successful until he crosses the finish line. No one would say that they have had a successful marriage unless they have stayed married and have done well as long as they both live. 20 years of successful marriage, followed by a divorce, is not a successful marriage. It is a failed marriage.
To finish well in your marriage, you will have to work at it.
Warning Signs – Marriages seldom fail abruptly. There are usually warning signs that tell you something needs attention. If your car starts to wobble when you drive it, you know that something needs to be fixed. If you ignore the signs and keep driving, the problem is very unlikely to correct itself. If you feel like you are drifting apart from your spouse, it is probably because you are drifting apart from your spouse. It is time to recommit yourself to working at the things that nurture marriage.
First Things First – As we have mentioned, sometimes times get tough. Any marriage that lasts will have to go through these tough times. However, sometimes couples will confuse life’s normal challenges with unusual circumstances. They may develop habits that aren’t healthy, but justify them by thinking that they are only going to live like this until life settles down. They may tell themselves they are going to start doing the things that will improve their marriage when they get around to it, but that life is just too busy right now. Maybe next year when the kids are a little older we’ll start having a date night. Maybe when we get a few bills paid off, I can cut back on my work schedule and we can have more family time.
Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. (Ecclesiastes 11:4)
Planting and reaping are the two most essential actions if you hope to live off of what the land produces. The verse above shows that someone who is waiting for perfect conditions will foolishly neglect these actions. There are very few days with no wind. If you are going to plant, you will probably have to tolerate a little wind. Most days have a few clouds. You will need to reap and not wait for a forecast of 0% chance of rain.
There are essential actions you need to take to nurture your marriage. You will never have perfect conditions. There will always be other things competing for your attention. Don’t fail to spend time together and don’t fail to work at effective communication.
Marriages sometimes die of neglect while couples are giving their attention to things that are ultimately much less important.
Renewal – Marriages sometimes lose their spark and can benefit from renewal. Many couples, particularly those with children at home, have found a vacation for just the two of them brings a fresh joy in their marriage. A friend of ours had been a mother for about 15 years. She and her husband had taken regular vacations with their family, but hadn’t been away as a couple without the children for a long time. They spent just a few days away and found a new spark in their relationship. She said, “I’d forgotten how much I really like this person I married.”
If you have children at home, arranging a vacation for just the two of you may seem too complicated and too expensive. However, refreshing your marriage will have lasting value. We expect that you will find that the effort and expense you put into getting away as a couple will be well worth it.
Other couples have found renewal in a marriage retreat or seminar. We have seen some couples experience a great change in their marriage after only a weekend away at a marriage retreat.
Counseling – If you are having trouble making your marriage healthy, you may want to consider some marriage counseling. Many people, especially men, will shy away from counseling because they feel like they are admitting defeat at something they should be able to succeed at. Don’t look at marriage counseling as defeat. People often turn to coaches to help them improve at something. Even the greatest golfers in the world have coaches who work with them.
If you are going to go to a counselor, find someone who will treat both of you with respect and will treat marriage with respect. A woman going to a counselor who dislikes men or a man going to a counselor who dislikes women, is not likely to find any help in building their marriage. We had a friend who was having marital troubles. She went to a counselor who listened to one side of the story (the wife’s), offered a label for her husband’s behavior, and told her the only thing she could do to solve her problems was to leave her husband. This was not helpful counseling.
Find someone who is not interested in making you dependent on them. Some people make their living counseling and wouldn’t mind having you come to see them regularly for a long time. They wouldn’t mind having you feel like you could never get by without them, as long as you are a paying customer. Look for someone who wants to coach you to success in your marriage.
If you are considering marriage counseling, we’d suggest you begin by making an appointment with your pastor, or a staff member at your church who offers pastoral counseling.
Talk About It – Are you doing the things that will keep your marriage successful over your lifetime? Are there things you are neglecting?

34 – Bring Happiness

2009-04-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

War was serious business in Old Testament Israel. But God didn’t want war to get in the way of happy marriages. Able bodied men were expected to show up when the country needed to be defended, but there was one exception.
If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married. (Deuteronomy 24:5)
There are three important conclusions that we can draw from this verse.
· God values happy marriages. He wouldn’t have put such a high priority on men staying home if happy marriages weren’t essential to the health of the nation. He wants you to have a happy marriage.
· Happy marriages take some time and effort. That’s the reason the men needed to be given time at home. No one is likely to give you a year off, but you are going to have to work at having a happy marriage, and
· Mere mortals can figure out how to have a happy marriage. The verse implies that if the man is given the chance, he can bring happiness. Don’t imagine that a happy home is beyond your reach. You can do this!
We’ve said earlier that if you make your own happiness a primary goal, you won’t be happy. However, making your spouse and family happy is a worthy goal, and you will find that this will make you happy in the process.
If you want to make your spouse and family happy, you need to take a positive attitude toward life yourself and bring encouragement, joy, and optimism, when you speak to them. If you are a generally negative person, you need to ask God to change your heart. God has transformed angry, negative people into joyful, positive people. Life always has it challenges and difficult times. The joy that the Lord gives is stronger, though, than life’s troubling circumstances. Peter wrote:
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8-9)
Peter believed that faith in Jesus produced a great joy that overshadows everything else in life. Paul did too. Even though he faced some very tough times, he wrote:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)
We’re not asking you to fake a positive attitude around your family. We’re asking you to choose a positive attitude, and if you don’t know how, ask God to work in your heart to give you the “inexpressible and glorious joy” that Peter wrote about.
Here are simple things you can do to bring a positive, happy attitude into your home.
· Thank your spouse for things that they do. Don’t worry about saying “Thank you” too many times. Your spouse won’t get tired of it.
· Give your spouse and children encouragement and compliments. Tell them that you love them.
· If you have something you need to talk about that is negative, include a positive side to it as well. For example, if you are unhappy that your husband has been coming home late from work without calling you, tell him you appreciate his hard work, but would like for him to call if he isn’t going to be home when you expect him.
· Don’t complain about life. Paul wrote:
Do everything without complaining or arguing. (Philippians 2:14)
· Give thanks to God for your home, your family, and everything you have. Paul also wrote:
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
· Find things to do with your spouse and family that you all enjoy. As your children get older their interests will change, but if you work at it, you can find things that you all enjoy.
· Develop a sense of humor.
Some people seem only to convey to their family that life is hard, times are tough, and there is no reason to smile. They seem to think that an adult’s job is to keep everyone’s nose to the grindstone. Don’t let this attitude prevail in your home. Make your home a place of happiness that you all enjoy.
Talk About It – What can you do to increase the happiness in your home? Do you have the joy that the Bible talks about? If not, why not?

33 – Write it Down

2009-04-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

This chapter describes a simple exercise to improve communication in your marriage. Here’s how it works:
1. Choose a simple topic that you each have significant feelings about.
2. Each of you write about it, separately, but at the same time.
3. Exchange papers.
4. Read what your spouse wrote.
5. Talk about it.
This exercise is a way to foster communication about your feelings. It has the advantage of allowing each of you to think clearly, without interruption, while you are writing. You will then have the opportunity to get your spouse’s feelings, uninterrupted, while you are reading. Your discussion afterward will increase your understanding of each other.
We have found this simple exercise increases our understanding of each other and our ability to communicate. For example, one time we wrote down the five most satisfying experiences each of us had in the last five years. I was shocked to find two items on Shirley’s list were improvements we had made in our home. I think home improvement is fine, but until our little writing exercise I didn’t know how important it was to Shirley.
Make sure that when you begin this exercise, you have enough time for it. When you start writing, it may take you a little while. When you start talking, you may find that there is a lot to talk about.
As you write, try to express your feelings. Don’t accuse or complain. Just explain the way you feel. For example, “You don’t spend enough time with me,” is a complaint. On the other hand, “I enjoy the time we spend together and often wish we would make more time to spend together,” expresses feelings.
When you read what your spouse has written, make your primary goal understanding your spouse’s feelings. If you read something that sounds like an accusation or that expresses some disappointment in you, don’t become defensive. If you read something that sounds like a problem, don’t try to jump to the conclusion. You can discuss solutions to problems after you have fully understood each other’s feelings.
We wouldn’t recommend this exercise as a means of dealing with major conflict or topics that need urgent attention. This exercise will work best when your minds are relatively clear, you are in a reasonably good mood, and you are not feeling defensive or troubled about your marriage.
This exercise may be particularly useful when you take a trip out of town without children and have extended time together.
We hope this exercise gives you some new understanding of each other and deepens your communication. We aren’t looking at this exercise as a method of unleashing a huge backlog of feelings you have been holding inside for years. If this happens, it is a clear symptom that the communication in your marriage has been inadequate and that you need to devote much more effort to healthy communication.
Something to Write About – Here are some topics you might find useful, but don’t be limited by this list. Think of your own topics that interest you both.
· What are your three favorite memories you have of doing something together?
· Describe what you would like to see happen in the next five years?
· When have you felt closest to God? Why?
· What three people have had the most important positive influence in your life?
· If you were to write a book, what would it be about?
· If you could do one thing to help other people, and you had all the time, training, and money you needed to do it, what would it be?
· If you could go one place, anywhere in the world, on vacation, where would it be?
Talk About It – Are you interested in giving this exercise a try? When would be the best time for you to try it?

32 – Confrontation

2009-04-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

We have talked about the importance of mutual respect and negotiation in a healthy marriage. There will be times when you must confront a tough issue with your spouse, to sit down and seriously talk through something that you may not agree on. Here are some guidelines to healthy confrontation.
1. Speak privately – Sally thinks her man ought to have more self confidence and pursue a better job. She hasn’t mentioned this privately, but has brought it up twice in front of her husband at family gatherings. A man or woman who knows it is going to be hard to settle something in private with their spouse may be tempted to bring it up in front of others. They may hope that the agreement of others (or even their children) will provide added leverage to their opinion. They may think that the presence of others will keep their spouse from overreacting. Bringing up a tough issue in front of others will make your spouse feel disrespected and is a form of manipulation. Speak privately. If you can’t settle it between the two of you, get some help from someone you both respect, such as your pastor.
2. Be timely – If you have argued about something, you may both need some time to settle down, but don’t sweep it under the rug and forget about it. If you try to ignore the issue, it is likely to erupt again later. If you have a serious issue to talk about, it is usually best to make an appointment, with both of you knowing what you will be talking about. For example, suppose you are home all day upset that your husband hasn’t been spending enough time with you. You may be tempted to hit him with it when he walks in the door. Resist that temptation and ask if you can talk about it after dinner. Tell him you want to talk about how you each use your time, but don’t jump into the details right then. Wait until you can sit down and focus on it.
3. Deal with one issue – Sometimes people hold things in for a long time. When a serious talk (or a big argument) happens, they may feel it is open season to let loose everything they have been holding inside. This can quickly sidetrack and destroy a meaningful conversation. Don’t hold things in; talk about them. But when you have a serious conversation, stay on the topic. If you find yourself unleashing many things you have been holding in, it is a symptom that the communication in your marriage is not healthy. You are not spending enough time on communication, and you are building up a big backlog of things you need to talk about.
4. Deal with things that can be changed – You both need to recognize what you can change, what you need to accept, what you can find help with, and what you can only pray about. If you agree that you are not going to buy a house for a couple of years, don’t bring that up as a complaint.
5. Say only enough to make your point – If you keep on something after you have clearly made your point, you are being a nag. This will damage your ability to have serious conversations about things in the future.
6. Avoid sarcasm, overstatement, drama, emotion, and comparison with others – These are all manipulative techniques that people use to win arguments and get their way. If your goal is to settle an issue together in a way that preserves mutual respect, you will avoid these techniques.
7. Use word pictures if they clarify your point, but not if they exaggerate your point. Explain to your spouse how their behavior looks to you and how it makes you feel. Analogies and word pictures can be helpful, but keep them reasonable and fitting. For example, the prophet Nathan used a word picture to help David understand his irresponsible behavior in 2 Samuel 12:1-4.
8. Be specific and don’t generalize – If you start with a statement like, “You never spend any time with me,” the conversation is likely to get sidetracked from the beginning. Your spouse may say, “What are you talking about, don’t you remember last Saturday, we went shopping together?” If you start the conversation with a statement like, “I’d like for us to be able to spend more time doing things together,” the conversation is more likely to go in a positive direction.
9. Include compliments – If you want to talk about spending more time together, talk about times you have done things together that you really enjoyed. If you want to ask your spouse to do more work around the house, talk about your appreciation for the things he or she has done. This will help you take a balanced look at your concerns, because there will always be positive things you can compliment your spouse on. If you can only see the negative side of an issue, you aren’t looking at the whole picture.

Talk About It – Talk about how free you feel to bring up something serious you want to talk about. How successful have you been at talking through serious issues? What do you need to do to become more successful?

31 – Manipulation

2009-04-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

Healthy marriages are built on mutual respect. If you respect your spouse, you will want them to do what they do by choice, based on the truth, from a heart of love. You will, therefore, speak the truth in love. Trying to get them to do something by using unhealthy tactics is called manipulation. Manipulation is self-centered because it focuses on getting what you want without regard to the impact on your spouse. Manipulation includes:
· Lying – It was usually pretty funny when Lucy would lie to Ricky to cover up her latest scheme, but it didn’t add to a healthy marriage. If there is anything you are telling your spouse that isn’t true, it is going to create separation between the two of you and will make your spouse feel taken advantage of and hurt when the truth becomes known.
· Insulting – You should be committed to building your spouse up. You may think that you can get him or her to do what you want by insulting them, but you are damaging your relationship and discarding the unique opportunity you have to build your spouse up. You cannot build your spouse up while you are tearing them down.
· Violence – If you have become violent with your spouse, you need to ask God to change your heart. You have become so focused on having your way that you have resorted to something completely contrary to what you committed to when you married. You were given to each other to help each other. Violence in your marriage is damaging to the very heart of your relationship.
· Threatening – Physical violence has no place in a marriage. Neither do threats of violence. You should both agree that you are not going to use or threaten to use violence on each other.
· Nagging – You are nagging if you constantly repeat the same criticism and complaints. The Bible shows us that no one is going to want to live with a nag.
A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping. (Proverbs 19:13)
Find healthy ways to discuss the things that concern you and do not become a nag.
· Whining – This technique uses a pathetic sounding voice to complain to your spouse. If you have something constructive to say, say it without the drama.
· Shouting – Shouting at your spouse may seem like it gets their attention. However, it damages the mutual respect that is essential to healthy communication. If you need to take a short break to calm down before you can talk in a normal voice, that will be better than shouting at your spouse.
· Withdrawing – If you know you are about to lose your temper, walking out of the room may be a better option for a short while. However, staying withdrawn for any length of time is a form of manipulation. Some people will go into a quiet pout to try to manipulate their spouse. Refusing to talk, slamming the door behind you, hanging up on someone during a phone conversation, and withholding normal sexual relations are all forms of manipulation. We have spoken earlier about some circumstances in which separation may be appropriate. We don’t regard this as manipulation if it is done for a clear reason and the door is left open to reconciliation.
· Using Guilt – He says, “After I went to work all day to bring home money to feed the family, you can’t even show a little appreciation by cleaning the house.” She says, “After I went through the pain of childbirth, the least you could do is change a diaper occasionally.” You want to develop a relationship with your spouse where you both do things for each other out of love, not guilt. Using guilt may get you what you want for the moment, but it won’t change your spouse’s heart and it won’t create any positive long term results in your marriage.
· Using Unfavorable Comparisons With Someone Else – “My mother always had dinner ready by this hour.” “Jenny’s husband doesn’t care what time she comes in at night.” These kinds of comparisons are damaging to your relationship. You should make it your goal to put your spouse in a class by themselves, so you do not want to use these unhealthy comparisons.
Talk About It – Are there forms of manipulation that you have been using on each other? What are healthier ways you can express what you want?

