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One Flesh? Are You Sure?!
Excerpted from Help Me, I'm Married! By Joyce Meyer

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Therefore a man shall leave his father & his mother & shall become united & cleave to his wife, & they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24

Marriage begins with a promise between a man & a woman to honor & cleave to each other for life. Too many couples depend on love to keep their marriage together, but commitment is the adhesive of marriage, & love is the reward of keeping the promise to stand beside each other through both good & bad times, in both sickness & in health, in both poverty & wealth. The process of keeping that promise is what makes love grow between the two of them.

The story of how Dave & I met is probably much like many other people's first encounter. However, not every couple started out with as many problems as I had, nor has every couple enjoyed the victory & triumphs we have celebrated through our marriage. Our relationship didn't always bear the good fruit that is now overflowing into the lives of others. Without God, we were headed for tragedy, but God showed us life principles that helped us through the struggles & difficulties that most all couples face. Our story proves that with God, all things are possible, & that commitment to a promise bears the fruit of love.

By the time I was twenty-three years old, I was filled with great disappointment. Injury upon injury had been inflicted upon my heart, & I had never known what it meant to be happy or at peace with life. When I met Dave, I had already suffered an abusive relationship from my father & from a five-year marriage to a young man who had as many problems as I did.

I was born during the Second World War, right in the heat of it, in 1943. My father was inducted into the service the day after I was born, & I only saw him one time during the first three years of my life. When he came home from the war, he was bitter, angry & addicted to alcohol, which left our family with painful memories.

I endured nearly fifteen years of sexual abuse from him, which obviously had a devastating effect on my personality.

I didn't understand how to loose myself from the evil root of rejection that developed in my soul, & after being abused sexually I thought nobody would ever want me. So I married the first young man who came along in my life even though he had as many problems as I had. He had been raised improperly too, & was allowed to quit school at a very young age.

We had a five-year relationship that was riddled with pain & more rejection. We were separated maybe twenty times during those five years. My brief marriage ended in divorce, & my first husband, who was living with other women, ended up going to prison for writing bad checks.

Although we divorced, I had one child from that relationship, whom I named David after my brother, & when my son was about nine months old, I met Dave Meyer. Dave worked with a young man who lived in the upstairs apartment over my mom & dad's two-family flat.

One night I was washing my mother's car when Dave pulled up in front of my house with the young man who lived upstairs. Trying to flirt with me, Dave said, “When you are finished with that car, would you like to wash mine?” I was really sarcastic & snapped back, “If you want your car washed, wash it yourself.”
Dave was twenty-six years old & was going with three girls at the time, ardently looking for a wife. He says he knew none of them were right for him.

He was praying for somebody “who needed help.” When he gave our tenant, with whom he had worked for years, a ride home, he says I caught his attention. He recently told the following story in his own words to a friend of ours.

She was in short shorts & I thought she was pretty nice looking, so I said to myself, Well, I'm going to try this. Leaning out of my car window, I said, 'Hey, after you're done with that car, how about washing my car?'

“She snarled back at me & said, 'If you want your car washed, buddy, you wash it yourself.' Immediately, the thought hit me, That's the girl for me. That voice inside me just blurted out, That's the one, the one you've been looking for.”

Dave says he has always enjoyed that original “fire” in my personality. There have been many times that fire has caused arguments, but over the years God has changed both of us. I used to think Dave was actually entertained by my temper tantrums. I can remember times when we would be in a heated spat & Dave would change my direction by saying with a smile, “Hey, there's that old fire that I like so much-keep that fire lit!”

Dave obviously likes a challenge. He reminds me of Caleb, from the Old Testament book of Joshua, who said, “Give me a mountain,” when he & Joshua were dividing up the property in the promised land. Why would someone want to take on a mountain? But Dave likes a challenge & I am convinced that his wanting me had to be a supernatural act in his heart from God. There was nothing inviting in my personality that would have made somebody want me that much.

I am thankful that Dave continued to pursue his “mountain.” On our first date we went to the bowling alley & I almost beat him. Then we went to a basketball game together, played poker one night with his brother, went to see a movie, & then went for a drive on a Sunday. We basically had five dates & he asked me to marry him. It was really a whirlwind courtship.

When Dave asked me to marry him, I was all messed up emotionally. I was living at home & dealing with the challenges of my dad again. I desperately wanted out of that situation, & I was farther away from knowing what love was than ever before. Dave said he loved me so when he asked me to marry him, I basically thought, Well, why not? He is good looking!

I couldn't know whether or not I loved him because I didn't know what love was after the way I had been treated before I met Dave.

Anyone who had ever said they loved me, hurt me, & so I didn't trust anyone. My walls were carefully positioned to protect my heart. I was afraid of being hurt again so I kept a certain distance, but Dave seemed to understand the reason for my fears & chose to love me anyway.

From the time Dave asked me to marry him, I thought he was going to jilt me. The night that he proposed, he kept saying, “I need to talk to you about something.”

I felt hurried because my dad was away from home on a drinking spree & I wanted to get home before he did. Dad became violent sometimes so I kept saying, “I have to get home.”
But he insisted, “I have something important I want to talk to you about.” I thought he was going to break up with me. Finally, I conceded to let him say it so the bad news would be over.

When he asked me to marry him, I was shocked. I had a negative outlook about everything. It was difficult for me to believe that anything good would happen to me.

My answer to Dave when he said he wanted to marry me was, “Well, you know, I have a son.” And he said, “If I love you, then I love anything that's part of you.” So we decided to get married in six months.

We ended up getting married about three months after meeting each other. I divorced my first husband in September, met Dave in October, & we were married by January 7 of the next year.
Dave says he could have asked me to marry him the first night we went out, but he knew it would just freak me out.

He said he knew that I was the girl that he was supposed to marry. But, too many disappointments preceded his offer of love, & I doubted his commitment right up to the moment that I walked into the church & saw him at the altar. During all our preparations for the wedding, I kept thinking we probably wouldn't go through with the ceremony.

In fact, I was late for the service. My mother was literally on the verge of having a nervous breakdown at that time. She was upset because I wouldn't let her take more pictures at the house, & she had me all upset. By the time I reached the church, everyone wondered where in the world I had been.

We both agree that our marriage was a supernatural event. Dave was a Spirit-filled Christian & was obviously hearing from God. God could see the end result, beyond the person that I was the day Dave pulled up in my driveway. We married, & then the fun began.

Next:   Your Flesh Or Mine?

If two people are to become one flesh, as God frequently repeats in His Word, it was obvious that one of us was going to have to make some changes. It seemed right to me at the time that Dave was the one who needed amendments.

When Dave & I were first married, we already had David, then I became pregnant with Laura a few months later. She was born in April 1968, & we were married in January of 1967. Then eighteen months later, we had Sandy. With three kids, we lived in a three-room apartment. There was just a living room, one bedroom, & the kitchen. The apartment was part of a four-family flat. Everyone else who lived there was quite a bit older than us.

We had one car & hardly any money. Dave went to work every day, & I stayed home with the kids. The first place we lived had mice. I was seven months pregnant with Laura, & mice were all over the house. I think that in one day we caught seventeen mice.

One time I called Dave to tell him that I had a mouse tied up in the bathroom. I had thrown a plunger over the mouse, tied a rope around the bathroom doorknob, strung the rope across the hall to a closet, & from there tied it around the bedpost. It took Dave half an hour to get my barricade unraveled. By the time he reached the plunger, that baby mouse had died & was on its back with all four feet stuck up in the air.

When I was in the hospital with Laura, Dave decided we should move out of our five-room apartment into the three-room flat to save money. The rent for the apartment where we had been living was ninety-five dollars a month, & the rent at the three-room flat, about sixty-five dollars a month.

Without telling me anything about it, Dave moved all our things to the three-room apartment. Can you imagine how furious I was when Dave took me home from the hospital to a different, & smaller, apartment? After all, we had finally caught all the mice, or had become used to the ones that remained!

He says now that he knew I would be mad, but since I was mad all the time anyway, he didn't think this would make any difference!

