Marriage should point two spouses back to God’s
love for them. We can appreciate what God designed in marriage to provide partnership
and the ability to pursue God together. The world’s view of marriage often puts
the focus on the individuals, which can take us away from all that marriage was
intended to be. Many Christians have accepted the world’s knowledge on
marriage. It’s important that we trust God’s example in this subject.
Imagine meeting with an engaged couple a few
weeks before they are to be married. With excitement, they describe how they
met and how their relationship developed. Then they surprise you by saying, “We
want to get married and have some children. At first we will feel a lot of love
for each other. Then we’ll start arguing and hating each other. In a few years,
we’ll get a divorce.” Who would enter marriage intending to get a divorce? Yet,
divorce is occurring at an alarming rate.
Every wrong behavior begins with believing a
lie. Our culture promotes many deceptions that can quickly destroy a marriage. Each
lie we believe about marriage weakens our ability to be a great spouse. Take
the time to question what you know, and you’ll be able to uncover the full
potential of the best relationship of your life. Don’t let your marriage slowly
die. Dispel these myths, and discover the joys of marriage.
Divorce is an easy option (if I’m unhappy)-The world wants you
to believe the lie that divorce is a quick fix to the problems you’re facing in
your marriage. In our culture today, many see divorce as a positive solution
for a troubled marriage. Marriage is meant to be a special covenant between a
man, woman and God.
If you are in a bad marriage, the answer is
not to dissolve the relationship, but to restore your relationship the way God
has restored your relationship with Him through Christ. Stick through the hard
times and work on the tough issues. God has not left you without hope. He
desires for your marriage to be restored. It’s a tragedy to lose love in
marriage.
But the loss of human love can teach us to
access the deeper love of God Himself. When human love dies in a marriage, a
couple can enter into one of the most exciting adventures they’ll ever have:
learning how to love each other with God’s love. The truth is God can fix our
failures—any failure. The Bible says: “Don’t be angry with each other, but forgive each
other. If you feel someone has wronged you, forgive them. Forgive others
because the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians. 3:13, ERV)
When there is sexual sin, we should seek to
redeem the marriage and so illustrate the unfathomable forgiveness of God. Some
of the greatest life messages I know are the marriages of people who have
repented from sexual sin and spouses who have forgiven them. When divorce
enters a family, there are always scars. Many consequences of divorce never go
away.
I have to give up my identity for my marriage-When one partner
begins to lose their identity within a marriage, it affects both spouses in
very different ways. The result is always the same: an unhappy marriage for
both. Some people feel that, in order to make their spouse happy, they have to
change. To some degree, this can be true. Undesirable habits like dishonesty or
uncontrolled rage can be destructive to a relationship.
When a spouse begins to suppress their desire
to pursue their passions, to engage in their hobbies, or to make their own
choices in order to please a spouse, they stand to lose the very attributes
which likely pleased that spouse in the first place. A marriage isn’t the
melding of two people into one. It’s a relationship between two unique
individuals who have promised to love and care for one another.
If your personality and personal choices
aren’t hurting your spouse, stick with them. You should always have a self that
is independent of your relationship so celebrate your own uniqueness as well as
that of our spouse. It’s okay to be different, to respectfully disagree, and to
be your own person. Otherwise, things get boring.
I married the wrong person-Many people say they are free to
divorce because they married an unbeliever. “I thought he/she would become a
Christian, but that didn’t happen. We need to get a divorce.” They recall that
they knew it was a mistake, but they married anyway hoping it would work out.
Others claim that they just married someone who wasn’t a good match or a true
soul mate.
A wrong start in marriage does not justify
another wrong step. God tells us not to be poured into the world’s mold.
Instead we are to be transformed and that begins in our minds. By doing this,
God will give us exactly what we need for our lives. God’s will for us is good,
acceptable, and perfect. Here’s the key for those who are now married: The
Bible clearly says do not divorce (with the exception for extended, unrepentant
sexual immorality).
God can take even the worst things of life
and work them together for good if we will just trust Him. I don’t know a lot
of husbands and wives who are truly compatible when they get married. In
marriage, God joins together two flawed people. If I will respond correctly to
my spouse’s weaknesses, then God can teach me forgiveness, grace, unconditional
love, mercy, humility, and brokenness.
