Five Lessons I’ve Learned About Marriage

After thirty-six years of singleness, the Lord blessed me with the opportunity to get married.  So far, it has been a six-year journey (December 15, 2012) of learning how to become one flesh and during this Valentine’s season, I thought I’d share some of my insights.

• If you get married for happiness, your marriage will fail. That is not to say that you will not experience happiness in marriage but let’s be truthful, happiness is not the only emotion that you feel in marriage and some of the other emotions aren’t always that fun.  Sacrifice, forgiveness, disappointment are unavoidable friends of marriage.  You must have a purpose beyond happiness that motivates you to stick with your marriage. My purpose is the kingdom of God.  Marriage was created by God to be a visible example of Christ and the church.  When people see Christians in marriage, they ought to see 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 demonstrated.  I have decided that I will be a 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 partner!

• You cannot control your spouse, but you can control yourself.    “Vengeance is mine”, saith the Lord, “I will repay” (Romans 12:19).  The greatest weapon against discord, disrespect, and disappointment is prayer not revenge.  Revenge will damage your marriage.  Take your spouse to the Lord.  God will correct him in His time. You, through immature and vengeful actions, cannot speed up the process. Even when your spouse chooses to be disobedient, you remain obedient to God.  God sees your spouse, but He also sees you.  Suffer for good– 1 Peter 2: 11 – 1 Peter 3: 18.

• Love for one another grows by meeting one another’s needs consistently. There is never a time when we can grow lazy in meeting the needs of our spouse.  The emotional feeling of love is maintained or revitalized when we are intentional about actively meeting our spouse’s needs. Largely, your needs will not match your spouse’s needs so you will need to identify his needs and then not be afraid to learn how to meet them.   To find out your love language, visit https://www.5lovelanguages.com/. Have your spouse take it too and spend some time talking about it.

• Do the work of communication.  When you come from different family backgrounds and experiences, words and actions can have different meanings.  When you all are on the same page, communication is easy. When there is conflict, communication then becomes work because you must navigate uncomfortable feelings to uncover the meaning of words and actions. Yet, when you choose to do the work of communication, conflict becomes an opportunity to learn more about your spouse, how they think and how they feel.  Often, conflict helps you both unearth wounds from the past, unhealthy and inaccurate beliefs, unresolved anger and much more.  Marriage can provide a safe space for help & healing from the past.  Do not be afraid to go to counseling to help you discover tools to communicate better. My marriage has benefited from participating in marriage counseling.

• Be selective about who you to talk to about your marriage. Sadly, most people know more about how to protect themselves than how to protect a marriage.  I find that I get the best advice from those who are married and have been thriving in marriage for some time. The Lord has given me a mature married woman that I can talk to who values marriage and will not share my business with others. She will correct me when I am thinking incorrectly and will provide encouragement when I am growing weary of doing the right thing. Ask God to send you someone who can provide sound advice for you.  He will do it!