The new apartment had roaches. There was one that was so big we decided to name him Harvey When I sat up in the middle of the bed at night to feed Laura, Harvey would come flying around the corner. I was petrified of him, & at the sight of him I would go into a screaming fit! Then after screaming from seeing Harvey I'd start yelling at Dave for moving us to that stupid place. Dave finally caught Harvey, & after failing to successfully set him on fire with lighter fluid, he delivered the lively pest to his sister, who had lived there previously & talked him into moving there in the first place.

The neighborhood where we lived was small. There was a dime store on the corner, a bakery a grocery store, a little confectionery, & a beauty shop across the street. I never went anywhere beyond that neighborhood. Every Friday I'd walk across the street & get my hair done, & the rest of the time I stayed locked up with the kids. I was trying to baby-sit to make extra money, but I was the last person in the world who needed to baby-sit-I was on the edge myself!

But even in the midst of all that, we had a certain amount of fun. It wasn't all a nightmare & crazy, but it was the right setting for chaos & trials. Dave was always good to me & he tried to make me lighten up. He'd go to the grocery store with me, walk over into the next aisle & throw things over the top of the shelves at me! Then he would chase me around with the grocery cart until I became upset with him. Whatever he did, Dave was determined to have fun.

I had never been allowed to have fun when I was growing up. I was very insecure & felt as though everyone was inspecting me. Because I thought nobody really liked me, I acted as though I didn't need anybody-like I didn't care. Yet down deep inside, I really did care & tried to be what I thought others expected of me. But because I wasn't at peace with myself, the process of becoming one with Dave had a rough start.

I entered our marriage feeling as though each of us was out for ourself. Dave would do what was best for him, & I would do what was best for me. If Dave watched football on Sunday when I wanted to do something else, I felt that he wasn't interested in me. My thoughts nagged me with repeated agonies, You don't care about me; you are not taking care of me.

And I regularly had temper tantrums. When Dave watched football on Sundays, I cleaned the house, slamming & banging things around to make noise so that he could tell I was angry. I dragged the vacuum sweeper around while having a pity party, then went into the back bathroom to cry. With all my carrying on, I was trying to get him to do what I wanted. That kind of behavior is what I now call “emotional manipulation.”

I did this so many times that Dave became immune to my noise. He watched the ball game because he knew I was going to throw a fit anyway. Sometimes he played with the kids when he knew I was mad at him. They would be on the floor with the kids putting rollers in Dave's hair, all oblivious to my demand for attention. When you are hopping mad & obviously are not affecting anybody, it just drives you crazy.

I was always looking for worth in what I did. Even where I worked, I tried to climb the corporate ladder. And in church I tried to be in with the right groups & the head of this & the head of that. Of course, I did have a natural leadership personality, but my personality was so messed up that I wanted all this stuff for the wrong reasons. I wasn't trying to serve God; I was searching for ways to look important. My struggles to do good things were just for “appearances” from a works mentality, & my sarcastic mouth was not working to help me get what I really wanted.

About six years into our marriage, I nearly exhausted Dave's patience. He was always the optimist, always trying to help me look beyond my situation. But I couldn't understand why my efforts to manipulate him weren't working, &, of course, our sex life was messed up from all my anger. Finally one day Dave said, “You know, Joyce, you just about have me to the point where I can hardly stand you.” And he added, “The only thing I can tell you is if you continue the way you are, I cannot guarantee you a hundred percent what I'll end up doing.” His comments put the fear of God in me to seriously look at the value I placed on Dave & our marriage.

All during this time, we were going to church. I really loved God. I was born again & knew that I would go to heaven when I died. But I wasn't Spirit-filled. Dave was an elder in the church, & I was on the church board. We went out every week, knocked on doors for the evangelism program & told people about Jesus. We were seen as leaders in the church. We were living the pretend life, but behind closed doors, it was another whole world & existence.

I needed real answers from a real God. Of course I wanted the answers real fast, too. But one of the first things I learned was that happiness doesn't come from doing the right thing for the wrong reason. You can't do what's right to get something right to happen to you. You have to do what's right just because it's right. Then God will reward you. If your motive is, “OK, I'm going to do this to get you to change, but if you don't change, then eventually I'll quit doing it,” we will never enjoy the reward that comes from God. He sees our heart & knows whether we are trying to manipulate others or obey Him purely out of love for Him alone.

Dave wanted me to change, & I wanted him to change. But I had to reach the point of knowing that I had to do what was right whether or not Dave ever changed. Even if he played golf every Saturday & watched football every Sunday for the rest of his life, I had to reach the point of acting right no matter what Dave did.
It's amazing how God changes things. Dave wanted to play golf recently when I had some other things I wanted him to do with me. He countered me with, “Well, you can do those things by yourself.”

I said, “I'd really rather that you go with me. ”

He said, “OK.”

Fifteen years ago, he wouldn't have done that. I nagged him & was mad all the time, & he had learned to ignore me. But now, most of the time he can go do what he wants, & it's not a problem. But if once in a while I want him to do something different with me, he has the freedom to choose to be with me. He knew I wouldn't be mad at him if he really wanted to play golf, but he also knew that it must be important to me to want him with me this time or I wouldn't have asked him.

Bottom line, if he would have said, “No, I really want to play golf on Friday,” then I would have said, “OK, then I'm going to go pick out the things we need for the house, & you will need to trust my decisions.” And he would have agreed.

The same conditions still exist that used to bring separation & strife between us, but they no longer have the divisive effect on us. We've learned to be honest with our feelings without threatening each other's security. We've learned to find the right time to confront each other with the issues that used to throw us into opposite corners of the ring.

Dave & I learned to love each other, & out of our love a worldwide ministry was birthed. It was never my goal to start a huge ministry; I was just loving God & trying to learn to love Dave because that was what God was asking me to do. God has made big changes in our lives.

We learned to be good stewards when we were paying the sixty-five dollars a month rent we needed for our apartment. Today God provides all the funds needed each month for a world outreach. I share this with you only to show you the vast expanse of God's ability to take plain, common, & ordinary people like Dave & me through gigantic steps of faith.

I was a housewife with a twelfth grade education, making my bed in a town nobody ever heard of, Fenton, Missouri, when God called me to do this. I was not looking for some big ministry; I was trying to survive sexual abuse, failed relationships, a messed up mind, & messed up emotions. But I loved God.

It's amazing what God will do for you if you just love Him. We complicate Christianity to the point of losing the joy of our salvation. The primary thing we need to do is receive the love of God, learn how to love ourselves in a balanced way, love God back, & then let that love flow through us to the world full of hurting, dying people.

God will give back to us not only what we give away but will also give us a great deal of joy with it. The world is full of rich people who have “things” but are miserable. It's good to be materially prosperous, but it's even better to be happy & biblically blessed along with prosperity

The doors that God has opened for us amaze us. I can't figure it out, but I am determined that as long as I can breathe, I will keep walking through them in trying to help as many people receive God's joy in their lives as I can. Our society today is in a major, major, major mess, & people don't realize that they need God!

So many people have an impression of God that is just not true, & they don't know to turn to Him to solve their problems. God called Dave & me to a ministry in which we can show the world an exciting God Who is fun, generous, wonderful, & Who can solve their problems. We receive thousands of letters confirming that our simple message of trusting God by doing what He says to do is getting through to people.

One woman who wrote me said that she'd been living with a man for fifteen years. They weren't married; they had an eight-year-old son; they were drug addicts & they both had been abused in their childhood. She ran away from home when she was fifteen. She wrote:

We believed in God, but we lived in sin. One morning, I came across [your television program] Life In The Word. I don't even know why I stopped to watch you. But I began to watch you every morning as I cleaned my house, & I felt like you were talking directly to me.

Now I get up every day looking forward to watching Life In The Word. I watch you first, then I read my Bible, then I pray. Me & my boyfriend & our son started attending the same church that I went to when I was young. We both got saved two weeks ago. Joyce, we gave up drugs & we are getting married next month.
I wanted to let you know that you reached me & helped me & my family turn our lives around. Please continue doing what you are doing.

When Dave & I read the next sentence, we both stood in our bedroom & cried. She said,  Now our son will be raised in church by Christians & not by drug addicts.