30 – Communicating Little Stuff

2009-04-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

Details, Details - A good relationship requires good communication of day to day stuff. What time will you be here? What do you want for dinner? How long will your car be in the shop?
In the many years we have been married, some of our crabbiest days have been on days off. If I was working Monday through Friday, Shirley would begin to compile a mental list of things she wanted me to do or things she wanted us to do together on Saturday. Of course, I had a mental list of my own, that began with sleeping late. The problem would come when we failed to communicate our expectations. We each had at least 10 hours of expectations crammed into 12 hours of daytime. We could have done everything on her list, or we could have done everything on my list. We just couldn’t do both. A short talk, sometime during the week, about what we had planned for Saturday would have eased the tension that seemed to mount during the morning on Saturday when we discovered we were not on the same page.
There is no great skill required in telling someone what time you will show up or what you have planned for Saturday. If you respect each other you will inform each other of the things that are going to have an impact on your daily lives. Perhaps there are a few reasons, though, that keep people from communicating the little details.
· Past conflicts make some people “gun shy” about communication. If we had a big fight the last time I brought up the fact I was going golfing, maybe it would be easier to just slip out and go without saying anything. The problem, of course, in this approach is that it increases conflict and tension in a marriage.
· Some people may be so wrapped up in their own thoughts and needs that they simply fail to think about how their plans impact their spouse. When you are married, you are no longer two but one, and you must think about how your plans impact your partner.
· Some people, especially the newly married, may feel like it’s demeaning or unnecessary to discuss their plans with another person. They may have struggled with their parents for independence when they were teenagers and now feel that grownups don’t have to discuss their plans with others. If you have this attitude, you need to drop it and recognize that good communication is essential to a healthy marriage. You cannot make your spouse feel respected while leaving him or her in the dark about your plans that impact their life.
We have met with couples that were crying out for better communication in the details of their lives. One or both of them felt disrespected because of the things they weren’t told. Sometimes, though, one or both felt like having to tell their spouse what they had planned was a form of imprisonment. Being married involves becoming one and you need to share with each other these little details.
You may need to look at the calendar together once or twice a week to see what you have planned for the next few days. Taking just a few moments to do that may pay for itself many times over during the week. You may spend two minutes eliminating some conflict that would have taken you two hours to fix later. You will find that your life is more in order, and your appreciation and understanding of each other is greater.
If you are going to get home later than expected, give your spouse a phone call. We have so many methods of communication available today, there is no excuse for failing to communicate.
If you have committed to do something with your spouse, take that commitment very seriously. Don’t let something else get in the way without discussing it with your spouse. Once I had told Shirley I would watch our children while she got her hair done on a Saturday. The commitment seemed like a small thing to me. So when one of the guys called to ask me to go play basketball, I said I would without discussing it with Shirley. This was much more upsetting to her than I expected. I would have been much better off watching Shirley getting her hair done, because I ended up on crutches with a bad ankle sprain. (I did it playing basketball, Shirley didn’t do it.)
Some couples who find it hard to communicate about the details of life, may distance themselves from each other to make it seem as though their lives are in order. They may each eat by themselves, each pursue their own interests, go to bed and get up alone without communication. They may find themselves living in two separate worlds where they only accidently bump into each other. This isolation may reduce the conflict they once had, but it falls very short of the plan God had for marriage when He talked about two becoming one.
Talk About It – How can you improve your communication of the details of your life? Would you benefit from a weekly discussion of what you have planned for the coming week?

29 – Communicating Love

2009-04-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

Craig had been married for twelve years. He was doing well at work and was keeping the lawn mowed and the bills paid. He had been a little hard headed in the first years of marriage, but he thought he was becoming a much better husband. The kids were doing well and Craig was beginning to look down the road to think about what life would be like after the kids were grown and out of the house. One day he came home from work and his wife announced that she was unhappy and was leaving! Craig was completely blind-sided. He hadn’t seen this coming at all. His wife assured him that there wasn’t another man involved, but said she had been unhappy for a long time and finally decided to do something about it.
Who was at fault? Was it Craig for not knowing that his wife was unhappy? Or was it Craig’s wife for not making it known a lot earlier? They are both to blame. They can share the blame and they will both suffer the consequences. It’s not too late for them to nurture their marriage and make it work. One key ingredient they’ll need is to consistently communicate love to each other.
Speaking Each Other’s Language - One of our favorite books is The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. Chapman says that we need to communicate love to each other, but that we often have different ways of expressing it and receiving it. He says that we need to communicate it in the way that it will be best understood by the person receiving it. He identifies five primary love languages.
· Words of Affirmation
· Gifts
· Quality Time
· Acts of Service
· Physical Touch
After reading his book, we have often met with couples and noticed that they were speaking two different languages. The conversations go something like this:
“I don’t know what she wants. I keep the house up. I help her with the dishes. I fixed her car last week.”
She responds, “But I can never get him to spend any time with me. He’s always too busy, and when he gets some free time, he wants to play golf or watch football.”
Can you see the languages being spoken? He thinks he is being a great husband because he values acts of service. She thinks he is falling short because she values quality time.
To communicate love in her language, he is going to need to give her quality time.
Chapman’s very readable book will sharpen your ability to communicate love.
I would never get much pleasure out of someone giving me flowers, and it wouldn’t naturally occur to me to give them. They seem impractical since they quickly lose their beauty and die. Shirley, however, loves flowers. I can communicate to her by bringing her flowers. When I do, I’m speaking her language.
If you consistently communicate love to each other, it will lead to a contentment and joy in your marriage that will sustain you in difficult times. Your love for each other should be something that financial troubles, sickness, or other hard times can’t take away from you. Knowing that my wife loves me unconditionally makes my home a place of refuge and a joy to come home to.
Work at communicating love to your spouse. Make sure that they know they are loved.
Daily Heart to Heart – It has amazed us sometimes to see the contrast in a couple when they come to us to do their wedding and the same couple a couple of years later when they are having marital problems. What is amazing is what they say about their communication. Prior to their wedding they may talk of how great their communication is. The same couple, two years later, may complain about how they have no communication. We believe the reason for this is that when people are approaching marriage, they are usually putting a lot of effort into their relationship. When they get married, their focus may change to their careers, their house, or a dozen other things. They still live in the same house and bump into each other every day, but they are not necessarily working on their relationship.
We recommend that every married couple take some time every single day to talk to each other about how they are feeling and what they are thinking. It doesn’t always need to be a long talk, but it should be consistent. Ask your spouse how they are doing and let them answer in as much detail as they choose. There may be times when one of you has a lot to say and there isn’t enough time then to say it. You will need to schedule another time to talk in more detail. If so, make this an important priority and don’t put it off for more than a few days. Your interest in your spouse’s thoughts and feelings will reassure them of your love for them.
Talk About It – Discuss with each other the things that most make you feel loved. What can you do to improve your communication of love to each other?

28 – Communication

2009-04-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

Communication is like oil in an engine. The engine runs smoothly with it, but breaks without it. Good communication is closely related to mutual respect. If you respect each other, you are going to care enough to communicate with each other. If your communication is weak, your respect for your spouse will make you want to work to improve it.
Good communication takes deliberate effort. You need to work at keeping communication healthy in your marriage.
You can measure the health of your communication in these four ways:
Kindness – You can choose the tone you use when you speak to one another. Your tone will help determine whether your words are helpful or harmful.
An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up. (Proverbs 12:25)
Too many couples have the bad habit of escalating harshness. That is, if someone’s spouse speaks harshly to them, they want to speak back even more harshly. This practice causes some couples to allow some small difference to explode into a major fight. Shirley and I have frequently met with couples who had a major fight over some very small incident. The only reason that it became major was that they each chose to respond to harshness with greater harshness. The Bible teaches us to do just the opposite.
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1)
We learn from the Bible that we have a natural problem with our tongue.
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (James 3:7-8)
If we are going to speak a kind word, we need God’s help to tame the tongue. If you have a habit of speaking harshly to your spouse or family, ask God to give you a kind tongue.
Timeliness – For some things, when you say something is as important as what you say. If something is going to impact your life and I respect you, I’m going to want you to know about it in advance.
Suppose your parents are planning to visit on Saturday. You know that your wife is uncomfortable around your parents and might give you a negative reaction if you tell her what’s planned. If you respect her, you are going to tell her in advance. If you choose to spring it on her at the last minute to avoid conflict, you will have created more conflict in the future by making your wife feel disrespected.
Some untimeliness of communication is due to the fact that people are busy and not giving adequate attention to communication. They may mean to tell their spouse something and simply forget.
It is sometimes funny in church life to see how couples communicate with each other. If you want to invite a couple to be somewhere, you may need to know how they communicate. Some wives are the planners. If you get something on the wife’s calendar, you can count on the couple being there. Her husband may rely on his wife to tell him each day where is supposed to be and what he is supposed to do.
With other couples, you need to talk to each of them individually, because they don’t communicate very much with each other.
With still other couples, you can count on the fact that if you told one, you have communicated with both, because they communicate well with each other.
Thoroughness – Sometimes the important part of communication is in the details. If I tell my wife we are going out to eat, she will want to know where we are going and how she should dress. If I say I am going to be late getting home from work, she should know how late.
Very often a married couple will have differing interest in details. Some people are very flexible by nature and don’t need to know a lot of detail about plans. You will make your spouse feel respected if you give them the amount of detail they are interested in, not just the amount of detail you think is important. Your level of interest in the details of your finances may differ significantly between husband and wife. Show each other respect by discussing finances in a level of detail you are both comfortable with.
Depth – Our lives include some things that are of superficial importance and others that are the most important issues of our lives. Some couples do a fine job of communicating in all the superficial areas needed to keep the bills paid, the dishes done, and the lawn mowed. However, they may seldom talk about things that are of deeper significance. Getting beneath the surface and communicating about your dreams, your joys, your fears, and your hopes may take extra effort. It may not come naturally.
The next five chapters of this book are devoted to various aspects of communication.
Talk About It – How would you rate the kindness of your communication? The timeliness? The thoroughness? The depth?

27 – Guy Time, Girl Time

2009-04-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

God didn’t make you and your spouse as clones of each other. He created you male and female. While we hope you enjoy doing many things together, you will each have interests that you don’t have in common. There is nothing wrong with the fact that your interests are different, but these differences can be a source of conflict. Or your different interests can be viewed as another opportunity to show each other respect.
Respect for each other will cause you to make room for each other’s interests. You will need to do some combination of the following.
Doing Things Together - Spend some time joining your spouse in what they like to do. Shirley will go golfing with me once or twice a year. I will go shopping with her about as frequently. If there is something your spouse enjoys that you have never tried, at least try it once to see whether you might like it. Look for opportunities to nurture an interest in something your spouse likes to do.
Shirley has on occasion set up a booth at a craft fair. I have no natural interest in crafts, but helping set up the booth is a way I can be involved in her interest and spend time doing something with her.
Welcoming Each Other - We have two sons who live about 200 miles away from us in Seattle. I will make several trips a year there to take them to a professional baseball or football game. We often play some golf while I am there. Shirley knows that she is always welcome to join us. She might watch one baseball game a year. The last time I took her to a professional basketball game she fell asleep. Shirley invites me to go with her when she goes to get her nails done or goes shopping. Even though I seldom accept an invitation like that, I know that she enjoys my company and wouldn’t mind me coming.
Freedom – You should give your spouse the freedom to pursue some interests without your participation or complaints. I might average a golf game a week during good weather. If Shirley wants to get together with some other ladies to do something fun, she has my support. (Even the underwear painting party she went to with a group of mothers and grandmothers.)
Giving your spouse your support in pursuing something of interest to them will help them understand that you value them as a person. Because you have shown respect to your spouse in this way, you will find them returning respect in other ways.
Limits – We have to limit the pursuit of individual interests so that it doesn’t crowd out our married life. I could watch a lot more football, but it tends to drive Shirley out of the living room, so I limit it. If I started golfing every day, I would be throwing my life out of balance, neglecting too many other things, including my marriage. (I say this as a working man. I recognize that a retired man might be able to golf nearly every day without necessarily being out of balance.)
Growing Up – You will have to forsake interests that are destructive, disrespectful, or contrary to your wedding vows. We once did a wedding where the bride was a former stripper. Before marrying, she had to agree to forsake her former career, because her husband was never going to feel respected while she was still active as a stripper. A man who may have been in the habit of going out to have a few drinks with the boys, coming home late and drunk, will need to give that up.
If a wife’s time with the girls makes her want to come home and pick a fight, or his time with the boys makes him want to come home and treat his wife with disrespect, something needs to change. If you are spending time with friends, they should be friends that respect your spouse and support your marriage. Don’t give valuable time to people who have a negative impact on your attitude toward marriage and toward your spouse.
Communicate! - We will always let each other know what we are planning and make sure that our plans work for both of us.
Giving each other some consideration with interests that you don’t have in common is a natural result of respecting each other. You need to look at your normal schedule through a week and find a balanced life that gives you time for your relationship with God, for work, for each other, and for your interests.
Talk About It – Are there interests that either of you are pursuing too much or too little? Are there ways that you can include each other in things you are interested in?