The life of a person who believes in Jesus
Christ is developed by responses to not only happy things, but also to
difficulties. Those very difficulties include weaknesses. My spouse’s
weaknesses are not hindrances. Instead, they are the doorway to spiritual
growth. This is a liberating truth. If I will respond to my spouse’s
shortcomings with unconditional acceptance, my love won’t be based on
performance. I won’t say, “You need to live up to these expectations.” I will
be able to accept my spouse, weaknesses and all. And that acceptance will swing
open the door of change for not only my spouse, but also for me.
I'll always be in love with my spouse-You won’t always be
in love with your spouse, and that’s okay. Emotions are turbulent things. Like
the sea, they wax or wane, crash against the beach in tsunamis, and sometimes
become calm and motionless. Romance is important to grow and cultivate over the
course of a marriage, but there’s no guarantee you’ll feel head-over-heels in
love 100 percent of the time. Sometimes you’ll feel downright hostile toward
your spouse.
But if you believe this particular lie,
you’ll believe your marriage is over when romantic love fades, and you might be
tempted to end it. The stillness is temporary, and the tide will soon come back
in. It’s important to realize that how you feel about your spouse will change over
time. The key here lies in remembering that the core of a marriage isn’t just
about the highs of love. It’s also about friendship, companionship, and
intimacy. Instead of edging away from your spouse when romance temporarily
lessens, work to keep the relationship a good one through communication,
respect, and emotional openness. Early in a marriage, love fuels the
relationship. But later, it is the relationship that fuels the love.
Marriage means kids, a mortgage, and the end of adventure-We all have a certain
image of what marriage looks like. Usually, this image takes the form of the
typical sitcom-style suburban life, complete with children, and a house. For
some people, this is horrifying. But it’s also not what marriage has to look
like. Many people think that they have to give up their lives, dreams, and
ambitions for marriage, and so when they do marry, the adventure stops.
But the fact is this: marriage can be the
beginning of the adventure rather than the end. Marriage is what you make it.
If you think that your life is over once you tie the knot, it will be. You’ll
end up miserable, and your relationship will suffer for it. If you go into
marriage with the mindset that anything is possible, marriage will be the
exciting journey that it should be. Marriage can look like you and your spouse
living abroad. It can look like a high-rise city apartment.
It can look like just the two of you, with no
kids on the horizon forever. If you and your spouse are feeling stuck in
somebody else’s vision of what marriage should be, have an in-depth discussion
about what you both want to change. The answers may surprise you.
My happiness is the most important thing about my marriage-According to the
Bible; a spouse’s individual happiness is not the purpose for marriage.
Colossians 3:17 (ERV): “Everything you say and everything you do should be done for Jesus your
Lord. And in all you do, give thanks to God the Father through Jesus.” Through marriage,
husbands and wives are to reflect His character all the way to the end of time.
Every marriage often knows unhappiness, conflict, and difficulty. Couples can
be joyful in their marriage by focusing on God’s purposes and His glory instead
of individual happiness.
My private discretions do not affect my
marriage-A lot of people think they can do things like talk privately with
people of the opposite sex online or view pornography in the privacy of their
home and it not have an impact on their marriage. The truth is oneness in
marriage is hijacked by sexual immorality. You can join yourself with a wrong
person in many ways: physically through the pages of a magazine, or even on a
computer screen. If you take your emotional and sexual energy and spend it on
someone else, there will be nothing left for your spouse. If you take your emotional and sexual energy
and spend it on someone else, there will be nothing left for your spouse. Those
who continually view pornography or engage in sexual fantasies are isolating
themselves.
My spouse must change-You can’t change
your spouse, and you should never walk into a marriage believing that you can,
or even with a desire to. If you’re particularly concerned about your spouse,
you can pray for them in love. Pray that their heart will be changed and that
they will turn to God in the face of their difficult circumstance. This is also
an opportunity for you to take time for introspection. Turn the gaze away from
your spouse toward yourself. If you’re constantly looking for ways to change
your spouse, you may in fact be the one who is in need of change.
We have no control over how our spouse
changes over time. Everyone changes, and that process can be devastating for
someone who thinks that their spouse will always remain exactly as they are
frozen in time. You’ll be better able to accept the fact that your spouse is a
living, breathing, changing human being who will continue to grow throughout
life. Don’t let the assumption that your spouse will never change slowly kill
your marriage. Get excited about the new things in his or her life, join in,
and you won’t feel left behind.