There are many people like her who believe in God, but live in sin. Christianity is not just a trip to the altar to say the sinner's prayer. It is not just marching off to church on Sunday morning or having a bumper sticker, a tape recorder, & a Jesus pin. Christianity has to be walked out in a lifestyle that solves problems. We must learn to die to self & live like Christ.

Another woman wrote to us saying:

My husband had a gambling addiction. One night we had an argument because he was going to go out & gamble more of our money away. We were already in such a deep financial hole it was unbelievable.

We were arguing, & he was going to leave. He came into the bedroom to grab the keys off the dresser. I reached out & turned on the television. There you were & said, “You with the gambling addiction …” He stopped dead in his tracks.

We film these shows to be aired months later, so only God could orchestrate something like that. Isn't God powerful? The woman said her husband it still working through some things, but he's been attending Gambler's Anonymous & has made a real commitment to conquer his addiction.

One woman who started watching me said she didn't even believe in women preachers because she had been taught that it was wrong for women to teach or preach. The only reason she started watching was because she liked my clothes. (I told Dave, “You see Dave, my clothes are helping the cause of Christ. I have no choice but to shop!”)

The woman who liked my clothes was a seamstress & went out & bought a sketchpad. Every night at 11 o'clock, she sat & drew the outfit I had on. She said:

I added all the sparkles, & I'd look at the backs of your sleeves & draw them all out so I could make them. I have no idea when I started listening to you, but somewhere in the process of all that, God deeply touched my heart. I'm closer to God now than I've ever been in my whole life.

I've been a Christian thirty years, but I never had a really close relationship with God. [Your messages] drew me so close to God. My husband did not believe in women preachers, but he saw such a change in me that now if I get in a little bit of a bad mood, he says, “You'd better be sure to watch Joyce Meyer tonight.”

My favorite letter came from Rick Renner who has a ministry in Latvia. I have the privilege of being on television there, all over the former Soviet Union. The letter told how God was moving in a woman's life in a powerful way through the ministers she saw on TV. In many small Russian villages where it looks as though people don't have much of anything, most families still manage to have a television.

Rick wrote: “I think this story will bless you, Joyce.” He said a Ukrainian pastor took an evangelistic team into a little Russian village where they knew for certain there had never been a church or a gospel outreach. They believed it was brand new territory & anticipated awesome opportunities.

They knocked on the door of the first little house in the village & a little woman opened the door. When they began to share the Gospel with her, she said, “Oh, wait, wait, wait; come in. Let me tell you what's happened to me.”

When they went in, she shared that she had been watching “Good News with Rick Renner” & was saved while watching television. She said that on the lower part of her back, she had, had a cantaloupe-sized tumor that could not be removed because it was too dangerous. The tumor, which she had, had most of her life, caused her to slump over when she walked. She wore loose fitting clothes to keep people from seeing it. The tumor was very uncomfortable & had affected her whole life.

A month after being saved, she watched a minister on TV who pointed at the screen & said, “Healing belongs to you.” In an instant she believed. She heard a loud pop on her back, ran to the bathroom & saw that all the stuff that had been in the tumor was running down her back & the back of her legs. By the end of the day, the thing was completely gone-not one trace of it remained.

Another month passed. She was watching a different minister who began to share about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The Russian woman said she received the baptism of the Holy Spirit & began to pray in the Spirit right there in her little home, in that Russian village. She was born again, healed, & baptized in the Holy Ghost, but felt there was something still missing. Then she told them, “Now I've found 'Life In The Word with Joyce Meyer.' I am getting my soul healed & am maturing as a Christian.”

In 1999, we had a rare opportunity to go on a popular network in Asia called “Starworld.” It is a secular network, but it's an English-speaking channel that reaches up to one-half billion homes of people who want to practice their English. They've never had any kind of religious broadcasting on that channel. This letter came from Asia where we are sharing the Good News of the Gospel every morning:

One day, at 6 A.M., I happened to get up early & turn on the television. I saw you for the first time. I've been watching Starworld for ten years, & I've never felt any program as inspiring as the lecture you gave. I was totally amused.
I've been feeling depressed for many years; sometimes I even felt like 1 was going to explode, although my students would never feel it. I never showed it outwardly.

Do you have any idea how many people are unhappy, but they never show it outwardly? They live phony lives, putting a plastic smile on their face every day & just trying to hide their misery from everybody. Jesus died for us to have more than a phony life.

At my work post, I think I can say I'm a qualified professor, but as a person, I always felt that I was unhappy inside. I tried to analyze myself- tried to find out what psychological problems I had-but I always failed. Really I was just very miserable.

But when I saw you, you said, “I want to share something with you that can help you come into a place of rest.” You said, “Frustration comes from works of the flesh,” & I'll never forget your description about the seeds in your hands, which was so impressive.

Your paraphrases are so amazing I can't even tear myself away from it. So from the first time I saw you, I've never missed the chance to meet you at 6 A.M. every day for nearly two weeks now. I'm totally obsessed with your lectures. I'm sure I'll follow your course.

I managed to borrow a Bible in English in order to follow your reading. I found no bookshops within my reach that sells the Book. When you asked us to open the Book & turn to 1 Peter chapter 5,1 opened up the Book I borrowed. It was not the Word you were reading. (The reason is that I read from The Amplified Bible.) She continued:

To tell you the truth, before listening to your lectures, I never thought that I would be interested in any religious beliefs because I knew too little about them. I think maybe the one I borrowed is not the same edition as the one you have. Mine is like this: 'Holy Bible placed by the Gideons.'

Could you please tell me where & in which way I can get the Book that you use. Thank you very much.

Sincerely, Your listener…

Of course, we sent her “The Book” right away, & we are believing for her salvation. It is amazing how many people have never heard godly principles to apply to their lives.

Christianity has so much to offer people. It is a lifestyle.

Christianity has to be walked out in our everyday lives if we are going to affect anybody else's life.

After I made a decision to become a Christian, I had to learn how to live like a Christian. I learned that God's blessings cannot be enjoyed with one worldly foot stuck in stubbornness, fear, & the rebellion & the other foot trying to touch the kingdom. I also try learned that God's blessings are not just for ourselves. When we do I what is right, it affects the lives of others.

That is part of the miracle that God works between two people.

His plan is to restore our relationship with Him, then our relationships with each other. He didn't change our individual style or approach to life; He simply changed our hearts to be more accepting toward each other. He taught us to adapt to each other & attend to each other's needs when at all possible. He taught us to take care of each other as well as we would take care of ourselves.

If husbands & wives could practice this ability to accept & attend to each other at home, these relational standards could spread to how we treat people at work, in our neighborhoods, & in our world. Then the mystery of relationships that God spoke of in Ephesians 5:32 would begin to unfold its secret.

Copyright © 2000 by Joyce Meyer

About the Author
JOYCE MEYER has been teaching the Word of God since 1976 & in full-time ministry since 1980. She is the bestselling author of more than fifty inspirational books, including How to Hear from God, Knowing God Intimately, & Battlefield of the Mind. She has also released thousands of teaching cassettes & a complete video library. Joyce's Enjoying Everyday Life radio & television programs are broadcast around the world, & she travels extensively conducting conferences.

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A Marriage After God's Own Heart by David Clarke

What Are They Saying?

A Marriage After God's Own Heart stands tall in the forest of books on Christian marriage. David Clarke has given us much needed & long overdue help in one of the essential aspects of a vital, vibrant, & truly intimate Christian marriage. If you want to experience the kind of relationship God intended marriage to be, then you must read this book

Gary J. Oliver, Th.M., Ph.D.
Author & Executive Director
The Center for Marriage & Family Studies
John Brown University

A Marriage After God's Own Heart has a magnetic aura of reality & hope. Clarke doesn't mince words about what doesn't work in marriage. The powerful hope he shares is - Jesus can make healing happen - even in marriages which have been defeated for years. Hot sex & emotional closeness only come by a dynamic spiritual connection - & Clarke walks you through the steps. This is a must read healing book for millions of bored marriages.

Dr. Jim Conway, Ph.D.
President
Midlife Dimensions
Author of Men In Midlife Crisis, Women In Midlife Crisis, and Traits of a Lasting Marriage

Marriage: The Impossible Dream?