26 – Leadership

2009-04-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

In any endeavor involving more than one person, leadership is needed. If two people are moving a table, the leadership may be very subtle, but there will be leadership. Marriages need leadership. The Bible is straightforward in stating that God wants the man to lead:
Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3)
Many people have had a bad boss. That doesn’t mean that having a boss is a bad idea. If you have ever had a good boss, you probably found many reasons to appreciate him or her. God intended that there be a leader in marriage, the man. The fact that some men have done a bad job of it isn’t reason for throwing out the idea of having a leader in the home, or rejecting the idea that God wants the man to lead.
Women who feel threatened or angry at the idea of a man being head of the home have probably never seen a good example of a man leading his home. They may struggle with the command to wives.
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:22-24)
The Bible never commands men to demand submission from their wives. A man who tries to demand submission, will likely instigate more resistance. Or he may get submission, but only after destroying the mutual respect in his marriage. Instead the Bible tells men to honor and respect their wives and to love them as Jesus loved the church. The commands to submit are addressed to the wife. Women are told to do this, even if their husbands are not believers.
Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives. (1 Peter 3:1)
We believe that most women want to follow the leadership of their husband, but need to be convinced that their husband has the right heart for it. Men who demand respect seldom get it. Men who lead with patience, godliness, and diligence, will have the respect of their entire family, and usually their in-laws as well.
For the woman, submission doesn’t mean withholding your point of view. A woman needs to express her point of view. Her perspective is a God-given balance to her husband to help him see things from another angle. This is the reason God said the man needed help. Furthermore, the man is commanded to respect his wife. He won’t be able to truly do this unless he knows his wife’s thoughts and feelings so that he can respect them.
Submission doesn’t mean that a man makes all the decisions. A man who makes all the decisions is a poor leader. Here are some of the ways in which a good leader will benefit from the intelligence and gifts of those he leads.
Delegation – There are some decisions that should simply be delegated. There are many areas in our life in which Shirley simply knows more than I do, and the decision will be all hers. Arranging and decorating the house are examples for us. A leader who thinks he must make all the decisions has failed to understand the gifts and the abilities of those God gave him to lead.
Negotiation – Negotiation is finding a middle ground that takes into account the thoughts and feelings of both people. We spoke more about this in chapter 18. You can’t have a healthy marriage unless you value the thoughts and feelings of one another, even when you don’t understand or agree with what your spouse is thinking.
Allocation – Both the man and the wife should each have some parts of the house, some part of the budget, and some time in their week, that can be used at their own discretion. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that time or money can be used in a ways that trample on the other person’s feelings or treats them with disrespect.
Germination – While some decisions that can’t be put off, many can. For large decisions in particular, if you aren’t in agreement, it may be best to put off the decision for a while and keep praying. You may not be seeing the whole picture yet.
There will be times that you must make a decision when you aren’t in agreement, but if you have built a relationship based on mutual respect and thorough communications you will be able to work your way through these times without major difficulty.
Talk About It – How healthy is the man’s leadership in your home? How willing to follow is the woman in your home?

25 – Building Trust and Faithfulness

2009-04-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

Trusting each other to be faithful is essential to a healthy marriage. Your human heart wants to trust your spouse and wants to know that your relationship is exclusive. Trust stands on two legs, 1) a willingness to trust another person, and 2) trustworthy behavior.
Do you think that trust is freely given, or is it earned? The answer is yes, both. In many relationships you start with assumed trust that you give to each other freely, but you can only keep trust through trustworthy behavior.
The human heart gets hurt when we think we have an exclusive relationship and find that our partner has cheated. Humans, though, can be irrational with this desire for trust by maintaining a double standard. John, for example, feels hurt that his wife cheated on him, even though he has been unfaithful himself.
It’s reasonable to expect a relationship to be exclusive when you have made a commitment to each other and you are being faithful to that commitment yourself.
Trust in an exclusive relationship satisfies a deep desire in our heart. Trust, though, is based largely on how people have behaved toward each other.
If you had sex on the first date, you showed each other that it took very little to get you in bed. You started with a low level of trust that it will take time to build up.
If you didn’t have sex until you were married, you showed each other that you recognize that sex is exclusive and belongs in marriage. You established a solid foundation of trust from the beginning.
Imagine a “trust meter” where “0” represents sex on the first date and “10” represents purity until the honeymoon. Maybe "5" represents waiting until the relationship is pretty serious and "7" represents waiting until you're engaged. The trust in your relationship started at the point you chose. It can go up or down from there, but it takes time to change it.
What if trust has been violated? Can it be rebuilt? Yes, it can. The rebuilding will take the five steps described in the section on Restoring Broken Trust in Chapter 8.
Some people have had their ability to trust someone damaged by the actions of their parents or others who have broken trust with them in their past. Your spouse may have already had difficulty trusting another person when the two of you met. However, over time, the influence of the past will dim and your spouse’s trust for you is going to be based primarily on your actions and your words.
What do you need to do to build and maintain trust in your marriage? Your words and actions need to line up with the commitment you made when you married to forsake all other and keep yourselves for each other.
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. (Ephesians 5:3)
The command here is that there not even be a hint of sexual immorality. I believe this means that we shouldn’t joke about cheating and we shouldn’t put ourselves in situations where our intent is unclear.
Cheating on your spouse, or even entertaining the idea is a foolish choice. Proverbs 5 is devoted to warning us against adultery, telling us it will cost us health, wealth, and reputation. The person who is unfaithful will look back on it with regret. We are urged to maintain faithfulness in our marriage.
Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? (Proverbs 5:15-16)
And we are warned to take care to take precaution not to put ourselves in a tempting situation.
Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house. (Proverbs 5:8)
If your spouse doesn’t trust you, don’t ignore it and don’t merely yell at them for not trusting you. Examine the roots of the lack of trust and discover what it will take to build trust in your marriage. If your words and actions have been worthy of trust, give your spouse time to develop a stronger sense of trust in you. If, on the other hand, you have said or done things that damaged trust, you need to change your words and actions to those that reinforce trust in you.
If you have been tempted to infidelity, it is a symptom that you need to nurture your marriage. Cheating is a fool’s bargain.
Proverbs warns us:
For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. (Proverbs 5:3-5)
Talk About It – Discuss what you think is the current level of trust in your relationship. What do you need to do to improve the trust in your marriage?

24 – Sex

2009-04-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

God created sex for marriage:
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure. (Hebrews 13:4)
A healthy sex life is a by-product of a healthy marriage. A couple that enjoys each other’s company at the dinner table and in the living room, should have no trouble enjoying each other’s company in the bedroom.
God gives some simple, but very important, instructions concerning sex in marriage.
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:3-5)
This passage teaches that a couple should have sex whenever one or the other wants to. The only time they should refrain is when they both agree to, “by mutual consent.”
Maybe it troubles you to see the word “duty” used to describe sexual activity. Hopefully, it will be more joyful than mere duty, but this passage is warning us of the hazards of one member withholding sex from the other. Paul tells us to obey this so that “Satan will not tempt you.” The obvious implication is that Satan will tempt one or both of you if you fail to come together.
Nearly all young men, by the time they marry will have had some experience with fantasy, masturbation, and perhaps pornography. These sexual experiences are shallow, but available on demand. God’s intent is that our sexual behavior is part of a deep multi-faceted relationship with a lifelong partner. If a man experiences a cold response from his wife, there is a temptation to turn to thoughts and behavior that are shallower, but more easily accessible. He may turn to pornography, lustful thoughts directed at other women, online relationships, flirtation, or outright adultery. Paul’s warnings suggest that Satan is eager to jump in and encourage the diversion.
As a pastor I have been puzzled to counsel, several times, with Christian married men who, although married to attractive women, were snared by pornography, fantasy, or masturbation. I am convinced that these men chose these courses because they were more readily available than fulfillment in their marriage and gave them an illusion of control that they did not have in their marriage. I believe that the solution for them was to come to a greater understanding of the deep relationship God intends for us to have in marriage and to work hard at developing that relationship.
A married couple should develop a sex life that is more fulfilling than merely doing their duty. Treating each other with mutual respect will create an atmosphere where you are in tune with each other and interested in each other’s desires. If only one of the two is in the mood for sex, the one could insist that the other “do their duty” (and will appear to have Scripture on their side). Or, the other could simply refuse (although they will be in disobedience to Scripture). A healthier alternative is to meet somewhere in the middle. This is what mutual respect produces. A man who respects his wife will not force the issue too quickly and a woman who respects her husband will not flatly refuse, though she may make her lack of enthusiasm known. (We speak as though it is the man who is more eager for sex than the woman. This is more common, but the same principles apply when it is the other way around.)
A man who is always more eager than his wife will find her more responsive if he gives her some time to warm up to the idea. A man may be comfortable ignoring his wife all evening and then initiating sex when they go to bed. His wife, on the other hand, may feel hurt by that behavior.
A man will also find that spending some time with his wife doing things they both enjoy, or expressing love to her in other, non-sexual, ways will strengthen their relationship and make his wife more ready to respond sexually. There is some help in chapter 29 on expressing love. Sex, after all, was not intended as an end in itself, but as a part of a deep, meaningful, lifelong, partnership. Treating sex as quick, shallow, gratification falls short of what God intended. Fighting over sex will seldom produce any benefit.
Someone who has been sexually abused in the past may have trouble responding sexually while married. Sometimes this doesn’t become a problem until a year or two into the marriage. The couples we know who have successfully recovered from the effects of past sexual abuse have gotten help from a counselor. We offer some thoughts on selecting a counselor in chapter 35.
If you are married for the long haul (and we hope you are), you can handle the fact that your sex life, like everything else in your marriage, will go through some “better” and “worse.” You will experience seasons in which your sexual experiences are great and times in which they seem mundane. Your commitment to each other and to God will see you through these seasons.
Two of the most effective enemies of a healthy sex life for a married couple are busyness and weariness. We talk more about these issues later. The command to “come together again” so that you won’t be tempted by Satan, also applies to the couple who have merely neglected sex because they are too busy and neither of them has taken the initiative.
Talk About It – Are there any barriers to your enjoyment of your sexual relationship? What can you do to remove them?

23 – Money

2009-04-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

There are some great books and study materials on how to manage your finances. This chapter won’t tell you very much about financial management. Our focus in this chapter is how to exercise faith, obedience, mutual respect and good communication in handling your finances. Frankly, we’d rather see you make bad financial decisions in ways that preserve mutual respect and build your relationship with each other, than make sound decisions in ways that bring conflict and disrespect into your marriage.
Our materialistic American culture tends to teach us to earn all we can and spend all or even more than we earn. However, the Bible teaches us a balance between work and rest, and a balance between consuming, saving, and giving. The Bible says a lot about finances, not because finances are that important, but because your use of finances reflects what is in your heart and your heart is important.
Here are some important keys for dealing with money:
Trust - In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said, “Give us today our daily bread.” We need to develop a simple trust in God based on the understanding that He is the one who provides for us. We should eliminate “disaster” language from our homes, such as saying, “If I lose my job, we’ll all starve.” We should cultivate an expectation in our homes that we will have what we need when we need it, because God will provide it.
Contentment – Trusting God leads to contentment. There are many things we could buy, that we can do just as well without.
Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
Nurture contentment in your family by the way you talk, spending more time thanking God for what you have than you do talking about other stuff you wish you had.
Honoring God – Everything you have actually belongs to God. The sooner you fully realize that, the more peace and contentment you will experience.
We believe in putting God first by giving 10% of our income to our local church. This is called tithing. I know that people can argue their way out of tithing by viewing it as an Old Testament requirement, but we’ve never met anyone who has practiced it faithfully with a right attitude who didn’t see the blessings that God promised in the Old Testament.
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3:10)
We don’t view tithing as a legal requirement, but as a simple discipline. It is like kindergarten in the life of faith. God promises blessings you can see. I have seen families move from constant financial turmoil to financial peace after they took this simple step of faith. Putting God first in this way will move you away from an attitude of self reliance and toward an attitude of trust and obedience.
Generosity – The Bible teaches us to give to those in need. This is something you should practice as a family.
He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28)
Respect for Each Other – The way we use our money reveals what we value. As married couples, we are taught to put a high value on each other. We should consider the needs, thoughts, and feelings, of the whole family in the way we use our finances. This can be much more challenging than merely creating a budget. It requires communication and compassion.
Managing our finances in a way that treats others in the family with respect will often feel like we are juggling many balls at once. Dad wants a new set of golf clubs. Mom wants to repaint the house. Bobby needs braces. Sally wants to go to church camp. We said we were going to take a vacation this year, but we don’t have anything saved up for it. No one said this was going to be easy, but communicating love and preserving mutual respect is an essential principle in how you choose among your many options.
Jesus rebuked the Pharisees (Matthew 15:3-6) who were governing their lives by a simple principle – that giving to God is more important than anything else. With this principle they had concluded that if they had given generously to the Lord, they could ignore their parents when they had a need. Jesus shows that giving to God doesn’t relieve you from taking care of other people in your life.
Talk – There are marriages that would experience a surge of romance and improved communication by a husband and wife sitting down at the kitchen table and working together to develop a budget. The management of your finances is a great opportunity to practice communication and mutual respect, because your priorities may be very different from each other. As you work through things, you will have the opportunity to show each other your care for each other.
Perhaps some men or women fear discussing finances because they know their spouse can think of many more things to spend money on than they will ever have the money for. Some people may feel safer living with just enough money to cover essentials, so there is never a need or opportunity to talk about anything else.
Even if you have dreams that would take much more money than you ever expect to have, we’d encourage you to talk about them. Consider together what your priorities should be, what can wait for another year, and what can be put off indefinitely.
Talk About It – Do you feel peace about your finances? Do you feel that everyone in the family is being valued in the way you manage your finances?

22 – Empathy

2009-04-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

We had been married only 6 months. It was Shirley’s birthday and I came home from a college class for lunch. I brought in the mail and said, “Look, your parents sent you a birthday card.” She began to cry. We were more than 1000 miles from either of our parents and she was a little homesick. When she was growing up, birthdays had always been a big deal at her house. They weren’t given much attention at my house. This was her first birthday since we married, and I simply didn’t know that she was going to feel sad if I didn’t do something bigger for her birthday. (In fact, I hadn’t done anything at all). I learned. I learned to think about how things would make her feel. I’m still learning.
Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and feeling what they feel. Empathy recognizes that some things that may not faze you may hurt someone else. Empathy is essential to a healthy marriage.
You might be tempted to make light of feelings your spouse has that don’t make sense to you. However, consider the fact that the Bible teaches us that Jesus is empathetic with us. He is Lord of everything. We are weak and emotional, and yet He knows and cares about what we feel.
Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
If you want to be an empathetic spouse, begin by choosing the attitude that your spouse’s feelings are important simply because you value the person you married. Then work at communication so that you have a stronger understanding of what makes your spouse tick.
Peter is speaking to men when he says:
Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (1 Peter 3:7)
That phrase “be considerate” might just sound like God wants a man to hold the door for his wife once and a while. It means much more than that. It means to thoroughly consider something.
The King James Version words it this way:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge. (1 Peter 3:7, KJV)
This is a command to men to get to know their wives, to understand what makes them tick.
A woman should do the same by caring and listening to her husband when he expresses his feelings.
Understanding and valuing the feelings of your partner should be a lifelong commitment for every married person.
Some people may look at life as somewhat overwhelming and think that their own feelings are tough enough to deal with. They may think that caring about someone else’s feelings will just make life too complicated. It’s true that decisions can be tougher if you are taking two people’s feelings into account. However, many of life’s burdens are lighter if you have someone whom you care about who understands and shares your feelings.
Coded Messages –Sometimes a person may speak out of their emotions and say what they feel instead of what they really mean. For example, a man I knew had a wife who told him, “You never kiss me.” He was pretty sure this wasn’t true, so he began to mark it on the calendar whenever he kissed his wife. (Yes, this really happened.) In this way, he was able to disprove his wife whenever she claimed he never kissed her. He was able to show her on the calendar the last time he kissed her, but he was missing the point. If he had interpreted her words as, “I feel like you never kiss me,” he might have gotten the message that he needed to kiss his wife more often and to look for other ways to nurture a healthy marriage. He may have found ways of expressing affection to his wife that she would have found even more meaningful. I can guarantee you that being shown the calendar was not satisfying to his wife.
You may need to learn to listen to the emotion in your spouse’s voice. A man may assume that if his wife says, “I don’t mind if you watch the football game,” she means that she doesn’t mind if he watches the football game. Those words might come out of her mouth in a tone of voice that says “I’m going to be annoyed if you watch the football game, why don’t you ask me what I had in mind this afternoon.” The better we get to know each other the clearer our communication will be.
Talk About It – Give each other examples of empathy that you have seen in your partner that you have appreciated. Are there examples of times when you felt like your partner really didn’t understand you?

