There are countless
homes and marriages experiencing one crisis or the other and it is as if, as a
woman once asked me, “Can’t marriages ever be without problem?”
As strange as it may
seem, the everyday couples we find today are seemingly in two categories –
those in marital crisis; and those about to get into crisis. In fact marital
struggles are everywhere and they are not unique to certain people.
But does it mean there
can never be joy in marriage? Can marriages be immune from crisis or how can
they be salvaged?
Here are five proven
truths that save marriage:
1. Your spouse
does not have the capacity to meet all your emotional needs:
The surest way to court
disaster in marriage is for a wife to expect her husband to be the all-in-all
is a formula for disaster.
A lot of women marry
with the intent of shifting the burden of life and living onto their husbands.
Your spouse is not an expect route to challenges of life.
Do your spouse a favor
and look to God to be your "spiritual husband" and take some of that
load of his shoulders. This will take a tremendous load of expectation off of
him and it will help you be a confident, capable wife who can get through
whatever life and marriage brings your way.
2. Marriage is not only about happiness:
I am sure you married
because you believed your partner would make you happier than if you remained
single. This is basic assumption many people enter into marriage with.
But God's original intention
for marriage is more about sacrifice than making you happy. Marriage is a place
where daily practice dying to self. It is a theatre of sacrifice and
compromise. It is a field in which we can practice love, even when we don't
feel like it.
Happiness is not a
result of how someone else treats you. Your level of contentment is a choice
that must be made by you or a heart condition that must be altered.
Marriage is the
training ground for sublime and total love and self-effacing character. And the
best person to teach you how to love another unconditionally is the partner you
are living with in very close quarters.
3. Disappointment
is inevitable because we're all incomplete and not perfect
This is one of the most
realistic perspectives to marriage. Nobody can essentially make you complete or
perfect. Only God can fix us. It is beyond a new life, a new wife or a new
perspective; and not even a new you.
Imperfections will
always remain in us. We would keep hurting and disappointing one another in
marriage because with all the new, there's still the same old broken you.
Just as your spouse has
disappointed you, you, too, have disappointed your spouse. It goes both ways.
That's why grace is the glue that holds the two of you together.
Once you realize you
are just as much an imperfect fellow or sinner as your spouse, you will extend
grace toward him or her more easily.
4. Divorce is
not always a solution. The grass is NOT greener on the other side:
We tend to look at
other situations that are less familiar to us and imagine the best. I am sure you
too would have looked at your fiancé years ago and imagined the best possible
scenario with him. Then reality happened.
Your spouse has flaws.
So does the nice-looking man or woman across the street or the recently
divorced woman in your office or the very capable single mom or dad you met in
the school parking lot.
Doesn't it make sense
to continue to invest in the person you've invested years in than to start all
over with someone else's issues, baggage, past, and problems?
5. Integrity always pays off:
Are you a person of
your word? Did you say "forever"? Did you promise commitment even in
sickness and in health? Alzheimer’s and dementia are a sickness. So is
addiction.
So, even if your spouse
doesn't remember you or isn't behaving the "same" as when you
married, or is truly trying to stop a destructive behavior but can't, you still
made a promise.
Even if the two of you
have grown apart, you still made a commitment. Even if your heart doesn't feel
the same you still made a vow before God and witnesses to be in this "'till
death do us part." (And that doesn't mean "death" of your
feelings.)
I'm so glad God doesn't
drop us when we begin acting differently than when we first committed to him.
Grace is undeserved favor. And God expects us to show it to others in the same
degree it has been measured out to us.
Of course, there are
certain behaviors that are absolutely unacceptable in marriage, such as abuse
and sexual unfaithfulness. Some of the most
powerful marital testimonies I've seen and heard have been those who started to
walk away because of "irreconcilable differences" but then saw the
God of reconciliation bring them back together....once they extended grace and
love of another kind (and in many cases when counseling and a repentant heart
helped reverse some destructive behavior).
Inasmuch as it depends
on you, are you willing to forgive, extend grace, and do what is necessary for
the marriage to work? God always honors the man or woman "who keeps his
word whatever the cost". And I know, my friend; sometimes it hurts.
Marriage disappoints at
times, just like any relationship. But God never disappoints. Put your hope in
him - and his promises - and see what he can pull you through.
And if your marriage is
one that couldn't be saved - or you are dealing with behaviors that are destructive
to the marriage, or your spouse was not committed to making it work as you had
hoped - God can still redeem the pieces of your life and turn your story into
something beautiful.
Adapted from Cindi McMenamin
