This one tip will transform your marriage. Truth is, I’m not sure you are going to like it. However, if you are in a hard spot in your marriage, this must-follow tip will make a huge difference. It might not be immediate, but I believe it will make an impact. Even if your marriage is in an OK or good spot, this is a tip for everyone.
I want to preface this post with the thought that you need to protect yourself and your kids. If you are in a marriage that puts you in harms way physically, you need to find protection and get help. That said, I have seen marriages in really gross places find hope and healing, and I believe in marriage. I want to help give you tools to fight for your marriage because I believe the covenant you made with your spouse is important – for you, for them and and for your kids.
So what is the big tip I am offering today? It’s a phrase I have learned in a marriage ministry I am a part of at my church. The marriage ministry is called ReEngage, and the curriculum is amazing. It is a Christian-based marriage enrichment program, and it encourages you to put God at the center of your marriage and life. Beyond that, the phrase we often say at this ministry is, “Draw a circle around yourself, and fix everything inside of that circle.” Is that what you wanted to hear? My guess is no. I know that when I am in the thick of it with my husband I’m more likely to use mental phrases like, “If he would only…” or “Why won’t he change?” Often times we see our spouse as the bigger problem. Why? We are an egocentric people and often view things from our point of view, and our point of view seems perfectly reasonable.
The truth is, your spouse might be the bigger problem. Despite that, you get to control how you respond. I can tell you that I’ve walked through this marriage thing with a a lot of people now. I have heard arguments or marriage circumstances from the wife’s point of view where I leave saying, “Wow. He’s a jerk.” I’ve then heard the same story from his point of view and thought, “Wow. She is impossible.” The fact of the matter is that there are two sides to every story. I don’t know if you understand how much power you have to change your marriage. He or she may be the bigger issue, but you still have the capability to make a huge impact on the second most (God being the first) relationship in your life.
How to Be the Change
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- Change Your Perspective – Many people go into a marriage carrying the Jerry McGuire lie, “You complete me.” Believing that lie replaces your spouse with the purpose of God. The truth is, He is the only one who can complete you. If you have holes and you are empty, your spouse is not going to complete you. It’s not fair to put that expectation on your spouse. In the book Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, it is said, “Marriage is meant to make us holy not happy.” Marriage is a refining process. God will use your spouse to make you the best you if you allow it. It will most likely be painful, but like diamonds, the pressure is what creates the value and beauty. The problem is people go into marriage with the thought that the other will complete us and make us happy. We want to leave our marriage thinking it didn’t work so we have to find someone else to complete the task. It won’t work. God will complete you if you allow Him.
- Change Your Response – There is a cycle pointed out by Emerson Eggerichs in his book and marriage series called “Love and Respect” called “the crazy cycle.” The main idea is that people get into a circular pattern – the husband not acting loving toward his wife and the wife responding to her husband with disrespect. It starts with one of the spouses, and then it just continues in this pattern. Someone needs to break the cycle and respond better, and it needs to be you. After all, you are the only person you can control. If you step out of the cycle and begin showing love or respect to your spouse in the way she or he feels it, the crazy cycle ends. Period. Therefore, when you feel unloved by your husband, you need to respond in a respectful way. Easy? No. However, as you respect him – in front of his peers, in front of his children and in private – you will most likely see a change in how he responds to you. It goes the same for husbands. If you start by unconditionally loving your wives in a way that is meaningful to her, you will see her begin to respect you. Your response needs to change to make a positive impact on your marriage.
- Show Empathy – Try to walk in your spouses shoes. Being a stay at home mom wasn’t easy for me. He would walk through the door, and I had no consideration of how hard work may have been for him that day. Instead, my perspective seemed to be that I had definitely had it worse, and I had not received a break from these kids for days. He, at least, was able to leave the house and have a change of scenery. You see, it was all about me. He’d come home, and I didn’t quite understand why he didn’t just offer me a cocktail and tell me to go spend a couple hours to myself while he took care of bedtime. Of course all of that should be followed by a massage. There was no empathy, on my behalf, of the stresses of his life – both from work and from within our family – stresses that I was often creating. Selfishness is a HUGE factor that negatively impacts marriages, and I can raise my hand and say I let it impact ours. My husband would confess the same thing, and it set us at odds. If we can try and see the world from our spouse’s perspective and show empathy, it will make a change.
- Serve Ferociously with a Happy Heart – We are called to follow Jesus’ example. What is that example? “That’s the way it is with the Son of Man. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many people.” – Matthew 20:28. We are also called to “Do everything without complaining and arguing” – Philippians 2:14. I know that I often have to do a check on my attitude and actions. Do I have a servants heart? Not always…maybe not even often. I tire of serving my family. I can let it show. I often have to check my attitude. Am I being too naggy? Am I treating my husband as another child or as my beloved boyfriend? Do I respond with a happy heart or bitterness? I wrote a post called, “I have everything I ever wanted. Why am I so unhappy.” I have obviously struggled with my own discontentment, and I let it impact my marriage. I needed to learn what it means to serve others and to do it graciously.
Changing ourselves is never easy, especially if we feel like our spouse is the one being the most ugly. Let me tell you that I have been in the midst of marriages struggling with infidelity, pornography, verbal battles and more. No matter how grievously one of the participants is, each marriage has found success when an individual or both partners claim their own stuff they contribute positively to the marriage and decide to work on themselves rather than try to “fix” the other person. There are two of you in this marriage and neither one of you is perfect. You have brought sin. You have brought pain. You are contributing. You can make changes within yourself to positively impact your marriage. It might take some big soul searching, but the list above should help you begin to identify the changes you can begin to make to have a huge impact in your family.