21 – A Regular Diet of Forgiveness

2009-04-09T21:12:00.000-07:00

Earlier, we talked about applying forgiveness to the past. To have a healthy marriage, you also need to practice it on a regular basis.
Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13)
There are going to be hundreds of opportunities in your marriage to be hurt by something your spouse says or does.
If you allow hurt, resentment, or anger to accumulate, you will either live in a constant foul mood or you will snap some day over whatever issue happens to be the last straw. You may feel foolish if the last straw is some tiny issue and your reaction is totally out of proportion to its significance.
Jesus gave a startling answer to Peter’s question about forgiveness:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22) (some translations say seventy times seven)
When we picture Jesus’ disciples, we tend to think of old men with beards. But they were pretty young when Jesus first called them. You might think of them as Jesus’ youth group. Peter may have asked this question after getting his sixth wedgie of the day from his fellow disciples. He may have thought of himself as being pretty big-hearted to be willing to forgive seven times in the same day. He may have been planning to pounce on John on the eighth offense. Jesus, instead, teaches us to offer forgiveness without limit.
I don’t believe that Jesus wants His followers to neglect solving problems that cause ongoing conflict. If you have to forgive someone seven times you should ask what you need to do to avoid them hurting you the eighth time. But your willingness to forgive should be limitless.
Everybody gets hurt. The person closest to you has more ability to hurt you than anyone else. Forgiveness is the choice to let the hurt go. If you want a healthy marriage, you need to be quick to forgive. If you can’t forgive until you have made everyone involved suffer or until you have made a big scene, you will seriously hinder anyone else’s ability to be close to you. You also won’t be able to keep up with the need for forgiveness.
The ease with which you handle the little daily irritations you may get from your spouse has as much to do with you and the way you look at life as it does the things your spouse says and does. If you recognize and appreciate God’s love and forgiveness toward you, you will find it easier to be quick to forgive. When Jesus answered Peter’s question about forgiveness, He went on to tell a story.
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (Matthew 18:23-35)
We believe Jesus told this story to show us how our unforgiveness looks to God. The man had been forgiven a debt that was so huge, he never could have repaid it in his lifetime. He promptly went out and refused to forgive someone who owed him a small amount of money. Everyone who saw it thought he was being ridiculous.
If someone hurts you, it may look like a big deal until you compare it to the great love and forgiveness that God has shown us. If you are slow to forgive, you probably have not allowed God’s great love and mercy to sink into your thinking.
Your willingness to forgive will set a positive tone in your home. You will find it easier to communicate and both of you will treat each other with greater respect.
Talk About It – Do you feel that it is difficult or easy to get forgiveness from your spouse? Are you quick or slow to forgive?

20 – Forbearance

2009-04-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13)
Shirley and I both snore. It can be very annoying to be awake while your spouse snores, but we don’t let it damage our marriage. Sometimes we use earplugs, sometimes we push on our spouse to get them into a better position, but we don’t fight over it. Forbearance is the choice to put up with a weakness, failure, or annoyance, on the part of another person. You need forbearance in every human relationship – your boss, your mother, the waitress, and the paper carrier. If you don’t have the ability to forbear, life is going to make you a raving lunatic.
The verse above mentions both forbearance and forgiveness. They are not the same thing. Forbearance applies to things that aren’t really hurtful, but aren’t what you’d like. Forgiveness applies to the times you have actually been wronged. We want to say more about forgiveness in the next chapter.
Any two people will have hundreds of things that they do differently. Many of them will impact their partner, especially use of time, money, the house, and other possessions. Many of these differences call for forbearance.
Just because you haven’t said anything about something, doesn’t mean you are forbearing. If you are carrying resentment or can’t let go of something, you aren’t forbearing. If something bothers you, you really only have two healthy alternatives: let it go or talk about it in a constructive way. If you can’t let it go, you’d better talk about it. If you hold it in, it may come bubbling to the surface at just the wrong time.
In a casual relationship, you may find it easy to let a lot of things go. In a deep relationship, and particularly in marriage, you have much greater impact on each other and there are more things worth talking about. This is one reason that couples may start fighting more after they are married than they ever did when they were single.
However, in marriage, there are so many things you face; it isn’t worth making an issue about them all. You just have to let some things go.
Forbearance for Now – Some forbearance is temporary because you know the issue will go away. You may not like changing your baby’s diaper, but you expect that you won’t always have to. In some cases the issue isn’t going away by itself, but you may have to exercise temporary forbearance because the time isn’t right for bringing it up.
Occasionally, there may be something that you feel you need to talk about, but you know you should wait for a more opportune time. For example, suppose a wife feels that her husband isn’t doing enough around the house to help her. She has examined her heart and asked if she is being selfish or if this is something she really needs to bring up. This is an issue that is going to impact her life nearly every day, and she has decided she must talk about it with her husband. However, his employer is going through a busy season right now and her husband has had to work extra hours and some weekends for the last six weeks. She may decide that this is a bad time to bring this up and that her concerns can wait for a few more weeks until her husband gets back on a normal work schedule. If she makes this choice, forbearance means that she will continue to do her work at home with a good attitude. She will not allow resentment or anger to take root in her heart.
If, instead, she begins to make rude remarks and drop little hints, she might think she is setting the stage for the talk she wants to have later. It is more likely that she will undermine that future talk. She may irritate her husband on this subject without ever giving him the opportunity to respond in a constructive way. By the time she brings it up, he may have a hard time seeing it clearly.
If she feels like she is not able to put off talking about the issue, she may bring it up, but recognize that she shouldn’t expect much change until her husband has more free time. There is some help on how to confront an issue in a healthy way in chapter 32.
Learning From Conflict - If your differences cause conflict you need to look closely at what your differences are. Your different perspectives may be meant to help you both. We once talked to a couple who had conflict over how to respond to a restaurant order that wasn't right. One wanted to complain and get it right. The other wanted to just eat what was given to them and not worry about it. These are not right and wrong points of view. There are things in life we need to confront and things we need to let go. The person who has an easy time living with a cheeseburger when they ordered a hamburger will one day need help confronting something that really does need to be fixed. The person who is great at confrontation will sometime need help accepting things that really can’t be changed. Mr. Confronter and Mrs. Get-Over-It-Quick were given to each other to help each other.
Once you begin to accept your differences as being helpful to each other, there will be more things that you can simply let go.
Talk About It – Give each other examples of times you have practiced forbearance. Offer examples of times you now wish you would have practiced forbearance but didn’t.

19 – Sharing Life

2009-04-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Life was meant to be shared. The spouse God gave you is the one person who you should share the most with. When you look back at life, it will be the moments you shared that you will value more than the things you owned, the places you went, or the things you did.
When we were children we all knew how to be self centered. Hopefully, though, as we began to mature we began to learn to share with others. Most of life’s great moments are more enjoyable when they are shared. When you enjoy the beauty of the mountains or the ocean, you naturally want to turn to someone and say, “Look at that!” However, sharing life with your spouse requires that the two of you spend time together and that you speak to each other from your hearts.
If you learned to share cookies when you were a child, learning to share other things may come naturally. How about sharing honor, power, dreams, and significance? When you talk about the future, is there one of you who can talk for two hours straight about your dreams and plans, without taking a breath to listen to the other? If so, you need to work at bringing balance to your sharing of dreams.
If you come from a big family, you probably learned to share early in life. If you are an only child or were a spoiled child, you may find sharing harder to do. Sharing is going to be essential for a healthy marriage.
If sharing is hard for you, deepening your relationship with God will change the way you look at life and at others. God has called us to give Him our lives. Once we do, we quit looking at our lives as our private possession. We will be much more open to opportunities to share our lives with others.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1)
If you have given your life to God and have quit thinking of it as yours alone, you will find it easier to share with others, including your spouse.
Ted was a married man with children. He worked hard each day and when he came home at night he was tired. He always told his wife how important it was that she had dinner ready for him when he arrived home from work. She dutifully made sure dinner was hot and ready when he arrived. He would eagerly fill his plate, take it into the bedroom, close the door behind him, and turn on the television. It was quiet and relaxing in there. He was able to wind down from his tiring day at work. Television was great because it entertained Ted and required nothing of him. Occasionally, Ted’s relaxation was interrupted by the noise of his children playing or fighting in the living room. He would open the door and shout at his wife, “Why can’t you keep those children quiet?” Then he would close the door and go back to his relaxing dinner. Of course, Ted’s wife was finding little joy in these evenings. A married man was meant to be a part of the lives of his wife and children. While it would take something out of Ted to sit at the table and have dinner with his wife and kids, he would be giving something to his family, and would enjoy the reward of being part of the lives of his family members.
The Bible is consistent about calling us into meaningful relationships with others. In Genesis we read that God said it wasn’t good for the man to be alone. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon elaborates on the meaningless of a life lived alone.
There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. "For whom am I toiling," he asked, "and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?"
This too is meaningless— a miserable business! Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:8-12)
Parts of this passage focus on the practical benefits of having a partner – having someone there when you fall, staying warm, and defending yourselves. But much of the pleasure in life, such as looking at a sunset or enjoying a good meal, is much better when it is shared with someone.
Sharing life with your spouse requires that your make sharing a priority. You must choose to spend time together in times and places where your hearts will be open to each other. We have some thoughts in other chapters that may help:
· spending some time each day in heart to heart conversation (chapter 29),
· getting out of town as a couple (chapter 35),
· making a weekly date night (chapter 39),
· and taking a family vacation, (also chapter 39).
Talk About It – Do you feel that your spouse is a partner who shares your dreams and enjoys life’s great moments with you? What can you do to deepen your sharing of life?

18 – Negotiation

2009-04-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

Any two people doing anything together will soon find that they have different ideas and different preferences. If one is the master and the other is the slave, then the slave’s opinion won’t matter. The master can just tell him what to do. In a marriage, though, mutual respect depends on taking each other’s thoughts and feelings seriously. The health of your marriage doesn’t depend on agreeing on everything; rather it depends on how you resolve disagreements.
In a healthy marriage, you will find many times when both of you are willing to bend. If we are going out to eat, Shirley will often be happy if I pick a restaurant, and I will be happy if she picks it. However, there will be times when you both have a preference and just don’t agree about something. You need to learn to negotiate.
It can sometimes be healthy to drop the issue for a while and think about it. Sometimes this isn’t possible. On the other hand, it’s definitely unhealthy if you drop it and never come back to resolve it.
Negotiation is an art. It involves two or more parties searching for a solution that works for everyone involved. Here’s how it works.
· State what you would like to have happen.
· Listen to the other person as they state what they would like to have happen.
· Share the reasons this matters to you.
· Ask the other person to explain how they feel about the issue.
· Listen to the reasons that this matters to the other person.
· Propose an alternative that you think may work for both of you.
· Listen to any alternatives proposed by the other person.
While you are negotiating, there is no benefit in getting angry. Don’t make accusations that the other person isn’t listening or doesn’t care about you.
Let’s listen in on Dick and Jane as they do a little negotiating. This will be their first Thanksgiving since their marriage.
Dick: “My Mom invited both of us over to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving.”
Jane: “I was hoping we could spend Thanksgiving with my Mom and Step Dad. They haven’t mentioned it yet, but that’s where I have always spent Thanksgiving.”
Dick: “What time are they having dinner?”
Jane: “They always eat around 2:00 and then play board games until late. Would your family be upset if you didn’t come this year?”
Dick: “Well, my parents are still getting to know you.
They were looking forward to spending some time with you. How would you feel if you missed Thanksgiving at your Mom’s this year?”
Jane: “I never even thought about it before. Thanksgiving is the one time we all get together. Would it work if we went to your parents’ house the day after Thanksgiving?”
Dick: “Maybe, that actually would be a quieter day for them and they would be able to spend more time talking to you. Let me call my parents and see what they say.”
Okay, maybe this one worked out too easily! Maybe either Mother was going to have a fit if Dick and Jane didn’t show up at their house. Maybe the two sets of parents live 500 miles apart and it is impossible to split the weekend between them. Life can be hard. However, the key to a good relationship is to get on the same side of problems by caring about what is important to the other person, realizing that they have different preferences than you. If Dick wants Jane to be able to spend time with her family and Jane wants Dick’s parents to be able to get to know her better, they will work together and find a solution.
Do you see how easily a conversation like this could go astray if you don’t stick together looking for a solution?
· You don’t like my parents!
· You don’t care about what I want!
· You’re just selfish!
· Your family makes me uncomfortable!
· Blah, blah, blah…
There is also danger, though, if Dick or Jane simply gives in to the other and harbors ill feelings about it. Good negotiation is much better than a fight, but a good fight could be better than seething resentment.
In many cases, when you negotiate, you are looking for a middle ground or compromise. However, sometimes a compromise may be worse than either person’s preference. If one of us wants to paint the house blue, and the other wants to paint it red, then red and blue stripes would be a fair but foolish compromise. The Biblical example of a fair but foolish compromise is Solomon’s offer to cut a baby in half to settle a dispute between two women who each claimed the baby. (Solomon was not being foolish when he proposed it. He knew the real mother would give in for the sake of the child.)
Sometimes there is no sensible compromise or no middle ground. Sometimes you must choose together to adopt one of your preferences. There will, however, often be other offsetting steps you can take to preserve mutual respect. For example:
· We may do it my way this time, but your way next time.
· I’m working late today, but I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow.
· It’s really important that we go to my parents’ anniversary party, even though you prefer not to, but this summer you can pick the vacation destination.
Be careful, though, in taking steps like this, that the relationship doesn’t become petty, with detailed score keeping. The goal is for each of you to be generous and open hearted, expressing mutual respect for each other.
Sometimes you need to talk about something your spouse is doing that hurts you and that needs to change. We’ll talk about confrontation a little later. If the vote is stuck at one to one, there needs to be a way to settle it. We’ll talk about leadership a little later.
Talk About It – How effective are you at negotiation? When you try to talk, is there anything that gets you off track? Is there anything you can do to improve your ability to negotiate?