No Two People Can Make Marriage Work by Themselves

At one time or another, every couple has a houseguest—a relative, a friend, or someone you try to help. You & your spouse graciously decide to open your happy, comfortable home to this person for a brief stay. You are kind. You are caring. You are trying to meet a need. You are following the Bible's admonition to be hospitable.

You say to yourselves, "It's only for a little while. No big deal. It might even be fun. What could go wrong?" Your rose-colored, naive, unreasonably positive view of the situation is touching . . . & hopelessly inaccurate. The visit probably won't be "for a little while." It is a big deal. It won't be fun. Many things will go wrong. You are about to find out that you don't have the gift of hospitality.

Your experience as motel managers starts off pleasantly enough. Everybody is all smiles. You're helping a poor, dear, temporarily homeless person, & that gives you a warm feeling in your hearts. Your houseguest is grateful, humble, & considerate. For the first few days, maybe even the first week, things are fine.

"Make yourself at home.… What's ours is yours.… Thank you.… You're welcome.… Sorry to be a bother.… Don't be silly—it's no bother."

But if your houseguest stays longer than a week (and most houseguests do), it begins to wear on you. Your beautiful, idyllic bed-and-breakfast (and lunch-and-dinner) inn quickly becomes a house of horrors. Your schedule is thrown off. Your carefully constructed routine is shot to pieces. You lose your personal space. You & your partner don't have time to talk. You realize that you have given control of your lives to an alien being.

You find yourselves in the middle of a hostage crisis, & you & your spouse are the hostages. You peek out the window, but there is no SWAT team out there to rescue you. No one is going to help. You're all alone now. Alone with your houseguest.

That…that…that…person is always around! Every time you turn around, you bump into your guest. The list of things you can't do in your own home is incredibly long. You can't drop your shoes in the middle of the living room. You can't wander into the kitchen in your striped pajamas. It suddenly dawns on you how stupid you look in your striped pajamas.

There isn't enough hot water for your shower. You can't sit in your favorite chair. Your houseguest has his selfish little hands on your television remote control! And—what a surprise—he doesn't like your favorite TV shows. You have to share the morning paper… & you hate to share. You reach for your special Snoopy glass… & it's not there.

You become desperate for the person to go. You make Xs on your wall calendar to count the days until your guest leaves. You begin giving him subtle hints that you want him to move on. You pack all his clothes & put the suitcase by the front door. You change the locks on the house. You leave an anonymous note on his pillow with this message:

If you don't leave by sundown tomorrow, something very bad will happen to you. This is not a joke.

The day finally comes when your houseguest leaves. You force a smile & mumble something about how much you enjoyed having him in your home. When you're certain he's gone, you & your spouse embrace passionately & shout for joy. The war is over, & you survived. Life will get back to normal. No more interruptions; no more interference. Just peace & stability. You even forget how stupid you look in your striped pajamas.

A Different Kind of Houseguest

You have probably lived through the chaos & inconvenience of hosting a houseguest. No matter how much you care for the visitor, there is a limit to how long someone can be around, use your stuff, & upset your routine.

As hard as it may be to believe, it doesn't have to be this way. There is one person you can invite into your home who will bring peace & joy & intimacy. Can you imagine having a houseguest who will actually enhance your life and marriage? Think about a guest who helps to:

improve your communication;

create openness & vulnerability;

deepen your commitment to each other;

protect you from Satan's attacks.

There is such a houseguest. As you have probably guessed by now, I'm referring to Jesus Christ. When He comes to stay at your house, He removes burdens instead of creating them & makes you feel free, not trapped.

Over the past fifteen years, as a psychologist & speaker specializing in family issues, I have talked with hundreds of couples every year, both in my office & at my marriage seminars. Many of these couples try to make their marriages work by themselves, just the two of them, in their own power. I say to them: "Look, let's face reality. You can't do it on your own. You need help—supernatural help. You need Jesus Christ to be a permanent resident in your home, not just an occasional visitor."

Is Your Marriage Average or Awesome?

On a recent Sunday morning, I had just finished speaking on the importance of putting Jesus Christ at the center of marital relationships. After the worship service, I stayed at the front of the auditorium, & ten or twelve couples came up to talk with me. Two of these couples stand out in my mind.

All four spouses knew Jesus Christ personally. Both couples attended church faithfully. Both couples had been married about the same length of time. But that's where the similarities ended. The contrast between their two marriages was startling— & revealing.

The first couple told me that God had blessed them with many gifts. They had stable jobs, a nice home, great kids, good health, & a real love for Jesus. But, they told me sadly, they weren't really happy in their marriage. They still loved each other, but there was no passion or excitement anymore. The fire that had blazed in the early years of their relationship had long since gone out. Though they weren't going to split up, they were tired of trudging along in a dull, predictable, ho-hum relationship. Their life together was all right, but their marriage had no particular meaning or purpose.

The second couple approached me, & before they even opened their mouths, I knew that there was something different about them. They held hands & smiled at each other. Their eyes sparkled. They exuded an energy that was hard to describe. They told me that up until a year & half ago, their marriage had been pretty boring & uninspiring. At best, their relationship could be categorized as average. Then they faced some painful events and turned to Jesus for help. They leaned on Him, sought His will, &, most of all, reconnected to Him as a couple. He got them through their crises, & they decided to continue including Him in their relationship.

They told me that Jesus had transformed their average marriage into an awesome one. They'd gone from a tedious treadmill kind of relationship to an exciting, unpredictable adventure. They were growing together spiritually, serving Jesus as a team, & making a difference in the world. Along the way, they had developed a much deeper level of spiritual, emotional, & sexual intimacy.

So let me ask you: Which kind of marriage do you want to have? Do you want a lackluster, mediocre marriage like that of the first couple I described? That's the kind of marriage many—perhaps most—couples have. It's not awful, but it's not very good either. Or do you want an intimate, fulfilling connection like the second couple enjoyed? I know your answer. The second kind of marriage is the relationship you've always wanted.

 The truth is that you can experience the kind of closeness most spouses only dream about. And the only way to get this kind of vibrant, exceptional marriage is through Jesus Christ.

Picture yourselves bringing Jesus into your home to live with you. He'll be more than a houseguest; He'll become a permanent addition to your marriage. He'll be the third member of your relationship. When Jesus is involved, three isn't a crowd. Three is just right!

And when you have Jesus Christ with you, you also have God the Father & the Holy Spirit. It's a package deal! Can you imagine having all the power, guidance, & love of the Godhead in your marriage? Well, you can have it. God wants you to have it. He's waiting for you to invite Him into your home.

The presence of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, is what every marriage needs. If you let Him, God will give you the relationship you've always longed to experience. Yours can become a marriage after God's own heart. He will take a good marriage & make it great. He will take a struggling marriage & get it back on track. He will take a dead marriage & bring it back to life.

Reality Check

I've got good news & bad news about marriage. Let's start with the bad news. The whole idea of marriage is insane. It makes no sense. Marriage expects two people to live together in harmony & intimacy, but the two are:

different sexually,

different physically,

different hormonally,

different intellectually,

different in brain construction & chemistry,

different in emotional expression,

different in personality,

different in family background.

To top it all off, both are selfish. This is nothing less than a recipe for disaster! The divorce rate of 50 percent in the United States doesn't surprise me. In fact, I'm surprised it isn't higher. When you consider the enormous challenges of marriage & the enormous differences between men & women, I'm amazed that the divorce rate isn't 80 or 90 percent.

Marriage is the one human relationship with the greatest potential for conflict. Just think about it. The husband won't talk; the wife won't stop talking. He can't remember anything that happened more than ten minutes ago; she remembers everything that ever happened to her ("I remember coming down the birth canal. It was dark, & I felt cramped. I heard screaming & moaning.

Suddenly, it was very bright, & I could see for the first time. The doctor was a small man with a cheesy-looking goatee and bad breath. The wallpaper had a rocking chair print, red and navy blue… & out the window I could see…."). Even if the husband could remember his birth, he wouldn't want to talk about it.

The wife wants to describe, in excruciating detail, every event of her day. And she wants her husband to listen & show interest in her monologue. She'll spend forty-five minutes talking about an event that lasted only five minutes. The husband will sum up his entire day with just one word: "Okay" or "Fine" or "Good."