My spouse must make me happy-Contrary to popular belief; your
spouse can’t make you happy. That’s not how God designed it. Happiness is based
on circumstances. Yet, circumstances are the one part of our lives over which we
have virtually no control. You can’t control your circumstances. Pursuing
happiness means constantly looking at your surroundings to see if they make you
happy. True happiness does not start with fixing our spouse, but with fixing
ourselves.
One of the most common reasons so many
marriages are broken today comes from the lie that you and your spouse should
“complete each other.” Just think about how self-centered this way of thinking
is. It’s essentially saying, “I’ve got a few little weaknesses, and someone is
going to marry me and make sure all those weaknesses are fixed.” As you
continue down this line off false thinking, you set yourself up over and over
again to experience disappointment with your spouse. It’s an ugly cycle of your
spouse messing up, you trying to fix it, and your spouse messing up again.
And if you don’t change your thinking, you’ll
spend your entire marriage disappointed with each other. God didn’t design your
spouse to complete you. That job belongs only to Him. It’s God’s job to fix
broken people, and not yours. This is a notion often held by younger couples
into married life, and results in a kind of dependency that will erode any
relationship over time. The idea that we might find our soul mate, and that
this person will make us somehow “whole” is sweet, but problematic.
After all, to say that you need someone else
to complete you is to also say that you’re only a half person when you’re on
your own. You’re a whole person, with or without your spouse, and when you
operate under the assumption that you’re not, you may come to expect your
spouse to fulfill your every need.
Successful couples don't argue-This is one lie that
often comes from within the family. Perhaps your father couldn’t take conflict,
or maybe your mother was the type to ignore difficult conversations in order to
keep the peace. Whatever the source, many people absorb the false lesson that a
happy marriage is one in which arguments don’t happen. This is a lie, and one
that will slowly destroy your marriage. Avoiding problems causes tension and
resentment, and destroys emotional intimacy through a lack of communication.
Without healthy arguments, couples quickly
grow apart because of unmet needs and unaddressed issues. The simple fact is
that the best marriages are ones in which partners communicate openly,
honestly, and respectfully. Healthy couples do argue, but the key is that they
don’t argue to win. They argue to find mutually beneficial solutions to their
problems. The best couples can argue while still loving one another.
There is no hope for my marriage-When things are
breaking down in a marriage, many couples lose hope and think that their
marriage can’t be fixed. God can do the impossible. No matter what you and your
spouse are going through, He can completely turn your marriage around. He’s
done it thousands of times. In a dying marriage, He just needs two willing
parties. God knows how to get us out of the messes we get ourselves into.
Nobody said it would be easy. It will take a lot of work and you both may feel
like giving up, but hold strong.
As
Christians, it’s important for us to guard ourselves and understand God’s
design for marriage, which can give us a sense of direction and stability when
we truly trust in Him. The enemy wants nothing more than for your marriage to
be destroyed. His agenda is to take Jesus Christ away from this world and our
marriages and place fear and pain at the center. However, when you know the
truth, you don’t have to fall victim to worldly deception, thus making your
marriage even stronger.
Bad relationship advice is everywhere, and
some ideas, no matter how wrong, have been accepted as “fact” in popular
culture. These marriage myths can come from within our own families, from the
fiction and films we watch, or from assumptions we make. Some of these
mistruths are harmless, but others are detrimental, causing relationships to
slowly—or sometimes quickly—self-destruct when we take them for fact. The truth
is that just about any marriage can work, given a little effort. So if your
marriage has been difficult, and you can’t seem to pinpoint exactly why, you
may be laboring beneath a lie.
“Two people can only live as one
when each is prepared to give and receive trust and understanding. Above that
lies respect. Without respect for how the other feels, no marriage is
worthwhile.” (Helen Hollick)[i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“6 Lies That Can Cripple Marriage” By Lesli
White
·
“7 Lies That Are Slowly Killing Your Marriage” By
Wesley Baines
·
“8
Lies That Destroy Marriage” By Bill Elliff
Inspired by “April 15:
Devoted to Removing Marriage Lies” from The
One Year Devotions for Couples by David and Teresa Ferguson
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