17 – Mutual Respect

2009-04-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

Imagine the President of the United States asking you to take care of his puppy. Would you take good care of it? You probably would consider this an important responsibility, regardless of how you felt about the dog. You would take good care of the dog because you respect the President. (If you happen to dislike whoever is President when you read this, don’t miss the point. Think of someone else you highly respect.)
God loves your spouse. He is much more important than the president, and He wants you to treat your spouse with respect.
The key to a healthy marriage is for two people to treat each other with honor and respect. We may have a tendency to respect each other for things that don’t last, such as:
Good Looks – Almost everyone is more attractive when they are young than when they are old. If we want to have mutual respect in a life-long relationship, we are going to need respect that is based on something deeper than looks.
Money – Money comes and goes. Someone who is rich today will be poor later and someone who is nearly penniless today will have great wealth next week.
Intelligence – I respected my Father for his intelligence, but in the last 10 years of his life, his mind eroded with dementia. I still respected him.
Here are some lasting things we can base our respect for each other on.
God Gave Us to Each Other – If you honor God, you are going to honor the one He gave you and told you to respect.
We Committed Our Lives to Each Other – In general, homeowners take better care of their homes than renters. The difference is commitment. If you meant what you said when you married each other, this gives your reason enough to respect each other.
We Are Building a Life Together – Paul wrote that, “He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:28) If you treat your spouse with respect, you also benefit.
If you respect your spouse, you will listen to him or her, even when you don’t agree with what they are saying. You will care about how they are feeling, even if their feelings don’t make sense to you.
Maybe you’ve heard the story of Johnny Lingo and his wife Sarita. You can read the entire story if you can find a copy of the February, 1988, Readers Digest, or the November, 1965, Woman’s Day. Johnny Lingo was known in the islands as a wealthy young man and a smart trader, but no one could understand why he paid eight cows for his wife. A man in his community could get a beautiful wife for four or five cows. No one had ever paid eight cows. The woman he wanted to marry was considered plain and her friends assumed her father would do well to negotiate for one cow for Sarita. But Johnny, without negotiation, quickly offered eight. The author of the story had heard about the price Johnny paid for his plain looking wife, but when the author met Sarita she was amazed at Sarita’s beauty and bearing. Still puzzled, she asked Johnny why he had paid such a high price for Sarita. He explained two things, 1) “I wanted her and no other woman,” and 2) “I wanted an eight cow wife.” The esteem that Johnny gave his wife resulted in her seeing herself as having great value. She lived accordingly and her innate beauty that others hadn’t seen before came shining through.
Many times people will feel disrespected by their spouse. If you do, you have three choices:
1. Fight for respect. This doesn’t often work. If you fight, you probably are only going to get a fight back.
2. Show disrespect. Many people respond to disrespect with disrespect. That seems fair, but the likely result is that your spouse is going to return even more disrespect. This can send your marriage into a downward spiral that is difficult to recover from.
3. Give more respect. Give and it will be given to you.
Many people read the words of Jesus, “Give and it will be given to you,” and think He was primarily talking about money. He was talking about mercy.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (Luke 6:37-38)
If you treat your spouse with more respect and honor, your spouse will treat you with more respect. This is the most important ingredient in a healthy marriage and you can only get more by giving more.
Talk About It – How well have you done at showing each other mutual respect? How can you improve?

16 – Integrity

2009-04-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder why God was so tough on Ananias and Sapphira? In Acts, chapter 5, they agreed together to lie to the Apostles. No one was forcing them to sell land and give money to help other Christian believers. They chose to do that, but they decided to keep some of the money for themselves. That wouldn’t have been a problem either, but they agreed to lie and say that they were giving the full amount of the sale. For some reason, it was important to them to look to others like something they weren’t. This is what is called hypocrisy. It was their lie that got them in trouble, and they both ended up dead.
Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." (Acts 5:3-4)
You can have two forms of hypocrisy in a family. First, members of the family may try to hide who they really are from the other members of the family. A woman may try to sneak a smoke while pretending to the family that she doesn’t smoke. A man may say he is working late, but be stopping off at a bar. A teen may be trying to hide drug use from their parents. These lies are destined to be uncovered. It isn’t that difficult for your family to see the truth. Sometimes a family member really knows the truth, but chooses to live in denial rather than face the facts.
Second, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, a couple or the whole family may conspire to fool the outside world. Sometimes family members are expected to lie to cover up physical abuse within the family or substance abuse by one of the members of the family.
Either of these forms of hypocrisy will damage the respect for one another within a family that keeps a family strong and a marriage sweet.
Your family gets to see your life close up and knows what you are really made of. Being honest with yourself and with your spouse will add strength to your marriage and increase the respect you have for each other.
There are a lot of things you can’t choose. You can’t choose how tall you are, who your parents are, or what century you live in. But you can choose to be an honest person who does not try to pretend to be something you aren’t.
Integrity begins with putting God first in your life. If you only want to please Him, and know you can’t fool Him, you won’t be motivated to try to fool others.
For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all his paths. (Proverbs 5:21)
Lying to your children will eventually hurt them. There are very few lies you are going to tell them that won’t eventually be discovered. When your children discover you have lied to them, they will not only be hurt, they will lose respect for you and for the otherwise good things you have imparted to them.
Notice where lying fits in God’s eyes:
There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to Him; haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19)
He mentions lies twice in this passage, “a lying tongue” and “a false witness who pours out lies.”
If you and your spouse have conspired together to lie to anyone, you are going to need to repent together and make it right together.
If you have lied to your spouse or children, you need to make it right by speaking the truth. There is a good chance your family already knows the truth, but when you come clean you will remove the stain on your character.
Don’t make promises to your children or to your spouse that you don’t intend to keep. If you committed to something that you absolutely cannot keep, explain it to them and find ways to make it right.
Pay your taxes, pay your bills, and be a person whose word can be counted on.
Talk About It – In what ways do you, as a couple, have the choice of being honest or dishonest? Are there people you need to “come clean” with?

15 – Service

2009-04-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

One of the ironies of life is that if you make your own happiness a primary goal in life, you won’t be happy. Happiness is a by-product of a meaningful life. If you live your lives pursuing only goals that benefit your family, such as the new car, the bigger house and the retirement fund, you may achieve all your goals and find your life empty and meaningless. A married couple must live for more than themselves. Using what you have, your time, your abilities, and your money, to help others in some way is called service. If you as a couple don’t serve someone other than yourselves, your marriage will be hollow and aimless.
Life can often seem overwhelming. It may seem like it takes every minute available and every penny we have just to keep our own heads above water. That’s an illusion. There is always room in your life to serve others. Even the poor widow who Elijah met was called to serve and had to decide if she had room in her heart to share what she had with someone else.
So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?" As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."
"As surely as the LORD your God lives," she replied, "I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die."
Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' " (1 Kings 17:10-14)
The Bible commands everyone to serve others.
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. (1 Peter 4:10)
You are not healthy personally and your marriage is not healthy if you are not serving others in some way.
Your church and other non-profit organizations are great places to find opportunities to help people in your community. But if you keep your eyes open, you will find opportunities to serve all around you. Helping someone move, helping someone get their car running, taking meals to a family who is dealing with an illness; the opportunities are limitless.
For couples, here are a couple of guidelines.
Don’t Overdo It – The needs in your community and your world are great. There seems to be no end to the useful things you could be doing. If you allow yourself, you can become greatly over committed to others. While some people still need to learn to say “yes” to opportunities to serve, you may find that you need to learn to say “no” to some of them.
Don’t Get Pulled Too Far in Opposite Directions – A man and wife will have different gifts and interests. Their willingness to serve others may keep them busy in different places too much of the time. Suppose a husband is a good back yard mechanic and loves to help others with their car problems. He may find himself frequently under the hood of someone else’s car and spending too little time with his wife. Suppose her interest is decorating and she has found many opportunities to help other ladies spruce up their home. These projects can sometimes consume hours and keep people busy much longer than they had planned. You need to put a high priority on time together and limit service to others if it is keeping you apart. If you can find opportunities to serve together, you can build your relationship and help others at the same time.
Some couples have taken dramatic turns in their lives because of their willingness to serve others. Rick and Audrey McAninch were the parents of four grown children when they moved to Kenya in 1995. Teen boys were beginning to move to the streets of Kenya, having been orphaned and/or traumatized by the AIDS pandemic. Some girls were also on the streets, but harder to find because they were often quickly grabbed for house help or prostitution. Before long, Rick and Audrey discovered that there were also many babies being abandoned—most, because of cultural beliefs.
Rick and Audrey started a rescue center right in their own home. At any given time, they cared for up to thirty boys and a handful of girls they had gathered from the streets—plus eight or so abandoned babies. They also adopted two toddlers, just when they themselves had become grandparents!
We’re not suggesting that to serve others you must sell your house and move to Africa. We are saying that to have a healthy, meaningful marriage you do need to be serving someone.
Talk About It – In what ways are you using time and money to help others? Does your service to others need to increase? Is service to others a source of conflict? What can you do to resolve the conflict?

14 – Prayer

2009-04-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

Do you think your marriage would be any different if Jesus lived at your house, joined you for dinner, helped you plan your finances, and intervened when you argued? It’s hard to imagine things not improving if Jesus was there all the time. That’s just what He wants, to be there all time. Praying together is one of the most powerful tools you have for welcoming God into your daily lives.
In this chapter we want to first look at some simple principles of prayer and then think about how to apply them to marriage.
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. (Matthew 6:5-8)
In this passage Jesus taught that prayer:
· Is not a show, so we shouldn’t be worrying about how we sound or what anyone else is thinking.
· Is talking to God and we can expect Him to hear and answer prayer.
· Shouldn’t involve the repetition of empty words, so we can pray in plain English about the daily issues that are on our minds.
He really made it pretty simple. Prayer is talking to your Father. Because your Father loves you, He will hear you when you pray. Talking to Him will make a difference. But, because He is smarter than you are, He may answer in ways you don’t expect.
Why should we pray together?
For one thing, Jesus taught us about the power of praying in agreement.
“Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18:19)
Praying together also adds a dimension to our relationship with each other. It’s difficult to disrespect each other when we are together honoring the One who made us both. We can often communicate more effectively about things when we have talked together to God about it.
Why is it hard for some couples to pray together?
Praying together with your spouse has so many benefits that it is well worth overcoming whatever obstacles you may find. Here are some of the things that may stand in the way of couples praying together.
Time pressure – Life is always going to seem busy, but you will always find time for the things you think are important. Even a few minutes each day spent together in prayer will be well worth the time you put into it.
Disrespect – It can be tough for a couple who has been treating each other with disrespect to sit down and pray together. They know they are going to have to change their attitude to be able to pray sincerely. This is one great reason for praying together despite whatever disagreements or disrespect you may have had with each other. If you have been arguing or insulting each other, don’t bring that into your prayer, other than repenting and asking God to show you both His will.
Discomfort – Some people are uncomfortable praying out loud around other people, sometimes even more uncomfortable with their spouse or with their family. This is something you just need to get over through practice. Make it a point to pray together. Pray out loud. Keep it simple. If your spouse is the one who is uncomfortable, avoid any criticism of the way he or she prays.
Shallow Relationship With God – When I was in elementary school, a Sunday School teacher impressed on us the importance of a regular prayer life. I decided to begin to pray each night as I went to bed. For a couple of days I asked God to bless my family, help me in school, and keep my friends safe from harm. After about three days of that, I really couldn’t think of anything else that needed to be said, so I prayed, “God, you know, the usual. Amen.” After a day or two of that, I quit praying at bedtime at all. My problem was that I had a very shallow relationship with God. There really were many more things on my mind, but I didn’t see God as a part of my daily life, so I didn’t think about talking to God about them. I wasn’t thinking about God’s plan for my future, so I wasn’t thinking of praying about the future. I wasn’t aware of how much God loved everyone else, so I wasn’t praying for others at my school to find God. There really were many things I could have been praying about.
If you find that your prayers are superficial, you may also need to deepen your Bible study, to see more of what is in God’s heart and how He works in the lives of people. Serving others will also add a dimension to your prayer life. We’ll talk about service in the next chapter.
Talk About It – How much time do you spend praying together? How effective is your prayer time? What do you need to do to improve it?

13 – Forgiving Others

2009-04-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

If you live on this planet, someone, sometime, is going to hurt you. When they do, you only have two options.
· You can forgive them, let go of the bitterness, and think of yourself as a child of God who is loved and well cared for despite some hurt, or;
· You can hang on to resentment and think of yourself as a victim.
If you carry resentment, the person who will suffer most for it is you. The suffering will also extend to whoever is close to you, whether or not they had anything to do with your past hurt. If you resent people who have hurt you in the past, you are likely to over react to your spouse in the routine things you will have to deal with on a daily basis.
For some strange reason, resentment tends to make you become like the person you have resentment toward. If you resent your Dad, some morning you will wake up and find him staring back at you in the mirror.
Some people think that to forgive they need to do a little rationalizing. Rationalizing sounds something like this:
· I would have done the same thing in his situation.
· She didn’t really know how bad that would hurt me, or she wouldn’t have done it.
· His Mom mistreated him, so he can’t help acting that way.
Rationalizing may make you feel better, but it isn’t required for forgiveness. When you forgive, you recognize that what was done was wrong and that it really hurt, but you choose to let go of the bitterness.
Jesus showed us that it is important and urgent that we forgive those who have wronged us.
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)
Forgiveness is not the same as trust. If I loan you my car and you bring it back crushed and admit that you really don’t know how to drive, I need to forgive you. I don’t have to trust you with my car again anytime soon. Someone may have hurt you in a way that makes you feel that you cannot trust them. You can still forgive them, letting go of the bitterness you feel. You don’t have to trust them until they have earned your renewed trust. If someone continually hurts you, you may need to be somewhat on guard with them, but you don’t need to carry a grudge or look for ways to repay hurt with hurt.
Letting go of bitterness and resentment is easier said than done. We recommend doing it while praying, by telling God something like this: “God, Joe really hurt me by what he did. I know You have forgiven all the wrong I have done, so I forgive Joe for what he did. Even though he hurt me, You have always been with me to help me and show me Your love.”
Many things can trigger memories and the feelings that go with them. You may have forgiven someone and may have prayed something like the prayer in the paragraph above. You may be feeling fine and suddenly be hit with anger or resentment over some past hurt. A song, a smell, a simple statement, or a sight may trigger your feelings. Don’t despair, it’s time to pray again and feel again that freedom from those past hurts. Every time you pray and forgive, the grip that your past has on you will weaken. Your mind will be retrained and you will find yourself stewing over past hurts less and less frequently.
There may be someone from your past that is still in a position to hurt you. For example, if you had children with someone you are now divorced from, they will have an ongoing influence in your life because of your shared involvement in the children’s lives. This will make it all the more important that you clear your heart of bitterness from the past. If you do, you will be able to deal with today’s issues today, and not react to hurtful experiences from the past. Keep praying about your forgiveness and trust God with your life. If you are due child support or other money, you need to keep your heart free from depending on it. You can insist on what is rightfully yours, but when you are alone, you need to acknowledge to God that it is really Him you rely on. When you pray, let go of your need for financial help and agree with God that He will take care of you even when others fail you. Doing this will free you from the control the other person has over your emotions.
If one of your parents is still inflicting hurt on your life with negative comments, interference, or the withholding of love, you and your spouse need to lean on each other and on God. Do this while obeying the command to honor your father and your mother. Don’t allow yourself to become bitter or combative toward your parent.
Talk About It –Discuss any hurts that are still having an effect on your marriage. What do you need to do to get free from any unforgiveness you are carrying?

