You may be experiencing a loveless marriage. Your response might be, what marriage? The good news is, it’s not too late to get things back on track. It has to start with you though because you’re the one reading this.
What if your marriage has unmet expectations, secrets, cobwebs, or deep-seeded bitterness setting in? Communication in the right tone, time, and place needs to happen. Maybe in the presence and help of a Christian counselor if your marriage is spiraling. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how marriage can be a beautiful thing instead of a miserable thing. Go check out it if you missed it.
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Freedom and peace in your marriage come when you let the truth out. The truth about what is bothering you and at the core of the problem(s). If you conceal things – good, bad, or ugly – it will tear you apart inside and start eating away at your marriage.
Discussing expectations are vital to your marital health. Expectations are simply that until you put a voice to those thoughts. If you don’t know by now, your spouse can’t read your mind. You have to tell them your desires and needs as if they had no clue because many times, they do not. If you don’t discuss things and tell them plainly, you will keep getting hurt, they will be clueless, and the cycle will continue.
The Ugly B Word…
Selfishness and bitterness are also ugly things that take place and cause us to view everything our spouse does from that lens. It skews how we should be viewing our spouse from a healthy standpoint. Not everything they do wrong in your eyes is intentional or malicious towards you.
Bitterness sets in when no matter what they did or didn’t do, you won’t forget and you’re just waiting for them to fail again. Or you make up your mind that nothing they do will ever be good enough. You may not even realize that you’re doing this but in reality, bitterness is rotting away at your marriage.
The Lord calls us to an unselfish agape love that doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. We also should view our spouse as they are a son or daughter of the king because they are. We won’t be so bitter or disrespectful when we come to that realization.
Something else that personally helped me was reframing the way I viewed things Garrett did. Instead of believing he intentionally was trying to hurt me or had bad intentions, I believed the best in him and was honest with him when something deeply hurt me.
When we come to the place of understanding that you and your spouse are now one, you will realize it’s pointless to fight each other. When one spouse loses, you both lose. If one spouse hurts, you both hurt, etc. Hopefully, you are getting the idea.
What is the definition of “love” especially within a healthy marriage?
“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
If you can honestly say that you and your spouse are getting all of these things right in your marriage, you’re lying. Well, maybe not but in most marriages no one is perfect and no marriage is perfect.
If you strive hard to become love in all these ways in your marriage and daily life, it will be hard for your spouse not to notice. It will be hard for your spouse not to ask what’s up with you lately. It will also be hard for them not to begin loving you back in a similar manner. The love bug is contagious :).
My husband and I had 1 Corinthians 13 intentionally in our marriage ceremony for good reason. Godly love is the foundation of our love and becoming one together as it should be for any Christian marriage.
Is your marriage protected?
We protect our house with a fence, we protect our cars by locking our doors, but how are we protecting our marriage? Garrett and I read a great book on this called “Hedges: Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It” by Jerry B. Jenkins.
Boundaries are put in place to guard and protect your marriage from intruders. No one is so perfect or godly that they can’t fail under certain tempting circumstances. This is where boundaries come into play not only for protecting the marital bed but also for finances, your family unit, etc.
For example, Garrett and I have a physical boundary in place to not be alone with the opposite sex. Financially we have a budget in place for bills, savings, and needs. But we also have a separate fun money fund for us individually that we don’t have to discuss spending because it’s only ours.
As a family unit, it’s important to me what we let in our minds, hearts, and house. If a TV show or movie has a certain rating or contains certain elements, we don’t watch it. We also don’t entertain explicit music or music that elicits a dark heaviness. In our speech, we don’t use certain words or abusive speech that are derogatory towards one another.
A love shift in your marriage begins with being open and real about expectations, boundaries, and how you want to see the marriage succeed. You can have a 1 Corinthians 13 type of love in your marriage. Begin speaking life into your spouse and marriage instead of death and watch it turn around for the better.
Stay hopeful!
The American Association of Christian Counselors is a resource you can trust to find the right counselor for your specific circumstances.
Read Part 3 Next:
Til’ Death Do Us Part – Part 3 – What If Your Spouse Is Unwilling to Put in the Effort?
Did you marry your complete opposite as I did? Is it possible to be so different from your spouse and still have a happy marriage? Married Talk – Differences might be something else you want to check out.