Love and Marriage

A popular song in the 80's said that "Love is a Battlefield".   Well at times it can be, and at times it is it is a great adventure, and at times great fun and fulfilling.   The Bible has a lot say about relationships and marriage and Pastor Chuck Smith provides an excellent lesson on Loving Your Wife.  Pastor Jay Dyksterhouse has also provided several good online lessons including How to Keep from Losing Your Wife and an audio sermon Confessions of a Happy Wife.     

 I have read several marriage books with my wife,  and they have been good foundations to understand the general principles, but few have really provided the tactical on the ground input that you need, and that you learn when you are actually interacting in the relationship.   So I thought I would put down some things that work for me, for those guys who are newer to love and marriage and are finding it challenging.

Marriage is entering into a relationships of love by serving and submitting to another.   All of this starts with humbling yourself first before God and to His will as defined in His Word.   Secondly is then humbling yourself before your spouse, since even as believers we are to humble ourselves before others. 

Ephesians 5:22-33 ....Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.   

What love comes down to for me, is to seek to understand what my spouse's needs and goals are, and seek their success. This sounds simple, but there are some challenges in this path.

The Foundation is God

Marriage was designed for people who have humbled themselves before God, to come together in humbleness before each other.   If you don't believe in God, then your goal is to seek to preserve your own comfort and safety first, and by applying controls to those people and things around you, maintain it.   While you may chose to submit yourself to the will of another for a time, sooner or later, when life becomes difficult, loss occurs of safety or security of comfort, then we regress back to trying to control the world around us.  This quickly turns into conflict as two individuals seek to control their own worlds, which is quickly perceived as selfishness and lack of love by their spouse. 

Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,a 8and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Expectations Management

Expectations are likely going to be the biggest challenge you have in your relationship.  If you are proactive and respond well to them life can be peace and love.  But unmanaged you will often find yourself  relationally bruised, beaten, and at times shut out.

How did things go so wrong?  When you first started dating, all kinds of expectations were set.   As a guy you often try to be attentive to your partner's wants and needs, and meet or exceed them whenever possible.

When over time things are not as expected, then fear, uncertainty, and doubt set in.   The other person feels sad or disappointed about the relationship not meeting their expectations, not fulfilling their hopes and dreams, not meeting their needs.   

 Anxiety then leads to either disappointment, depression and hopelessness, or can lead to your partner reacting by trying to take control of things and manipulate them to meet expectations.   This usually leads to conflict, alienation, and loneliness.

So how do you respond??

The first response is often to feel frustrated, vent that frustration in the middle of conflict, and escalate the alienation, or sometimes we just bottle it up and hold it in until some future time.

Another response can be to blow it off, ignore it, be passive and wait until "she gets over it" which often just means that she will back off but hold onto the feelings until the next conflict.

But your next step is to take leadership in your relationship.   Step up and seek to be the catalyst for good. 

The first step is to get proactive and listen and learn.  

Start by praying daily for your spouse, that God will show you how to show love to them that day. Only as you are submitting to God daily, can you submit to your spouse.  

Take some time and together define what the spiritual vision is for each of you individually, as a couple, and as a family.   Include goals around character qualities you want to see in yourselves and your kids.

Then make sure that you have a weekly or biweekly time over dinner/date to talk and listen.  

-  Ask her about sources for burden and pain in the past few weeks.

-  Ask her what has brought her joy and peace.

-  In light of this, discuss the progress that you made together over the past couple weeks towards your spiritual goals and vision.  

-  Talk about the next steps you can take together over the next few weeks to continue to move towards that vision. 

And on a day to day basis, make sure to ask her what she has enjoyed in her day or week, and what she is looking forward to.  What she is looking forward to, should be a clue for you of things to note in your calendar so that if she is expecting you to be a part of them, you don't forget.  Otherwise if they are events that you are not a part of, you can remember to ask her how it went.  This makes her feel like you care about her and is the first step towards love and peace.      It also provides time for open dialog outside of times of conflict.

Humility (Love)  is assuming that you get nothing from the other person and are called by God to give everything you can to meet the needs you can.  It also takes turning off the media, not checking your phone or taking calls, but focusing on your partner.

Then ask how you can be of support to her, care for her, or love her best.     Listen for what is important to her;

- I need you to pick up after yourself, or pick up some groceries, or wash the tub so that I can get other things done in the evening when I get home.

- I need you to help me make dinner, clean up after dinner, take the garbage out, feed the pets, do some laundry.

- We need to watch our expenses this month because we have a big trip at the end of the month to go to my friends wedding.

- I'd like you to watch a chic flick with me and just hold me.  I'd like you to go to the gym with me, or go for a walk.

- I like it when you leave me a note or text me during your day at work.

- I like it when we spend time together.  I like it when just the two of us go out on a date and talk.

Listing to this can really help you understand your spouse's love language.  Their Love Language is the thing you do that make them feel valued.  Since your love language is usually different, you often express love by the ways you want to be loved, but they may not be meaningful to her.

Periodically my wife and I do a relationship health checkup, which just makes for an intentional time to reflect and relate on our relationship.  This is a way to exercise submitting to one another as we ask for feedback, and then through submission, are willing to work on areas that are important to our spouse.  I will find a time when we have not been rushed or stressed out and have had a date or dinner, and discuss the following;

Continue - what things do each of you value in your relationship that you want to make sure you keep doing.  This can be anything around time spent, money, traditions, schedule management, church, prayer or devotions together, activities with others (family, our kids or friends), entertainment and vacations.