12 – Old Baggage

2009-03-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

Jimmy can’t remember how many times he heard family members tell him things like, “You’ll never amount to anything,” “You’re useless,” or “You can’t do anything right.” He heard these things so much that he believed them. He struggled through school, always expecting to fail. He struggled to keep a job, always believing he was too dumb to do things well. He expected to fail in relationships so he looked for an advantage with women by being controlling. He married Sally who seemed weak to him and who he thought he could control. Once married, though, he found her less willing to be controlled.
Jenny went through a crazy period of drug use and promiscuity in her teens and early twenties. Then she returned to her faith in Christ and left her past behind. However, the guilt from the past keeps creeping in to her present. When she would meet a young man who she sensed could be interested in her, she would think, “If you knew what I used to be like, you wouldn’t like me.” She ended up marrying a man that had been in some trouble himself. Their marriage has a shortage of self-respect and mutual respect.
Janet had a rocky childhood. Her father drank and sometimes became physically or sexually abusive. When she was thinking clearly, she knew that her father’s problems were not her fault. In weaker moments, she blamed herself. She met a good man who wanted to marry her. He wasn’t perfect, but he genuinely wanted to be a good husband. Too often, though, she overreacts to him as though he is her abusive father. Her responses are exaggerated, because her emotions are a combined response to the present and the past.
Past failure and hurts should not keep you from what God has in mind for you now. If you have given your life to Him, He has a good plan for you and He will give you the ability to be what He wants you to be. If you have confessed your sin to God, He has forgiven you. If you have been hurt, God expects you to forgive those who have wronged you.
Hearing Our Real Father – Ideally, a child’s life will be marked by the encouragement and love given to them by their parents. Unfortunately, some children are loaded down with insecurity and rejection from their parents. Or they may be victims of abuse by others and have deep wounds that challenge their ability to live with joy and purpose. God acknowledges that our parents may let us down, but He promises that He never will.
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Isaiah 49:15)
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. (Psalm 68:5)
If you are carrying an image of yourself as worthless and unloved, you need to see yourself as God sees you. You can do this by listening to God as He speaks His love to you. This isn’t something you do once or twice, but something you need to do on a regular basis. If you aren’t in the habit of reading the Bible, you should start now. Hearing God tell you He loves you is only one of many reasons you need a regular habit of reading the Bible. Here is an example of what you will find about yourself in the Bible.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:13-14)
God will also speak to you during times of prayer and worship.
Receiving Forgiveness – God makes a solid promise to forgive you if you ask Him.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
He also speaks to all of us who are changing from old ways to new ones, telling us that He has a great plan for us.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
Maybe you think that when God speaks about His will being “good, pleasing, and perfect,” He is speaking only to those who haven’t already made a mess of their lives. He is speaking to all of us, no matter how big our mess. Paul is writing to us who were conformed “to the pattern of this world,” and now need to be “transformed.”
This means that whatever you may have done in the past, God has a good plan for your future. If you want to discover it, you need to be transformed. But, this only happens by learning from God and obeying Him.
However, you need to be honest with yourself about any wounds you are carrying from the past. God has forgiven you, but have you forgiven yourself? Some people are even carrying guilt for things that were not their fault, such as being abused by a parent or an older relative.
Some Christians struggle by viewing themselves as the person they used to be. God is telling you to view yourself as the person He is making you into.
Talk About It – How deeply have God’s love and forgiveness impacted the way you look at yourself? How can you help each other deepen your understanding of God’s love and forgiveness?

11 – What God Has Joined Together…

2009-03-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

When Jesus talked about marriage, He said, “What God has joined together…” showing us that God expects to be part of our marriages.
What does it mean to have God in your marriage? What can you do to have more of God in your marriage?
God never intended for anyone to try something as complex as marriage without His help. In this book we have referred to the Bible and talked about trust in God. But you can’t have a relationship with God without beginning one. Here is a basic explanation of how you begin a relationship with Jesus.
· We were created to have a close relationship with God. He wants us to hear Him, love Him, and obey Him.
Obey me and do everything I command you, and you will be my people, and I will be your God. (Jeremiah 11:4)
· We have all turned away from God to do our own will. Many people weren’t very aware they did this, because they were just following the example of others. Some people think they are pretty good people, because they are not as bad as their neighbor. The truth, though, is that we all fall short of what God meant us to be. We even fall short of what we know is right.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
· Our sin separates us from God. He doesn’t quit loving us, but our rebellion creates a barrier between us.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)
· Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for our sin. Jesus paid our debt and cleared the way for us to be forgiven and reconciled to God.
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. (1 Peter 3:18)
· We need to choose to believe in Jesus and invite Him into our lives. He will forgive us. We need to turn away from our sins and obey Him.
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Jesus speaking in Revelation 3:20)
Millions of Christians have begun a new life with a simple prayer something like this: “Jesus, I know you love me and died for my sins. Come into my life. Forgive my sins and take over my life. I want to learn how to live for you.”
Once you make that commitment, you can grow strong as a Christian by doing these things;
· Learn what He wants you to do by studying the Bible.
· Get in the habit of obeying God when you learn what He wants.
· Get involved in a church with believers who will encourage you to grow strong.
· Pray each day. God says you can pray about anything, and you can pray anywhere.
· Use some of your time and ability to serve others. You can get help learning to do this in most local churches.
While you may think your faith is just a personal matter, your faith or lack of it will affect every person in your household. On the night of the Passover, every household among the people of Israel had a choice.
Exodus 12:3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household…. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs…. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
By a simple act of obedience, a man put his faith in action and protected his entire household from the grief they all would have gone through if they had lost their firstborn child. Even though God’s favor was on the entire nation of Israel, it was the faith, or lack thereof, in each home that determined whether they were spared from the last and worst plague that God brought on the nation of Egypt.
The primary place that God intended for your children to learn about Him is from you in the daily activities of life.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)
A long time ago, Joshua was speaking to the people of Israel about the importance of trusting and obeying God. Even though he was their leader, he knew that the most important decisions that would determine the destiny of the nation would be made household by household. He said,
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15)
Talk About It – To what extent is the Lord in the center of your marriage? What can you do to give Him more of His rightful place in your lives?

10 – In Sickness

2009-03-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Betsy wanted to leave her husband, and she came to us seeking approval. She was in a second marriage that had never gone very well. She thought that she shouldn’t have married this man in the first place. Now her husband was facing an illness that she expected to gradually take away his ability to work or to speak clearly. She expected that he would need a lot of care and more each year until he died. She hadn’t planned on this and wanted out. We couldn’t give her the approval she was asking for. (It’s puzzling to see people seek approval from others when they know they are doing wrong.) We told her instead that she should stay and find a new depth to her love and commitment.
We were given to each other in marriage to help each other. Sometimes the needs of one increase, creating more responsibility for the other. We see this principle in this passage.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)
If your spouse becomes ill, it’s time for you to step up and be their closest friend.
We believe that God hears and answers prayer and that people are sometimes healed in answer to prayer. However, if you are the one who is sick, healthy people who make healing sound easy can be annoying and discouraging. We don’t have any simple answers to why some people stay sick despite prayer. We aren’t going to focus on that question here, but want to offer help to couples who are enduring illness.
Here are some principles that may be helpful if you face illness in your marriage.
Thank God for Small Things, Thank God for Big Things – A hard year or a hard decade can get a person down. We can find joy, though, if we thank God for today’s small blessings and for God’s eternal promises. If you are down, you can benefit from focusing on a smaller picture, thanking God for today’s daily bread. You can also benefit from focusing on a larger picture, thanking Him for His promise never to leave you and to give you eternal life. When Naomi said, “The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” (Ruth 1:21), she was focusing on the tough times of the previous few years. She’d had a hard decade. Later, when she said, “He has not stopped showing His kindness to the living and the dead,” (Ruth 2:20) she was focusing on that day’s blessings. By the end of the book of Ruth, we can see the big picture of what God was doing in Naomi’s life. By then, her friends are praising God for His goodness to Naomi. If the picture you are looking at seems scary or depressing, stand back and look at the bigger picture, or move in and look at encouraging details.
For example, suppose your spouse has become very ill and the doctor hasn’t been able to find an explanation. You’ve been in and out of the hospital and the doctor has brought up the possibility of long-term nursing care. You are worried about your medical bills and wonder if your spouse will ever recover. You worry how you will manage if you lose your spouse. You can find joy in the simple blessings of this day. You can thank God for a meal you particularly enjoyed or thank Him that you slept better last night than you had been. You can also find joy in focusing on the bigger picture. No matter what happens, you can thank God for the years you and your spouse have had together. You can thank Him for the promise of being reunited in heaven. You can thank Him that He is always with you, even in hard times.
Recognize Your Primary Purpose – Jesus said that two commands define the most important things we have to do in life.
Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Matthew 22:37-39)
Loving others is your second most important responsibility. If you have a spouse who is sick, you have a unique opportunity to show them love. Many other things can wait, but you can show them love with simple acts of service and by just spending time with them.
Get Help – We were never meant to go through life alone. When you need help, ask for it. Someone else’s life will be enriched with the opportunity to help you in some practical way. Call your family members or your church when you need someone to run an errand or take care of something around your house that you don’t have time or strength to do yourself.
Do Your Best, Trust God With the Rest – Sometimes people struggle with guilt over decisions they made when a spouse was sick. When the doctor starts asking questions about what medical help you want or don’t want, these decisions can feel overwhelming. Make your decisions based on love. If you feel confused, talk it over with someone you trust. Ask God for guidance. He promises to give it.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3: 5-6)
Honor whatever wishes your spouse has expressed. When you’ve done what you can, pray and trust God. Don’t spend energy mulling over what you would have or could have done. Your spouse’s life is in God’s hands and if you have acted in love, you need not regret your decisions.
Talk About It – Agree together to let go of any fears you have about your health in the future. Agree that God is great enough to see you through anything you may have to face. Tell each other that you meant it when your vows included, “In sickness.”

9 – Tough Times

2009-03-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

There will be seasons in your marriage when life gets more difficult. Some of these will be out of your control. It isn’t time to get down, get mad, or give up. It’s time, instead, to deepen your relationship with each other and with God.
Voislav and Mejra had great jobs and a comfortable home in Sarajevo, in the former Yugoslavia. They looked forward to a bright future with their young son and daughter. Then in the early 1990’s, fighting broke out in Sarajevo. Their home was burned down and Voislav was forced to work for rebels.
Mejra had to flee with their children and spent some time in a Red Cross shelter in the basement of a bombed out building. Almost daily, artillery fire would cause mother and children to huddle together in fear. Mejra and the children were allowed to come to the United States as refugees, but Voislav wasn’t allowed to come for about three more years. After their tearful reunion, they had a new opportunity to rebuild their lives, enjoy their marriage, and raise their children.
We hope that your tough times are not as difficult as Voislav and Mejra, but tough times call for solid commitment to each other and to the principles of marriage. If you maintain your commitment to each other, tough times will pass, and your marriage will be stronger than ever.
Keep Praying – Everything in this life is temporary. God makes a great promise to keep our hard times short and to personally intervene to change them.
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. (1 Peter 5:10)
We can’t tell you how God will intervene in your case, but you need to continue to hope in Him, asking Him for strength, peace, and joy.
Paul urges us to be tough in tough times and to keep our eyes on the things that matter most.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4: 17-18)
Keep your eyes on God’s eternal promises and thank Him that what you are going through is temporary.
You will find in the Bible many examples of people who endured tough times through faith in God.
Look For the Open Door – God makes a remarkable promise.
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
It takes a powerful and caring God to make that promise. He knows what is coming before it happens, knows what you are able to bear, and has the power to limit or change what comes your way.
He says that He will provide a way out. That means there will always be a right thing to do in every situation.
Some people, trying to be philosophical, imagine situations in which a person’s only choices are evil. You may be able to imagine such a situation, but God promises that you will never be in one. There will be a right thing to do! There will be a way out. You might imagine a room with no doors, but a good contractor will never build you one.
If you are in the middle of a tough situation, ask God what He wants you to do. Pray together diligently until you know you have the answer.
Let Go of Anything But Your Commitment – The decisions we make when we face tough choices reveal our character. Satan thought Job would curse God if times got tough. God knew better. If you have to move, change jobs, sell something, or ask for help, in order to get through, do what it takes. But never back down on your commitment to each other and to the Lord.
Keep Hope and Thanksgiving – You will never be in a situation where there isn’t something to thank God for. Don’t allow trouble to drown out a positive, hopeful, thankful atmosphere in your marriage.
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
Talk About It – Discuss what you would consider the biggest challenge your marriage faces right now. What can you do to overcome this challenge and strengthen your marriage?

8 – Restoring Broken Trust

2009-03-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

Irresponsibility – Jenny seemed to always have some rebellious behavior to lapse into from time to time. Most days she would be reasonable and responsible, but every month or two, she wanted to do something bad. As she had matured, she chose safer bad behavior, but still had to have her occasional day as a rebel. When she was young, she would be promiscuous, but she put that behind her when she got married. For a while, she would lapse into drunken binges. She gave that up, but now turned to bulimia and spending sprees that left their credit card accounts at their maximum.
Irresponsible behavior can greatly damage trust and respect in a marriage. Some examples include:
• Substance abuse
• Uncontrolled spending, especially when it violates what the two of you agreed upon
• Unexplained absence from the home
• Refusal to take a reasonable share of adult responsibility
If your spouse is being irresponsible, you need to confront it, but don’t imagine that simply yelling at your spouse will bring a solution. You may be facing an issue that has deep roots, and a big fight will probably not help.
Begin by finding a good time to talk about the problem. If your spouse comes home drunk, you will need to wait until they are sober to talk constructively about it. If you are both angry, you need to give yourselves some time to calm down. Don’t put it off too long. You may feel a little better the morning after a problem and imagine that the problem has gone away, but it hasn’t.
Agree on reasonable behavior, keeping in mind that your personalities are different. For example, you may agree that it is reasonable to come home an hour later than expected, but unreasonable to be hours late or gone overnight without a phone call and an explanation. Agreeing on reasonable behavior will be difficult if your spouse is denying their behavior or its consequences. However, if in a sober, calm, moment you can both agree on what is reasonable for married people, it will help the next time you need to confront irresponsible behavior.
Get help if needed. Meeting together with a pastor or counselor may help by giving a neutral opinion on what is reasonable and responsible. Some people have large mood swings that alter their behavior, but may find help from a physician.
For severe issues that don’t get resolved, we’d recommend a separation approach similar to what we described above for abuse. If you separate, make reconciliation your goal and give your spouse a written list of what it will take to be reconciled.
Infidelity – Some people think of infidelity in their spouse as the one thing their marriage could never recover from. When we give ourselves in marriage to each other in front of friends and family, and promise to be faithful, we expect our partner to be faithful. Infidelity is truly a horrible wound in a marriage, but marriages do sometimes recover from it. Other marriages are dissolved and still others choose to stay together, but live in pain without ever really recovering.
The steps to recovering trust, if it has been broken, are,
1) Honesty – Whoever cheated needs to tell the truth. If the cheating partner is still lying about it, there can be no recovery. It will still take some time for the person who has been cheated on to be sure they can believe their spouse.
2) Repentance – This means to turn away from sin, and includes taking responsibility for your actions. The cheating partner may also need to get some help to clearly see what went wrong in their thinking that led to infidelity. If the cheating partner is still making excuses, or blaming someone else, they haven’t truly repented.
3) Forgiveness – Forgiveness is a choice to let go of the anger and resentment you feel. The person who has been cheated on must choose to forgive. Because many things can trigger our feelings, you may find that you have to let go of your bitter feelings again and again. As you continually choose to let go of bitter feelings, the grip they have on you will grow weaker. The Bible tells us, “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13). If you refuse to forgive the past, then you are going to stay stuck in the pain of the past.
4) Restoration of Trust – While forgiveness can be offered right away by choosing to forgive, trust takes time to rebuild. Trust is based on trustworthy behavior. Someone who has recently been unfaithful should expect and accept more questions and checking of their truthfulness. This is part of the rebuilding process. If you take offense at those extra questions, you have not really taken responsibility for what you have done. If your heart has genuinely changed, your spouse can only see your changed heart by your changed behavior. If your spouse wants to look at your cell phone to see who you have been calling, don’t take offense. Give it time. Genuine trust will not be rebuilt overnight, but it can be rebuilt.
5) Restoration of Mutual Respect – When a relationship has been restored, the pain and the mistrust need to be put in the past. You need to reach a point when you stop bringing up the past. If you go through life treating the cheater as if they “owe” you or as if they can never really be trusted and respected, you will never have a truly healthy relationship. If you keep returning to the pain of the past, you cannot escape it. You will also be stuck in the past if you connect minor offenses in the present (He left his dirty socks on the bedroom floor) with major offenses of the past (He cheated on me).
A couple with rebuilt mutual respect may even find that they have a depth in their relationship that they never had before.
Talk About It – Has trust ever been broken in your relationship? To what extent has it been rebuilt?