He is a logical, black-and-white thinker who keeps his emotions buried inside. She is a sensitive, touchy-feely soul who shares her emotions easily & spontaneously. He didn't cry when his fifteen-year-old dog died. She cries when she sees a dead squirrel—one she doesn't even know—on the road.

She's happy having sex once a week. He'd like sex four times a week. She wants to "snuggle" & "cuddle." He wants sex. She wants to have a deep, personal conversation. He wants sex. She wants a romantic, subtle buildup to sex. His idea of a subtle buildup to sex is pinching her on the bottom & saying, "How about it, baby?"

He likes movies with plenty of gunfights, explosions, bodies in the streets, & high-tech special effects. His movies don't contain much in the way of complicated, sophisticated conversations. Most of the dialogue goes like this: "I'm gonna kill you, sucka!" She prefers movies filled with romance, relationships, & people talking about romance & relationships. She doesn't like to see movie characters die violent deaths for no good reason. But it is okay if someone dies after a long illness & has spent two hours talking about death & how hard it is to leave a cherished lover. She's watched the six-volume set of Pride & Prejudice fifteen times & says it gets better every time she sees it. Sound familiar?

As I said, on your own, marriage is impossible. That's the most important truth about marriage. It's not just really, really difficult—not just a tremendous challenge. It's impossible. Marriage is a never-ending series of conflicts, misunderstandings, & mind-boggling missed connections.

Why Are We So Different?

Why did God make men & women so unbelievably different? The main reason is so that we would have to depend on Him. God wants to be at the center of every marriage, so He made the relationship so difficult that we have to keep Him there to make it work. That's just like God, isn't it? He makes sure that He is the answer to all of life's problems.

Without God's presence & power, there isn't a couple alive that can build a truly intimate, deep love. Oh, you can stay together & limp along without God. Lots of couples—Christians & non-Christians—do that. It might be a decent marriage, a stable marriage. Nobody's going to leave. You're staying together—not because you're passionately in love, but out of obligation—because it's the right thing to do or because you have children & you don't want to break up the family.

Of course, staying together is the right thing for couples to do. But it's not the right thing to stay together like that. If you do, you're settling for far less than what God wants for your marriage. That kind of grind-it-out marriage is not what He has in mind for you.

I ask all the limp-along couples I meet the same question: "How is your marriage going?" I always get the same answer: "Oh, okay. Good. All right. Things could be worse." Okay? Pretty good? All right? Things could be worse? What kind of marriage is that? It's the kind you get when you exclude God from your day-to-day life as a couple.

The Good News

Now for the good news: Marriage is the one human relationship with the greatest potential for intimacy. Even with all our differences, marriage can work beautifully when we keep God at the center of the relationship.

God wants marriage to be a glorious, passionate, deeply intimate, sacred, & magnificent love relationship. He wants us to connect in communication, to be best friends, to meet each other's real needs, to have fun, & to glorify Him in our love.

Do you want to read one of the most beautiful & moving descriptions of love ever written? You'd better be sitting down when you read this passage from Scripture because it might knock you off your feet:

Put me like a seal over your heart,
Like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy is as severe as Sheol;
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
The very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor will rivers overflow it;
If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love,
It would be utterly despised. (Song of Solomon 8:6–7)

Whoa! Now that's real love—a love that is a fire, an eternal flame that oceans of water cannot extinguish. When you read these verses, you can feel its passion, power, & intensity. You can have this wonderful kind of love in your marriage. God wants you to experience it in your relationship, & He will give it to you if you will give Him the chance.

The Road Ahead

All of this raises a big question: How do you get there? How do you bring Jesus, God, & the Holy Spirit into your relationship? How do you allow God to give you the passion & deep connection you're missing? I'm going to show you how in the following chapters.

In part 1, I explain the importance of spiritual intimacy in marriage. Physical & emotional intimacy are important, but they're not enough. Spiritual intimacy is what you must have to achieve God's best in your marriage.

In part 2, I cover the five major benefits of spiritual intimacy in marriage: an exhilarating ride for two, great sex, deep communication, protection from the marriage killers, & a bottomless reservoir of fuel for the marriage journey. When you read about these benefits, you'll want them. Once you & your spouse have them, your marriage will never be the same.

In part 3, I get down to the nitty-gritty. I show you in a specific, practical, step-by-step fashion how to cultivate the presence of God as a couple by consistently bringing God into seven critical areas of your relationship: prayer, Bible reading, spiritual conversations, worship, accountability, service, & depending on Him in the tough times.

Finally, in part 4, I describe the major barriers to spiritual intimacy & how to overcome them. I present ten ways to motivate your mate to spiritually bond, & I challenge the six main excuses most people use to avoid spiritual intimacy.

When you've finished this book, you'll know how to spiritually bond as a man & a woman. You'll be able to develop the kind of forever love that God intends for you to enjoy.

[Hope]

good stuff.......

[UnicornSearcher]

http://www.crosswalk.com/marriage/11608652/

EDITOR'S NOTE:  The following is an excerpt from Thriving Despite a Difficult Marriage by Michael Misja & Chuck Misja
 
Part 1: Difficult Marriages
When Divorce Is Not an Option
Three Paths for Difficult Marriages

Nevertheless such shall have trouble. - 1 Corinthians 7:28, KJV

Divorce is not an option, so misery seems inevitable. It's just not working out. Nothing is changing. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, he doesn't get it. In spite of your doing everything she has asked of you, she is still angry & distant. Hope has taken the last train out of town, & you are faced with some tough days ahead.

Is It Ever Okay to Give Up on Your Marriage?

You're where you thought you'd never be. You thought if you did it the right way —you know, followed the rules & all that —your marriage was going to work, & you'd be happy. Happily ever after. Yeah, right. No one told you you'd be as miserable as you are. The marriage journey is tough, isn't it? You started well, but now you're living with a broken heart, feeling trapped in a difficult marriage without hope, & you don't even want to begin to think about the future. What future? Every morning you wake up in disbelief & every night you go to bed in despair. Is this my marriage? Has it really come to this?

It's not like you haven't tried, is it? You've gone to the seminars that teach helpful principles & techniques on how to build a strong marriage. The ideas you learned made a lot of sense to you, & it seemed like your marriage was headed in the right direction. You even had a few warm moments with your spouse that made it seem like things were going to be different. But you were merely teased with hope because nothing really changed. Two months, weeks, or even days after the marriage conference you're back to the same old patterns. The bickering & coldness have returned, & you feel more discouraged than ever. You're not able to run away from the reality that your marriage is empty.

If you're strong enough to look beyond your pain, way down inside yourself, what disturbs you more is what's happening to your heart. Every once in a while, when you take that honest look, you are appalled at the dark, wild thoughts you have. You never thought you could have such ugly thoughts about your "beloved." Your heart is being polluted with bitterness or is hardening with smug disdain for your spouse. You might even be so lonely & empty that you are allowing yourself to be drawn to someone else. So not only is your marriage in bad shape, but your heart is a mess too.

Q: "Everybody tells me I'm supposed to hang in there & believe that if I trust & do what I should, my marriage is going to turn around. I want to scream, ‘You don't understand! Nothing helps. Why should I keep trying?'"

Is it ever okay to give up on your marriage? A lot of people think so. The fighting, game playing, or loneliness has destroyed the relationship, & sooner or later a spouse decides to get out while he or she still has some self-respect. So the couple divorces. Some couples do it legally, but many more divorce emotionally, staying married while living separate, distant lives. Either way, the marriage is over. Others who are in a destructive, messy marriage stay together & slug it out with each other like two fighters trapped in a marathon cage fight, scratching & clawing until neither is left standing. They don't divorce, but they'd bleed a lot less if they did.

Q: "Doesn't it make sense to admit my relationship can't be fixed & it's better to cut my losses & run?"

We have talked with hundreds of couples who have struggled in difficult marriages. This is a tough, sincere question many people ask us on a regular basis. As Christian psychologists, we believe in a tough, though often unpopular, answer: unless there is a pattern of abuse or unchanging immorality, the answer is "No, it's not better to give up on your marriage."