Stop - what things are we doing individually or together that are not productive for building God's kingdom and our relationship, What activities, attitudes, or habits discourage our strength and peace as a couple or as individuals.

Start - what new activities, attitudes and habits do we want to work on together that will build communication and new disciplines to strengthen our relationship and encourage us individually.

If items are not coming to mind for these topics, then something else that helps is saying to your spouse "How would you rate our Marriage on the scale from 1-10, 10 being great"?  Both of you can then share your rating, and why.  If they don't rate a 10, then you can consider the questions above and ask what things would they want to see different that would make it a 10.  This can help foster greater discussion and feedback.  

Then agree to choose one or two things that your spouse has indicated they would like to stop or start so that you can check in and get feedback in a future time as to how they see progress and next steps towards these goals.

So make a note of these things so that when you do your planning, you can make sure you don't miss things.

Then, communicate to her what is important to you, as positive statements.

- I need you to tell me next time you hear any weird noises with the car so I can look into it before it becomes a big deal.

- I need you to help us save money for my golf trip in May.

- I really like the great snacks you make when we watch a game.

- I appreciate how you watch our expenses when you go to the store.

- I really appreciate how nice you keep the apartment/house.

- I appreciate the fact that you don't mind me spending a couple times during the week playing video games, going to the gym, playing golf.

- I appreciate it how you text me verses and encouragement.

- I like it when you watch action movies with me.

- I would like it if we started to keep a budget so that we can better understand where our money is going.

Plan:  Put in your calendar

So take some time to plan your next month on how you can best meet her expectations

- Put in the important events coming up so you don't forget them

- Put in reminders as to what budget amounts are for things you are planning on buying so you don't overspend.

- Put in reminders to complement her about how she does things, how she looks, and what she does for you.

- Put in reminders to plan dates, or special outings that she likes, or evenings you have agreed to spend with her so that you don't double book (or do last minute cancellations which are very expectations killing).

- Put in reminders to call or text her.

- Set a reminder to sit down with her a do the budget (biweekly or monthly).  A budget is just a calendar plan for your money.

Just because you have to put in reminders to do these things does not mean that you are not actively loving her, it just means that as a guy you get distracted and need to do this to support your priority of loving her.

Where you can't meet expectations, then communicate in humility and set expectations.

- I know you would like me to spend every night with you watching movies, but how about if one or two nights a week I play video games, play pool with the guys, work late, work on my hobby, or other things I like to do  (as long as they are not things that may not honor your spouse or make them feel insecure).  Then we can plan one night to watch a movie you pick and one night to watch Monday night football together?

- I really want to take the  weekend golfing next month so how about if I set aside the previous weekend for us to do something together?

- I would really appreciate it if in the areas of my responsibilities with the car or house maintenance, that you not criticize the quality of my work?

So by listening to felt needs, meeting them when possible, and setting expectations about your needs, you can show you care about her, and that you are a supportive partner in your marriage.

So what do you do when this increased communication doesn't fix everything?

Often trust has been lost in the midst of conflict, and so it may take twice as long for trust and your relationship bond to begin to rebuild, so do be patient.  Sometimes you also need to take actions even when the other spouse is not satisfied with things.  This may be as simple as going out of your way to help extra around the house, just hold them and comfort them so they feel loved, and allow the issue to be worked through over time. But also realize that all this communication does not mean that now your spouse will conform to your every want and expectation.   Your spouse may still do those irritating things,  seem petty, demanding, and unreasonable.  But this is only because you are defining what your expectations are that they SHOULD be meeting.

This is where you then take YOUR EXPECTATIONS, and turn them over to God.  If you believe God put you into this relationship, then God can and will make this relationship work.    Pray for your spouse daily in the areas of concern, but then rest in God and wait for Him to either deal with them to address these areas in their life, or to work in your heart to learn how to love them unconditionally. 

As you pray and seek God for direction you may come to a conviction that your spouse disagrees with. This is where you step up and communicate that you take both the responsibility for the decision made, and the accountability for the outcomes. Then proceed and be ready and willing to be gracious if the path is good, and be humble if it does not work out and accept the ownership for the outcomes.

If your spouse is not able to accept your leadership in an area and continues to be anxious, agitated, angry, depressed, or discouraged, it can indicate that you may also need to take some concerted steps towards rebuilding unity.   Often these feelings can come when your spouse is not confident in God's purposes, plans, power, or love.  Phl 4:19  They can also come when they are not confident in your commitment to God's truth.

1. Seek out scripture that address the areas that your spouse struggles with, study them, memorize them, and apply them in your own life.  Then as you work through them, share your learnings with your spouse. Share those scriptures with them when they struggle, to encourage them (not preach). They may or may not want to engage in the learning, so focus on your own knowing God, gaining a confidence in His ability to do good work. 

2. Seek confidential counsel from a couple other believers who have more experience in life or maturity in scripture.   You can do this through reading books on the topic, speaking to a pastor, elder or mentor in your church, or a mature believer that God puts in your life.   Be open about your struggle with your spouse, and what you seek to accomplish from this.  Partner with them with a mature couple if your spouse is open to it.

3.  You may also need to seek professional counseling through your church or from a Christian counselor.  Include your spouse if they are open to it, but go with the focus on how you can better know and trust God, and through that better know and love your spouse.

So what things here resonate with you, or do you have questions about ? You can leave your thoughts in the comment box below, or send me a facebook message.