7 – For Worse

2009-03-27T06:51:00.000-07:00

Jake was at it again. It was almost two in the morning and he still wasn’t home. Sharon was pretty sure he would be at the bar or on his way home, but at times like this she always wondered if he was in the hospital or jail. She was afraid to hear the phone ring. She would be somewhat relieved to hear him drive into the driveway, but not fully relieved until she knew whether he was ready to go to sleep or was angry about something and ready to terrorize her and the kids. She and the kids always kept a bag packed in case they needed to get away quickly. She kept the phone close by, in case she had to call for help. She could doze a little, but could seldom really sleep. And for what seemed like the thousandth time, she thought about leaving Jake.
Jake hadn’t been like this when they married. He seemed loving and kind. They had rejoiced together when their children had been born. Where had things gone wrong?
What do you do if your marriage isn’t what you thought it was going to be? In this chapter and the next we want to talk about several categories of challenges.
Abuse – Abuse, whether verbal or physical, violates the very purpose of marriage. We were given to each other to help each other and build each other up. Abuse tears a person down.
No one should be expected to live in an abusive relationship. As we explained before, we believe that this is an appropriate situation for applying this passage:
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:10-11)
If you are going to separate from your spouse, you need to do it with a door open toward reconciliation. If you separate, we believe you should give your spouse a written list of expectations of what it would take to get back together. You don’t need to make it easy. Include a time period during which trust can be rebuilt. For example, you may want to ask for six months of regular counseling or classes, some done individually and some with the two of you together.
If you need a no contact order during this time, that is your right. However, sometimes people will use a no contact order as a form of manipulation. They may invite their spouse over, in violation of the order, and then call the police on their spouse if something upsets them or they don’t get their way.
Some people will tell you to give up on a marriage in which there has been abuse. They will tell you an abuser will always return to abusive behavior. Certainly there are many examples of people who return to bad behavior, but we know that people can be set free from being abusive.
Terry and Theresa got in a big fight. He chased her through their mobile home park, threatening her life. His parents sided with him and welcomed him into their home. Her parents sided with her and welcomed her into their home. The police told her they would be happy to help her with a no contact order. An attorney told her she would be happy to help Theresa get a divorce. We were the only ones talking to Terry and Theresa about reconciliation. We helped Terry discover that the root of his behavior was being abused by some relatives as a child. He learned better ways of dealing with the frustration that is inevitable in marriage. They were reconciled and have now had several years of successful marriage.
Major Conflict – In marriage there are thousands of opportunities for minor conflict, such as, whether the toilet seat is up or down and where the dirty socks go. But there are a few opportunities for major conflict. You may disagree about where you will live, whether you will try to have more children, and who will work.
We believe that marriage should be based on mutual respect, and that major decisions shouldn’t be made without both partners being in agreement. If you can’t agree on a major decision, we recommend that you pray about it together, daily, until you are both in agreement. We have practiced this ourselves for several major decisions in our lives. We found that when we pray persistently, we not only come into agreement with each other, but we gain the peace of knowing that we are following God’s will.
We once decided to spend a season of our lives living in a tough neighborhood as volunteers for an inner city ministry. We left a comfortable house in a safe neighborhood that we had lived in for 19 years and moved to a different state. It was not an easy decision. However, because we spent several weeks praying diligently before we made this decision, we made the move with peace and harmony.
Some couples find it hard to pray together. In some cases, one may be comfortable praying aloud with their spouse while the other finds it difficult. We’ll say more about developing a prayer life together in chapter 14.
Waiting on major decisions until you are in agreement takes respect for each other and trust in God to lead you. However, if you will exercise patience and faith, we are convinced you will be pleased with the results.
Talk About It – Are there major issues in your marriage that you have not dealt with? Is there something you need to get help with from a pastor or a counselor?

6 – For Better

2009-03-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

When Ted finished high school, he was happy to get a job at the local factory. He was a blue collar guy, carried his lunch pail, and worked hard. He pictured himself staying in that job until he retired. He enjoyed life with his wife and kids, and found time to fish and hunt.
As Ted grew in his job, others began to rely on him for help and direction. He began to realize that he was smarter than he had thought when he struggled through high school. When he was offered the opportunity to be a manager and wear a shirt and tie to work, something shifted dramatically in his self image. He saw himself as smart and important. He began to look at his wife, and even his kids, as being beneath him.
At social events with his co-workers Ted began to think another woman was attracted to him. She was smart and pretty and he looked at her as being in a different league from his wife. Flirtation led to an affair and the affair led to a divorce. Ted tried to begin a new life with the other woman, but found that happiness with her was only a mirage. She could never really trust him, because she saw him as a man who would leave his wife. After all, he had left his wife to be with her.
Sometimes success in life destroys a marriage. There are women who have worked to get their husband through medical school, only to be dumped for another woman after her husband became established in his career. There are men who encouraged their wives to pursue education or career, and were left when their wives began to gain newfound confidence.
The key to avoiding this pitfall is seeing yourself and your spouse as God sees you. God has taught us not to put ourselves or anyone else in classes or leagues. He has taught us not to think of ourselves as better than anyone else. He has taught us that we are all gifted and we are all loved. If you see yourself as gifted and loved by God now, encountering success later won’t make your head inflate. You will recognize that your gifts came from God and the doors you walked through were opened by Him.
When Paul writes about using our gifts to serve others, he first warns us not to have an inflated view of ourselves.
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. (Romans 12:3)
Later in the same chapter he shows us that we need to ignore the barriers that often separate people, and to treat everyone with respect.
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. (Romans 12:16)
You need to nurture a healthy attitude toward your spouse, viewing him or her as the one God has given to you to help you in this life. Adam had the benefit of having no one else to compare Eve to, other than the animals.
So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:20-22)
Since Adam could only compare Eve with porcupines and lizards, he would have been in awe of her. We can each maintain that awe if we keep a humble view of ourselves and a grateful attitude toward the One who gave us our spouse.
In Malachi the Lord tells us that He hates divorce. He says,
Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (Malachi 2:13-16)
God is speaking to us married folks when He says twice, “guard yourself in your spirit.” There are many wrong attitudes to guard ourselves against, and thinking we have become too good for our spouse is one of them.
In verse 14 He says, “she is your partner.”
The Hebrew word for partner “chabereth” is from a root word “chabar”, which means to unite. If we are partners, then whatever success, failure, hardship, and joy we face in life belongs to both of us. If things come along that are “better” than we were expecting, we should enjoy them together.
Talk About It – Since you married, what has been better than you expected? What effect did it have on your marriage?

5 – Keeping Your Promise

2009-03-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

God Leads Forward – If you get hopelessly lost in the forest, there is still a way to get from where you are to where you need to be. If someone who knows every path in the forest came to your side to help you, they would be able to show you the best way. God knows the best way forward from where you are now. If you’ll obey Him, He will show you that path. He has no interest in ridiculing you for getting lost, and He’s not ready to give up on you. He’s ready to put the past in the past.
If you hurt a friend or a relative, they may forgive you, but continue to remind you of what you did. They may use your past wrongs as leverage in the future. God not only forgives sin, He forgets it, and develops a new plan to get you from where you are to where He wants you to be. Here are some great Scriptures that show God’s heart.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)
My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin. (Job 14:17)
You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19)
In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back. (Isaiah 38:17)
Does it sound like God has any further interest in your sin after He forgives you? Does He want to remind you of them? He has truly put them in the past.
God has a great future for you. If you have made a bad decision in the past, God doesn’t want to dwell on it or remind you of it. He wants you to confess it, be forgiven, learn from it, and let Him lead you in the right direction from here.
Maybe you did make poor decisions at the time you were married. Maybe you weren’t listening to God or anyone else. God’s plan now, though, is to make a good marriage out of the mess you may have created.
God Expects Us to Keep Our Vows – Joshua, when he was Israel’s leader, made a covenant that he never would have made if he had asked God first. The Gibeonites wanted to make a peace treaty with him, agreeing to protect each other from enemies. Joshua had been told not to make treaties with the people who had been living in the Promised Land, so the Gibeonites lied about where they were from. They said that they lived far away. They put on old shoes and said they were new when they left home. They took old moldy bread and said it was hot out of the oven when they started their journey from home.
The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the LORD. Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them… (Joshua 9:14-15)
Joshua made a treaty without praying and with people who had lied to him. Surely this treaty wasn’t God’s will. But, did God want Joshua to keep his word? It’s amazing to learn that God not only expected Joshua to keep it, but He expected the leaders of Israel for hundreds of years to continue to keep that treaty.
When neighboring kings heard about the treaty, they attacked Gibeon. Joshua and his entire army came to the aid of Gibeon and God helped them to defeat five kings that had joined forces against them. God was so involved in this battle that He threw hailstones on the enemy and made the sun stand still to give Joshua time to finish the battle. Joshua summarizes:
There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel! (Joshua 10:14)
About 400 years later David didn’t understand why times were hard:
During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, "It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death." (2 Samuel 21:1)
It looks like the covenant that Joshua made was serious business to God. Saul was king before David and had broken the covenant, killing some of the Gibeonites. During David’s time God sent a famine to force Israel to make things right with the Gibeonites.
If you have made a vow, even one you shouldn’t have made, God wants you to keep it. He may do something as drastic as making the sun stand still to help you keep it.
Our point is that God wants you to commit yourself to your marriage. He wants you to work hard at your marriage, and He wants to bring good out of it. Even if I made a mistake getting on a ship when it sailed, jumping overboard would be a bad decision. Staying on the ship and making the most of the trip will be my wisest choice.
Talk About It – Since you married, have you reinforced the commitment you made to each other? Or, have you questioned your commitment and talked about divorce? Discuss what you can do to strengthen the confidence you each have in the commitment of the other.

4 - The Right Person

2009-03-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

I was talking with Pete about some of the trouble he was having at home. He surprised me when he said, “Maybe I married the wrong person.”
If you’ve ever wondered if you married the wrong person, we want to try to help you stop asking that question. This book is written for couples who are legally married. If you are married, God wants you to honor your vows. Frequently, we talk to couples whose marriages have gotten tough. Once you are married, though, it isn’t useful to ask if you married the wrong person. Once a ship has sailed, if you are on it, you need to stay on it.
Which of the following most accurately describes you?
· When you married, you were following God’s guidance. You were sure then and you are sure now that you married the person God wanted you to.
· When you married, you weren’t paying attention to God. You married the person you wanted, but you can see now that this really was God’s plan.
· You used to think you married the right person, but as marriage has gotten difficult, you began to think you may have married the wrong person.
· You weren’t following God when you got married and you don’t believe He would have told you to marry who you did if you had asked Him.
In any of these cases, we urge you to honor your vows. In this chapter and the next, there are three things we’d like you to see about God.
· He is a Redeemer who fixes things that are broken. If your marriage is a mess, God can fix it.
· He leads forward, finding the right path from wherever we may have gotten off track to where He wants to lead us.
· He expects us to keep our vows, even if they weren’t His will in the first place.
If you can see these three truths, our hope is that you will quit asking whether you married the right person and will give your whole heart to making your marriage all it can be.
God Fixes Things That Are Broken – The Bible shows us that God is a Redeemer and a Restorer. If your life is a mess, give it to Him to repair. Here is God speaking in the book of Isaiah.
I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him. (Isaiah 57: 18)
There are many Christian couples who can tell you about great changes that happened in their marriages when they began to listen to God and obey Him.
Bill and Denise had a very rocky seven years at the beginning of their marriage. Bill was an alcoholic and could not be counted on for much of anything. He wouldn’t usually be home when he said he would and he had a hard time keeping a job. Denise mostly lived in pain, but at times sought comfort in an affair with another man. This marriage seemed hopeless.
Bad marriages grow from bad roots. Bill’s parents had divorced when he was six, and he had always thought of himself as a hopeless victim. He began drinking heavily when he was only a teenager. He had been sober for a while when he married Denise, and he seemed pretty optimistic then.
Denise hardly knew her real father. Her mother married her step-dad when Denise was 11 years old. Her step-dad was always harsh with her and she treated him with disrespect. Her mother usually sided with her step-dad, and Denise kept as much distance from her parents as she could. She was only 16 when she met Bill, and barely 17 when he offered to marry her. She was so eager to get out of her house, marrying someone who said he loved her seemed like a dream.
Family members dressed up for the occasion and Bill and Denise had a nice little wedding. They found a pastor to do the service. They liked him and went to his church a few times after they were married.
But Bill and Denise had no idea how to be husband and wife. They didn’t have any good examples to follow, and they hadn’t learned how to be married from anyone else. As life got tough, Bill began to drink and things got worse from there.
One day, in their seventh year of marriage, Bill was drinking and driving and was pulled over and taken to jail. While he was in the county jail, a pastor stopped by and Bill got a chance to talk with him. The pastor reminded Bill a lot of the man who had done their wedding nearly seven years earlier. He explained to Bill that God could forgive everything he had done, because Jesus had paid for his sins when Jesus died on the cross. The pastor also explained what it means to give your life to the Lord. Bill prayed with the pastor and asked God to forgive him and take over his life.
Amazingly, while Bill was in jail, Denise called an old Christian friend she had known since high school. Denise poured out her whole story of Bill’s drinking and her own infidelity. Her friend urged Denise to ask Jesus to come into her heart and forgive her sins. She did.
Bill and Denise devoted themselves to learn what God wanted them to do with their lives and their marriage. They forgave each other for past sins, and developed a solid marriage. Bill and Denise have been happily married for many years now and have been able to help many other couples.
Talk About It – How do you each view your marriage right now? Is it what you expected when you married? Do you think your marriage is like God’s plan for marriage? In what areas would you like to see your marriage improve?