Instead, never quit, never give up, don't stop praying & searching for a way to turn your marriage around. Miracles happen, people change, &, besides, you don't know what God has planned for your marriage. In addition, you can't give up on your marriage without betraying your heart. In the best part of your heart, you will always hope that love will come back to life & your marriage will get better.

Q: "But what if it doesn't? I can't imagine wasting even more years trying to fix this debacle only to end up even more miserable than I am now. If giving up on my marriage isn't an option, then am I supposed to try even harder?"   

Trying harder seems to make sense. After all, you have been taught to believe that anything can be fixed through prayer, hard work, & determination. So why not dig in, do what you're supposed to do, & work even harder to get your marriage on track? Another workshop, CD, prayer session — there must be something you can find that will turn your marriage around. "But," you tell yourself, "I've done this all before & have gotten the same dismal result: Nothing really changes." You are tired, frustrated, becoming cynical, & leery about getting all excited over a new book or teaching on marriage, fearful of ending up even more disillusioned.

Q: "Are you saying that I may have to start thinking that my spouse will never change & start accepting that my marriage may always be difficult?"   

Absolutely! The reality is that some spouses never change, & some marriages don't get better. While you can't ever give up hope, you don't want to keep banging your head into a brick wall trying to fix something that won't be fixed. There is a time when you should accept that the wall is there & that you don't have a way to tear it down. You may be in a tough marriage that is not likely to improve, &, if you aren't wise, it could destroy you.

Q: "Okay, if I can't give up on my marriage & trying harder to fix it does not change anything, what options do I have?"

We're glad you asked. There is another way besides giving up or trying harder: learn how to thrive & live well even if your marriage remains difficult & your spouse never changes. The ache & confusion you are experiencing can be faced & worked through so you can have a life of meaning & contentment even if your relationship with your husband or wife remains painful. You can live in an imperfect or difficult marriage & flourish. This is a book of hope for those who have difficult marriages & have worked hard to make them better, but are coming to the realization that their marriages are not going to change.
Sometimes people need permission to acknowledge what is true about their marriage — that it may never have a happy ending or a resolution that is satisfying. Disappointment, shame, & inferiority dominate the spirit of the individual who can't resolve the difficulties of an imperfect marriage. They often live lives of defeat, emptiness, & spiritual despair.

But it doesn't have to be that way. It's possible to become equipped to thrive despite the lack of hope in your marriage. Most marriage teachings state that if certain steps or techniques are practiced, a happy, fulfilling marriage will result. Learning relational skills & applying spiritual principles are offered as solutions that will fix any marriage. Yet realistically, many individuals have worked hard at their marriage with little change. People need another way to view their situation in order to find a different sort of hope.

Christians & "Great Marriages"

Q: "But aren't Christians supposed to have great marriages?"

In some ways we believe the current evangelical Christian culture does a disservice to married couples without knowing it. You see, we are caught up in a culture that truly believes any obstacle can be overcome. We can be successful at whatever we do if we just pray, put our minds to it, & push on toward our goals. We acknowledge struggle & talk about it as being part of the Christian life. We may read the book of Jeremiah & acknowledge that things didn't get better for the suffering prophet, or we may weep with compassion when we hear stories of persecution on the mission field. Yet when we encounter a struggler in our churches, we're often impatient & smugly condescending.

We think, Come on, get over it. You have all the stuff you need to get it together, so stop moaning & get happy. This is especially true with our understanding of marriage. Those facing trials in their marriages are seen as having something wrong with them, while those who have marriages that seem to work are thought to have more spiritual maturity. Many couples learn to be dishonest about what is really going on in their marriages because no one else seems to wrestle & struggle as much as they do. If they speak up about their problems, they're afraid they'll be offered another book on the godly husband or the servant wife. These couples often feel that if they continue to struggle, it will be obvious to all that they simply aren't applying God's principles to their marriage. So they learn to put on a good show & hide the truth that they are just getting by, trying to survive in a painful marriage.

Some mature marriages result from two people developing the skills & selflessness needed to address the hard issues in their relationship. These marriages are a result of honest work & sacrificial love & are filled with transparency, humility, & honesty. They, indeed, have a depth of maturity that serves as a positive model. Other marriages that are held up as models of maturity may involve people who are just easy to get along with, who fit well with each other. As one pastor told us, "I understand difficult marriages & feel compassion for couples in pain. But I can't relate because my wife is so open with me. I don't have to work hard at it —love just overflows from my heart."

People in relationships without conflict are often happy to just go with the flow. These individuals may be easy to love or considered to be low-maintenance people. They may see the glass as half full & with their positive personality never get drawn into unpleasant conflicts. Their good relationships may not be the result of painstaking work on the difficult issues of marriage but the product of an easygoing personality style. These individuals often have smooth-running, good-looking marriages. But we run into confusion when we hold up marriages with low-maintenance, uncomplicated people as the models for godly, mature relationships.

Marriages between two thirsty, passionate souls who are selfish by nature tend to have conflicts & troubles. People are complex. Many people who are understood to be high-maintenance may be hard to love. High-maintenance people are often difficult in their personality styles & a challenge to relate to. They are too sensitive & notice every slight, or they're stubborn, insensitive, & unaware of their painful effects on others. They may be demanding, needy, moody, insecure, always discontent, bored, or adrenaline junkies.

Some high-maintenance spouses can also be a challenge because they don't settle for the ordinary; they desire lots of interaction & exhaust their mates with their passion for living. However, in reality, others are unkind, unloving people. They may be seen as destructive spouses. If you are such a person, or are married to such a person, & you want a stress-free marriage, you may be continually frustrated.
Scripture teaches us that marriage is inherently difficult. If we think of the relationship between God & the Hebrew people as a marriage, then we see God coping with a difficult, contentious spouse in a difficult marriage filled with tragedy & heartache. Christ, the bridegroom, was a man who was filled with sorrow & grief (see Isaiah 53) & suffered brutal rejection at the hands of his "beloved." The difficulties between Christ & his bride (the church) were so severe that his death was required in order for their relationship to be possible. Christ knew the difficulty of marriage.

For example, in Matthew 19 Christ gives his understanding:

Jesus' disciples objected [to his words], "If those are the terms of marriage, we're stuck. Why get married?"

But Jesus said, "Not everyone is mature enough to live a married life. It requires a certain aptitude & grace. Marriage isn't for everyone. Some, from birth seemingly, never give marriage a thought. Others never get asked—or accepted. And some decide not to get married for kingdom reasons. But if you're capable of growing into the largeness of marriage, do it." (Matthew 19:10-12, MSG)

Jesus made it clear that marriage would be costly & require much. The disciples were thinking the way we d It doesn't make sense to be married if you aren't happy. Jesus challenged their thinking & told them marriage is not for the fragile. Unhappiness is not the basis for ending a marriage. He shattered their thinking that marriage wasn't worth the time & effort if it didn't result in happiness.

Difficult marriages are more the norm than the exception. This is what Paul said when he wrote that we would face many troubles in marriage (see 1 Corinthians 7:28). The word trouble is rendered as tribulation in other places. A literal understanding is that those who are married will undergo severe tribulation. The idea that all trouble & struggle can be eliminated from marriage is not biblical. Married couples are desperate for someone to acknowledge that it's okay for them to have ongoing struggles.

Q: "You mean I can have a life even if I don't resolve all the stuff between me & my spouse? My difficult marriage doesn't make me the failure of the century? I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West because I sometimes wish I had not gotten married?"

Many people we counsel believe they are failures & displeasing to God because their marriage is troubled. Most are already in enough pain & don't need to go through unnecessary shame & guilt. It's sometimes hard to accept that you can be whole even if your marriage isn't. Part of the reason for this is that most people don't have an understanding of how to live in a difficult marriage.

Hope

Visiting Dom in the cancer ward was more difficult than I (Mike) imagined it would be. As I got off the elevator, I recognized the contrasting messages the hall conveyed. Bright, cheerful pictures were posted next to a closed door with the somber message, "Radiation in use. No visitors." The hospital made attempts to communicate that life was good while the scent of death & decay was unavoidable.
When I saw Dom shuffling down the hall, his frail body & lifeless eyes took me back sixteen years to another cancer ward. The eyes that haunted me then were those of our kid brother.