I’m so there…..Our kids are grown and gone. YET I feel like my husband is the kid who wont leave 🙁 He is 52 years old and I still have to say can you take the trash out, did you feed the dog, can you help with the dishes, did you pray??? I know in my heart I have not completely wasted 30 years of marriage. But may the last 10. Heartbroken and not sure I want to save our marriage now. Heck, I can’t even talk to him about it. We have meet with our pastor several times. My husband will focus but then as soon as the meeting stop, he quits. Im feeling defeated and not sure I want to fight any more.
First, I want to say that I’m sorry that your marriage is such a struggle. God designed marriage to be a reflection of Jesus’ relationship with you, which I why I believe Satan attacks it so powerfully. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to live in a marriage that feels broken. That said, I don’t want you to give up on this. I would encourage you to read the Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. He poses the question, “What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?” It’s a good book and might give new perspective. Some people say, “I can’t live like this anymore.” I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to try and change what you can change, and pray for your husband. One thing that really helped my parents was a white board. I know that sounds silly, but my mom always felt like she was nagging and my dad never noticed the things that needed to get done. He was a good willed man but just didn’t see the to-do list like my mom did. It wasn’t in his nature, and it caused conflict. So, rather than “Did you….?” all the time, she simply wrote out a daily list of things that needed to be accomplished, and he would cross them off. It’s a small thing that might help. I also would caution against being the one that is reminding him to pray. That’s on him and his relationship with God. You want to be his wife and not his mom. I know you are aching for that too. I would challenge you to see how you can become like you were at the beginning…the excited dating phase. Plan a special event together. Write a respect list of things you appreciate about him. Write him a love letter (even if you don’t feel it right now). Start focusing on what he does well in life. Compliment him in front of others. Surprise him at work with his favorite drink or candy. I know you don’t feel it. I know you are angry, but I don’t want it to continue for you. Try it for a couple months – lifting him up in words and actions, dating again, making a written list rather than a verbal list. Just try it and see how it goes. Another great book is “Highly, Happy Marriages,” by Shanti Feldhahn. It shows the kind of attitudes and actions that make up a good marriage. I know it takes two, but I am absolutely positive there are things you can continue to tweak and change (both in heart attitude and actions). You just need to recognize it, claim it and change it. He might be 90% and you 10%, but the best thing you can do is focus on your 10% rather than his 90%. I’m so sorry. It’s so hard. I don’t think looking down the road of not wanting to fight anymore is the answer. I just don’t! Please let me know how it goes. Praying for you right now.
My husband has been abusive to me and to my children intermittently throughout our 18 years of marriage. I am at the point where I just want out. He will go through months without any physical abuse (emotional abuse never seems to stop). He has also been spiritually abusing me. He says that if I don’t forgive him for holding me against the wall with his fist rammed up under my chin or don’t forgive him for choking me that I’ll go to hell. If I want to see my family and he doesn’t then I am not submitting to him and following God’s laws. I am done. I don’t know what else to do. The only problem is that he has threatened to run to Mexico with my kids or have people lie about me in court so that I will loose custody. Am I wrong to want out and give up?
You need to protect yourself. You need help, and I would never encourage someone to keep putting themselves or their children in harms way. He is abusing you with his words and actions, and you need protection. I wouldn’t say the answer is divorce right away, but you cannot continue living like this. Here’s a post I wrote on forgiveness to more clearly define what it is and is not: https://meaningfulmama.com/why-i-will-teach-my-kids-to-ask-for-forgiveness.html. I really encourage you to look at these. It’s hard when someone is using the Bible incorrectly…only taking the parts they want. Ephesians 5 talks about women submitting and respecting their husbands, but it is followed by scripture that says “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This is a great command for men to love their wives sacrificially. I wouldn’t throw that in his face, but it’s something to know so that we can be grounded in truth. Please seek help right away. I need someone to counsel you who is closer to the situation but is still speaking Biblical truth into both of your lives. I have seen that there is still hope for your marriage, but it doesn’t mean you continue to put yourself in harms way. There need to be lots of change needed. I’m sorry you are going through this. Thank you for trusting me with your story.
Meaningful Mama – you are a wonderful concise writer with a beautiful purpose and a humble heart! Thank you for the encouragement!
Thank you so much. What kind and encouraging words. I’m always hoping that what I am doing is making a difference in people’s lives, and I really appreciate you commenting on this post. It means a lot to me.
Last paragraph: sentence starting with, “No matter…” I think “negatively” is really meant to mean ‘positively’. Sorry, the English major in me won’t go away❣
I really appreciate it! Especially when I’m told with grace. I’ll go fix that now. Thank you! I was not an English major. 😉
My marriage was rocky for a while, at one point I remember thinking, ‘if he this or if he that’ and that was when I realized just what you said, I was focused on his flaws and just looking for revenge. I found a way to change my focus through God, I prayed and looked at the things I could do better. It didn’t fix things overnight but gradually they improved and now we are best friends again. God hears and answers, sometimes it’s not the answer we hoped for, but we can only be one if we are both seeking God. Thank you for the article.
Thank you so, so much for sharing your testimony. What words of encouragement for those reading this article. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your victories with me. I really appreciate it!
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