3 – Why Did I Get Married?

2009-03-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

What was your reason for getting married? If you’re like many others, you may have had mostly selfish reasons for getting married and later discovered that you need to be unselfish to be successfully married. In fact, you need to be unselfish to enjoy life at all.
When you stood in front of family and friends and promised to love and cherish your spouse, you may not have realized it, but you were committing to an unselfish life. You can’t keep your promise to love and cherish another person while only being concerned about your own happiness. Furthermore, if you are only concerned with your own happiness, you will never be happy.
Men are commanded to love their wives in a Christ-like, sacrificial way.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)
Women also need to love their husbands in an unselfish way.
This unselfishness begins by thinking about what it important to your spouse, how they view things, and what makes them happy.
Two people living selfish lives may find some fulfillment in each other for a while. They may enjoy each other’s company and marry with great hopes and dreams. But if they continue to live selfishly while married, their wishes will collide and they will find hundreds of reasons for conflict. They will each be unfulfilled and they will never meet each other’s selfish expectations. Many couples encounter this conflict and start to drift apart. They develop more independence in their marriage as a way of reducing the conflict, but this falls short of what God meant when He said that the two would become one.
A selfish person will always be insecure because they are trying to base their life on a lie; that they are the most important person on earth. Selfish people may put unattainable expectations on themselves to try to justify the pedestal they have placed themselves on. The selfish person will never feel like they measure up, even to their own expectations.
The person who always thinks of themselves as better than others has a lot in common with the person who always thinks of themselves as inferior. They are both focusing on themselves and comparing themselves with others. We should, instead, view ourselves and every other person as unique and all worthy of love.
If you accept the truth that everyone has value, you realize that you are valuable and that your spouse is valuable. You realize that you don’t have to earn genuine love and you aren’t waiting for your spouse to earn it. Married life gets much simpler and more enjoyable when you accept and value each other unconditionally and you make your spouse’s happiness as important as your own.
We are all commanded to live unselfish lives:
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4)
As a married couple, you will have many daily opportunities to practice this command.
George Washington and the Continental Army spent six months camped at Valley Forge. There was no battle fought there, but historians regard those six months as the turning point of the war. An army of about 12,000 arrived poorly fed, ill-equipped, and weary from long marches. They built their own shelters and endured the winter together. The army included young teens and men in their 50s. They were white, black, and Native American. Maybe some of these soldiers had self centered dreams of glory when they joined General Washington’s army. But these men either became unselfish or they went home.
For a while, it looked as if they would all disband. They were poorly supplied and sometimes chanted, “No Meat!” or “No bread, no soldier!” While many soldiers at Valley Forge died of sickness and others deserted, the ones who endured the encampment were transformed into a disciplined, united army ready to do whatever it took to win the war. The winter at Valley Forge was a triumph of will. Washington’s army determined that they were soldiers, fighting for a cause greater than their own personal comfort. They were committed to the cause until the war was over.
Hopefully, your marriage will never be as challenging as the winter at Valley Forge, but we can guarantee that you will face challenges. Those challenges will force you to realize that you can’t succeed at marriage while being selfish. If you recognize that the success of your marriage means much more than your personal happiness, you will find the will to succeed.
Talk About It – What were your motives for getting married? What is the best example of your spouse showing you unselfish love?

2 - Commitment

2009-03-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. (Matthew 19:6)
Jesus made this statement to show that marriages are meant to be permanent, as long as the husband and wife are both living. When people marry, they usually have a mental picture of their future lives together. They have probably talked about short-term plans and long-term dreams. However, life is unpredictable. God knows the future, but He has chosen to only show some of it to us. We will experience things we never imagined and see things in our spouse we didn’t know were there. We may have to change our plans and delay some of the dreams we had.
Commitment is a key ingredient in a marriage that will keep it together when life gets tough. Commitment in marriage should be seen first as obedience to God. Lack of commitment comes from selfishly putting our own short-term happiness ahead of obedience.
If you are happily married, your commitment may seldom, if ever, be challenged. But many marriages go through rocky times that test the commitment of both the man and the woman.
Some marriages fail because of a big break in trust, such as one person cheating on the other. Usually, though, the cheating didn’t start overnight. People worked up to it by failing to nurture their marriages. In many cases couples failed at the little day to day things that make a marriage work. Usually it takes a bad marriage to make a stupid decision like cheating on your spouse look like a good idea.
Reasons for Ending a Marriage - The purpose of this book is to encourage people to nurture their marriages, not to end them. However, we have to acknowledge that the Bible does offer justification for ending a marriage in certain circumstances.
Jesus shows that a person who is the victim of unfaithfulness can divorce and remarry.
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery. (Matthew 19:9)
If you are the victim of unfaithfulness, Jesus isn’t commanding you to divorce. Forgiveness and restoration is a better choice if you can do it and we’ll offer some help later on how to forgive and restore trust. But if your spouse refuses to honor their vows, you do have the right to divorce and remarry.
Paul also shows that the victim of abandonment is not bound by the marriage covenant.
But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. (1 Corinthians 7:15)
Also, there are apparently situations in which separation is justified when divorce is not. Paul doesn’t explain what circumstances he was thinking of when he wrote:
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:10-11)
Verse 11 provides for a separation, without remarrying someone else, leaving open the possibility of reconciliation. This is what we would recommend in situations of abuse, alcoholism, or addiction. A person can separate, without ending the marriage, and make clear (by writing it down) what needs to change for the marriage to be restored to normal.
Please don’t end your marriage because you are bored, unfulfilled, or tired of life the way it is. You will have far more success building the marriage you have than you will chasing something else.
Bob and Frances had been married for seven years and have two small children. They both worked and were both frequently exhausted. They had always struggled to make ends meet. This led to frequent arguments about money. The romance in their marriage had seemed to fizzle in recent years. They hadn’t had a date night in over a year and hadn’t had a vacation for three years. Like many couples in their shoes, they started to toy with the idea of divorce. They each thought that they might find new joy in the company of someone else.
Could you advise them on how to renew their marriage? Of course you could. Successful marriage isn’t complicated, but it does take effort. You can probably also recognize that their divorce would hurt a lot of people, particularly their children. Their marriage is worth saving and working for.
There is much more in the coming chapters to help you nurture your marriage or to see it healed if it is damaged.
Talk About It – How clear were you on the idea of commitment when you said, “I do?” Of the married couples you know, who is the best example of commitment?

1 – Why God Invented Marriage

2009-03-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

Just a few moments after Pastor Royal pronounced us man and wife, Shirley said, “I don’t feel married.” The pastor just laughed and said, “Don’t worry, you will.” That was 1971. When we married, we were young and didn’t know that much about what we were doing. We hadn’t read any books on the subject, but we had good examples in our parents. God helped us and we learned how to be a married couple. We have enjoyed a great marriage and value our relationship over any possession or position we have ever had.
Marriage is as old as mankind. God invented it and explained it in the book of Genesis. God made a man and then said the man needed help. When God looked at Adam’s situation, it was the first time the Bible records God saying something was not good.
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." (Genesis 2:18)
Don’t imagine that God meant to make someone merely to pick up Adam’s dirty socks. The Hebrew word ‘ezer, translated above as “helper” is a powerful term. It is often used to describe the help we get from God when we need to be rescued.
Why did the man need help? Why do you need help? If Adam had needed help moving a table, God would have made another man just like him. But, that isn’t the kind of help he needed.
All of us have strengths, but all of us also have weaknesses. We can benefit in many ways from someone who looks at life a little differently than we do. When God made woman, He intentionally made her different from man in many ways, while making her enough like man for them to have a deep, heartfelt relationship.
You may have noticed that everyone is good at something and no one is good at everything. In any marriage, the man and woman will each have strengths and talents that are different each other. A normal man and a normal woman can help each other throughout their lives.
God decided to create someone to live with the man and enrich his life. After He had made the woman and presented her to Adam, the Bible says,
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
When Jesus quoted this passage from Genesis, He added:
So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. (Matthew 19:6)
From these simple statements we learn some things about what God had in mind.
By saying “they are no longer two, but one,” Jesus shows that marriage is meant to be much deeper than any other human relationship. This is not merely a sexual union, or a business partnership, but a union that touches every area of our lives. God intends for my wife to be my closest friend. He made her capable of dreaming and hoping, just as I am. Somehow, we need to find a way for our dreams and hopes to link in a life that is better than either of us could have lived alone.
By saying, “what God has joined together,” Jesus shows that God is the author of marriage. We shouldn’t think of marriage as something we can redefine to fit our preferences, but something that God invented for our good. Many people like to take some of the parts of what marriage is supposed to be and leave out the parts they don’t like or that seem impossible. Examples of relationships that are only part of what they are supposed to be include,
· a man and wife who are far apart emotionally,
· a couple living together with no lifelong commitment,
· a marriage where there is unfaithfulness,
· a man and wife who don’t respect each other, or
· a marriage that leaves God out.
By saying, “let not man separate,” we can see that God intended for this to be a partnership to last the rest of our lives.
Successful marriage, then, involves:
· One man and one woman committing to help and honor each other
· Making marriage the deepest of our human relationships,
· Being committed to each other for life, and
· Having God at the center of the marriage.
Talk About It - Are you committed to marriage the way God planned it, or are there parts of His plan you’d prefer to leave out? How healthy is your marriage right now?

40 Days to Strengthen Your Marriage and Impact the World - Introduction

2009-03-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

Smile, lot’s of people are watching. Your marriage matters to a lot of people. If you have a healthy marriage, your children and many others will benefit from your example. You will leave a mark that will impact the world long after you’re gone. Unfortunately, successful marriages are on the decline in America. Statistics show that since 1960, the percentage of people in America who are married has steadily declined, the number of people who are divorced has increased, the number of people living together unmarried has increased sharply, and the number of married people who say they are very happy with their marriage has declined. (If you want to check out lots of statistics, visit http://marriage.rutgers.edu/) More troubling to us is the fact that less than 40% of high school seniors believe they will live fuller and happier lives if they choose legal marriage. We believe that just seeing one healthy marriage would change a young person’s mind.
But this book is not about statistics. It is about your marriage. It was written as a simple tool to help you succeed in marriage. It was written to help normal couples strengthen their marriage. It is written in plain language in short, readable chapters. It doesn’t ignore the tough challenges that some marriages face.
Marriage is not rocket science. Average people can succeed at it if they try.
This book was written for a man and wife to read together and to talk about together. How do you read a book together? Any of these approaches will work: take turns reading out loud, one reads out loud while the other listens (just make sure you’re both awake) or, read silently sitting side by side. Read it and then talk about it. Each chapter offers something to talk about at the end of the chapter.
This book was intended to be read, one chapter per day, for forty days. The chapters are all about the same length and will each take about 5 to 10 minutes to read. But the point is to strengthen your marriage, not just say you read the chapters. If you get off schedule, don’t panic, just pick up where you left off. You may come across something that sparks several days of discussion and you may choose to stay on that topic for a while until you get back into the book. If you take 40 weeks to get through the book, we don’t care. We just want you to succeed in your marriage.
We rely unapologetically on the Bible in this book. We believe that God invented marriage and the Bible shows us how to have a healthy one. Our hope and prayer is that your marriage will grow stronger and that you will be a blessing to everyone who knows you.

Managing Anger

2007-04-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

God’s Word: Ephesians 4: 26 In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.

Do Not Sin – God commands us not to sin when we are angry because our judgment is not as good when we are angry. We are more likely to do something wrong. But this command shows us that what is wrong when you are not angry is still wrong when you are. Discuss bad actions you may be vulnerable to when you are angry.

What can you do to control your behavior when you are angry and avoid saying or doing something harmful?

How can you help your spouse do what is right when they are angry?

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down – If you become angry, how long does it take for you to cool down and make things right?

What do you need to do to become quicker at cooling off and resolving whatever made you angry?

Discuss what you can do as a couple to make sure you do not let the sun go down on your anger.

No Foothold – Are there issues in your marriage that are easy triggers for conflict? What do you need to do to resolve them?

Bring Happiness

2007-03-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

God’s Word: Deuteronomy 24:5 If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.

Stay at Home – This command required a married man to spend time at home so that his wife would be happy. How would you describe your happiness when you are both home together?

Do you need to spend more time at home together than you do now? If so, how can you adjust your schedules so that you have more time together?

Is there anything you can do to improve the quality of the time you do spend together at home? (such as eat together, pray together, remove distractions, etc.)

Bring Happiness – Explain to each other the things that make you happy or unhappy when you are together.

Discuss some of the things you can do to bring happiness to each other.

What are the long term consequences of you having a happy, stable, marriage?

Work Toward Peace

2007-03-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

God’s Word: Romans 14:19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

Effort? – Discuss with each other ways you can put effort into making your marriage better.

How much effort have you given to your marriage in the last month?

Peace? – What does it take for you to be at peace with each other?

Which of these best fits your idea of peace?

We leave each other alone most of the time. We don’t bother each other.
We are able to spend time together and enjoy each other’s company, as long as we don’t bring up sensitive subjects that we can’t agree on.
We both understand and respect each other and enjoy being around each other, even though we don’t think alike on some things.
We are just the same; we think and feel the same about everything.

(If you picked 1 or 2, you have work to do on your marriage. If you picked 3, you are blessed. If you picked 4, you may be from another planet.)

Mutual Edification? – Some couples are in competition with each other. What would it take for each of you to want the other to grow?

Discuss ways you would like to see growth in your life in the next five years.

Speaking the Truth in Love

2007-03-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

God’s Word: Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

Speaking the Truth – Discuss with each other how honest you believe you are with each other.
Is there anything that would bring more honesty into your marriage?
Are there times when it would be better to say nothing than to speak the truth?
Are there times you have spoken, out of anger or fear, things that were not true?

Speaking in Love – Talk about how to speak in love to each other.
How does love influence your choice of words, your tone of voice, and your timing when you talk to each other?

In All Things Grow Up – How can you help each other grow as Christians?
Tell your spouse what they can do that will help you grow.

It’s Not All About Me

2007-03-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

God’s Word: 1 Corinthians 13:5 It (Love) is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Anger? – This verse says that love is not easily angered. Discuss with each other how often in the past month anger has been evident in your marriage.
Can you discuss those moments without getting angry again?
How does love cause you to be slower to anger?
What needs to change for each of you to take longer to become angry?

If you are easily angered, you do not believe the best about life, God, and your spouse. If you believe that God loves you, and your spouse loves you, then life’s troubles don’t make you mad as easily. You are expecting things to work out, God to show up, and your spouse to do what they can.

Self-Seeking? – Love is not self-seeking. Describe for each other a time you were focused on yourself to the point you were unaware of your spouse's needs.

How can you become less self-seeking?

No Record? - Love keeps no record of wrongs. Each of you share with the other a wrong from the past you would appreciate never being brought up again.

Discuss whether you are willing to drop it once and for all.