Mark was twenty-eight years old when cancer stole life from his body. My family's hearts were crushed during his battle. We prayed, hoped, & begged God to restore his life as we saw death invade more intensely with each passing day. We tried to hold on to hope as we saw him fight for life with a depth of integrity & passion I long to know.

Yet we knew we were losing a son, a brother, an uncle, a saint. He would be with us no more. What can you hope for when you are faced with a terminal diagnosis?

I think people can recognize when a battle has been lost. Chuck & I experienced this in the cancer ward with the physical demise of our brother, but we've also seen it many times in the counseling room. A physical cancer often brings a heart to the abyss of despair in the same way a difficult marriage can produce an emotional & spiritual death in the heart. The cancer of the heart is not the pain of loneliness & hurt as much as it is the strident energies of "bitterness, hot tempers, anger, loud quarreling, cursing, & hatred" (Ephesians 4:31, GW). Sadly, many hearts become cancerous & lose the joy of life when conquered by a difficult marriage. We want to affirm what many know but few acknowledge: Pain in a difficult marriage can be agonizing. The truth be told, sometimes the pain of death is more manageable than the perpetual shredding of a heart in a destructive marriage. But in order to thrive, the battle you must fight involves keeping the pain from turning into a ravenous cancer that destroys your heart & stops you from loving well.

Our passion as marriage counselors is to communicate to those in a difficult marriage that while it may feel like it, you are not in the cancer ward. The vacant eyes associated with despair can be filled with life. The frail shoulders now communicating that strength has been depleted can someday exude power. And the bitter voice can lose its cynical tone & begin to laugh again. Life is not over if your marriage feels like a death from a horrible disease. You will not have terminal cancer if you choose to thrive despite your pain. Joy is possible. Our brother Mark taught us this. Even when life was stolen from his body, his heart thrived in ways that caused him to rise above his pain. God refined him in the fire. What the enemy could never take from him was hope. While he always wished for physical healing, he discovered hope in a good God that transcended his need for a cure from cancer. His hope in a powerful, loving God, who would give him courage to face his pain & offer a promise that all was well despite cancer, resulted in a transformed heart & a joy that could be seen in his penetrating eyes, the windows of his ecstatic soul. The enemy had lost the battle. As Scripture tells us, "The thief comes only to steal & kill & destroy. I have come that they may have life & have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

Dave & Patty

"You are our last hope. We're going to give this one more try. If you can't fix us, we're going to divorce." Dave & Patty sat grimly across from me (Mike) on my well-worn red couch. The tension in the room revealed the pain the couple carried in their hearts. They were longing for relief from the agony of a marriage that continually wounded their souls & offered no hope for the future.

I began the session addressing them honestly, "Dave & Patty, you've been to counseling before, & you're in a good church, yet nothing has helped. Let me ask both of you, what would make a difference so that you could have hope that your marriage would change for the better?"

"I don't have much hope," Patty said. "I'm willing to change, but he isn't. I know that if he would stop being so angry, life would be a whole lot better. He just hates the world — & me. Nothing I do pleases him. I've tried to tell him how hard it is to live with him, but he just doesn't get it. He only cares about himself."

"You're always blaming me, like you're the great Christian woman, & I'm nothing. I've made lots of changes & what do I get for it? You know, just once I'd like to come home from work & think you were really happy to see me. Just once! If you'd act like a wife for a change & not be so cold & judgmental —don't look at me like that, you know what I mean. If you weren't such an ice princess, maybe I wouldn't be so angry! Whatever . . ."

A thousand thoughts ran through my mind. They needed to learn how to talk constructively. A book on forgiveness would be helpful. Individual counseling for anger management might work. I wondered if they ever prayed together. Did they know how to lighten up & just have fun as a couple? Perhaps sexual abuse was in her background. Does he have a drinking problem? Had they ever had good biblical teaching on the roles a husband & wife assume in marriage? Demon oppression? Do they understand their needs, fears, selfishness, & desires? How about that intensive marital retreat I just read about? Books, seminars, Scripture, & CD series were retrieved from the library of my mind. All good, all helpful. But I went a different route.

I wondered if any of these strategies would help Patty & Dave turn from their destructive patterns & find joy in their marriage. Patty's & Dave's energies were focused on blaming each other for their problems. How could I help them if their marriage remained difficult & a source of ongoing pain?

I reviewed two paths often followed when dealing with a difficult marriage. Neither the "Happily ever After" nor the "Noble Misery" path showed a way to find contentment & joy when having to live in a painful, difficult marriage. I then wondered if God had a way to help people thrive despite facing a future in a troubling marriage. As I continued to ask this question & worked with Chuck & other mature counselors & friends, the "Thriving Despite" path became clear.

Let's discuss the first two paths & then take a look at a new path, "Thriving Despite."

Happily Ever After   

We have three options for dealing with struggling marriages in the church. The first is to work hard to have a winning marriage by following the "Happily ever After" model. Some suggest that every marriage can be fixed & filled with deep satisfaction by finding the right principles or skills, or what could be called the "engineering" of relationship. The myth is that a positive, permanent resolution is available for all problems by finding the right engineering. In a success-oriented, can-do, technological society, we often reduce complex problems into a list of right & wrong behaviors & attitudes. This list is made into a series of practical steps which, if followed correctly, will resolve the problems. We see these as the "how to's," or the engineering of living. Nowhere is this more true than in our understanding of how good marriages work. But finding & committing to the right engineering cannot guarantee a great marriage. Be cautious of writers & speakers who are "marriage motivators" & guarantee success for those who apply their revolutionary tools.

The truth is most couples can enrich their marriages by working hard on them & developing strong relational skills. The Christian community has countless resources for troubled marriages or good marriages in which the couple wants to get better. In our counseling practice we are continually searching for the best techniques to help troubled couples. Thankfully, many of these techniques & skills have improved marriages dramatically. We love to tell & hear stories of couples who have turned their marriages around by learning each other's love language, learning to control their negative emotions, or deepening an understanding of each other's needs. We see couples holding hands in church & smiling because all is well. But those whose marriages remain difficult kick themselves (or their spouses) & sink into despair when they see these happy couples. The "Happily ever After" model has some significant problems.

First, while everyone desires to be happy, this is not a biblical purpose for marriage. Marriage can hold times of great happiness, but God does not promise a lifetime of ongoing happiness. What he does promise is a life of peace, contentment, joy, fulfillment, & many other things —but not perpetual happiness. Should we seek happiness if we have a terminally ill child? Though we may be joyful or content, can you see that the desire for happiness doesn't fit the situation? We are waiting to be convinced that Christ was happy on the road to Gethsemane. He experienced many emotions as he loved in the most profound way imaginable, but it's doubtful he was happy.

The idea that happiness is the greatest good & is the ultimate measure of well-being is a completely secular concept & demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of God's intention for life this side of eternity.

Second, some people never take responsibility for their behavior. They make their spouses pay for a lifetime of unhappiness. There is great power in the role of a victim, & some spouses will use their role as victim as a way of life. Blame shifting, denial, distortion, lying, & rationalization are some of the ways responsibility is avoided. We are all selfish & self-seeking. Many spouses who feel unjustly treated simply are hardened & not accessible. They will never look at their part in the marital difficulties.

If both people do not take responsibility for their part of the problems in their marriage, full intimacy & healing are not possible.

Third, some people are not easy to live with. Many spouses are unpleasant & not likely to change.

Difficult spouses range from "good but flawed" to "evil & destructive." For example, living with a physically or emotionally ill spouse is hard.

Marriage to a hateful person who continually tries to put you down is like trying to survive on the battlefield while having no gun. Insisting one should have a happily-ever-after marriage with a difficult spouse is like expecting rotting food to be able to nourish your body.

Noble Misery   

The second choice we have for surviving in a difficult marriage is to live in "Noble Misery" & suffer ongoing wretchedness since divorce is not an option. You must minimize complaining & do your best to survive the mess you've committed your lives to. Many people reading this book live in painful marriages that hold little to no promise for healing. For reasons of commitment, children, or finances, divorce is not viewed as an alternative.

When you are faced with the reality of living with a spouse who has caused or is causing enormous pain, you may not only experience despair —you may be on the road to clinical depression. The martyr or perpetual victim trudges on with nobility & brokenness of spirit. Consigned to a life of misery, the suffering spouse prays for the strength to endure. While we have the greatest compassion for someone in this situation, the "Noble Misery" model has several flaws.

First, no one has to live as a victim.

As we will see, living as a victim can be destructive to self & others. You can choose to draw your energy from your pain or from the hope that God places in you. Life is possible even if you have been harmed or wounded in your marriage.

Even someone who has truly been victimized has a choice to not live as a victim.

Second, a spouse cannot be your only hope for a meaningful existence.

If this is true, then your spouse has become an idol & not a spouse. Living as a defeated person in noble misery keeps you tied to your spouse as your only hope. While a good marriage can provide much joy, God offers life with meaningful satisfaction in many areas other than marriage. Learning to respond to marital difficulties with strength & courage can provide satisfaction even if your spouse will not embrace your love.

Refusing to thrive because your spouse & marriage remain difficult is laziness & irresponsibility.

Third, it is possible to thrive while sorrowful.

A difficult marriage causes sorrow, but the sorrow doesn't need to be terminal. Jesus was a man of sorrows & was acquainted with grief, but that didn't stop him from moving ahead with his life of great passion. It is possible to live in paradox: being ever sorrowful yet filled with joy (see 2 Corinthians 4:.

Thriving Despite

Let's consider a third model for people who find themselves in difficult marriages: a commitment to being alive & passionate in a marriage that has ongoing difficulties. We'll call it the "Thriving Despite" model. In other words, I've got one life to live, & I will live it well no matter what trouble comes my way.

While every attempt should be made to heal a troubled marriage, the lack of a smooth-running marriage should not stop a person from engaging in life. Many people have never considered that life can be satisfying even if their marriage is difficult. We suggest that if a person commits to thriving despite marital troubles, he or she will be in the best position to not only live life well but also offer healthy resources toward their marriage & family. As we begin to discuss the "Thriving Despite" model, let us put a few precautions in place.

First, we are not saying people can't change & therefore you should give up on your marriage.

Never, ever give up hope. Marriage demands that we work hard. Go to counseling, study the Word, read books, pray, attend classes, & go on weekend retreats. If you can find something to improve your marriage, utilize it. But don't put your life on hold until your marriage is healed or until your spouse gets it & changes in the way you desire. We are saying that some people don't significantly change. If you are married to such a person, your life's ambition can't be to get your spouse to change. If you put your life on hold waiting for your spouse to change, you may wake up one morning & realize you have wasted your life.

Next, we are also not saying that you should just forget about your spouse & focus on your own self-fulfillment.

This is not a book about justifying selfishness. In reality, by accepting your spouse & not demanding change, you will be free to love from a stronger, healthier, more godly perspective. When your perspective changes from looking for a change in your spouse to strengthening your own heart, you'll be able to offer a love that is hard to dismiss.

With this method we are not promoting the "Parallel Path" model of marriage. In the "Parallel Path" model, which many in the "Noble Misery" model end up following, difficult marriages are managed by spouses choosing to learn to coexist in peace while they seek their deepest life satisfaction outside of marriage. They basically remain closed to each other & give up all hope of finding meaning & joy in their relationship. Though pulling away from the destructive dynamics a difficult spouse presents is important to thriving, quitting on the marriage is not what we are suggesting.

We're saying that the path of thriving frees a person to no longer require marriage or the spouse to heal his or her wounds & provide ongoing life satisfaction.


 
The Need for Wisdom

As we've discussed these ideas about thriving in a difficult marriage with friends & clients, they invariably say, "I like the idea, but how do you do this? What are the steps? (What's the engineering?)"
While being practical is a good thing, beginning to practice the "Thriving Despite" model requires a shift of thinking. The key to thriving despite a difficult marriage is developing wisdom. Wisdom doesn't require that we master a set of technical skills but rather that we enter a path guided by exercising core convictions.

These convictions include:

1. Marriage means partnering with God. Holding a belief that God is in it.

He loves you & your spouse & is molding & shaping you. When we stand before a holy God & commit our lives to another, we become involved in a threesome. God is intensely involved in our marriage, whether it's an easy or trying one. From the backyard to the bedroom, God is there. His heart desires good things for us. Yet we must understand that marriage is one of the prime ways he will shape our character. If you will commune with God, he will show you your passions & your selfishness as they are played out with your spouse. You'll be challenged to love & grieve with an energy & wisdom that can be drawn only from his resources. He will not abandon you in your marital struggles. You are not journeying alone. Your pain is not without purpose. Thriving will not be possible unless God is working through you.

2. Marriage is bigger than you. Maintaining a conviction that marriage is worth giving yourself to no matter the cost.

You marry & invest in someone you believe is most likely to bring you meaningful life satisfaction. It is the rare person who understands that marriage is greater than the two individuals who have vowed to remain together for a lifetime. Marriage has a meaning & purpose far beyond personal happiness & the need for satisfaction. In the same way you're not in your marriage simply to have your needs met, you don't remain in your marriage just to keep your vow or commitment. A belief in marriage means that you are willing to yield yourself to the requirements your marriage presents you. In a difficult marriage that may mean that you learn how to love & endure when you receive little in return.

3. Marriage requires honesty. Possessing a willingness to relentlessly pursue truth about yourself, your spouse, & the state of your marriage.

You need to know yourself, who you are, what you've done, & what you want. You also need to know your spouse in the same way. We are masters at believing what we want to believe & choosing to deny the truth. The human denial & distortion system is one of the great mysteries of our being. A person can be a raging alcoholic & yet really believe he or she has his or her drinking totally under control. One has only to watch a reality show like American Idol to recognize that few people have an accurate view of themselves. Even the most off-pitch, unmusical singer believes he or she is the greatest talent in the country —despite direct feedback to the contrary. Few people are able to correct wrong self-perceptions even when given accurate evaluations by others.

Only when people earnestly desire to know the truth about who they are & who they are married to can they begin to deal honestly with the struggles in their marriages. A willingness to continually pursue an authentic awareness of the good, bad, ugly, & beautiful about yourself & your spouse will eventually shatter the denial & distortion system & lead to a refreshing freedom that only honesty can bring. Part of knowing the truth includes having knowledge of what you can & cannot do. You can't change your spouse. You are not responsible for your spouse's behavior or attitudes. However, you can take responsibility for your response to your spouse. The ability to respond to difficulty from your godly, redeemed nature as opposed to your selfish, corrupt nature is something you can do with God's help.

4. The battle is in the heart. Having a passion to maintain integrity of heart & keep hope alive.

We suggest that the real struggle in marriage is in the heart. Our enemy will attack our hearts so they become devoid of love & passion. Your commitment must be to never allow that to happen, no matter what troubles your marriage may bring to you. Paul understood this struggle accurately when he explained in 1 Corinthians 13 that performance & behavior, even of the most sacrificial nature, are meaningless if they are driven by a heart without love.

You are on the right path when you understand that the true problem that needs to be addressed doesn't concern the defects in your spouse but rather the darkness that emerges from your own heart while in a difficult marriage. Change can occur when you look in the mirror & say that you don't like what you see. You find your heart becoming hateful, weak, disrespectful, or numb. The path of wisdom dictates that you must repent of the directions your heart has taken as opposed to justifying them because you have a tough marriage.

Hope

This third model of marriage has a unique understanding of hope. The hope in the "Happily ever After" marriage is for personal fulfillment & pleasant circumstances. In the "Noble Misery" model the hope is that God will provide enough strength to survive the mess. In the "Thriving Despite" model, the concept of hope looks like this:

Your hope is that God will give you the wisdom, courage, & strength to defeat the enemy's attempts to corrupt your heart so you can remain alive & passionate. With a thriving heart you will be able to live vibrantly & allow God to offer a powerful love through you to whomever he puts in your path, especially your spouse. The result is that God will be honored & life will be immensely fulfilling.

The goal of this book is not to offer another strategy to get your spouse's attention or to find the way to successfully heal your marriage. But someone who commits to thriving despite will be in the best position to have a strong marriage. A thriving person is willing to accept who the spouse really is without an agenda to change the partner. Thriving people are prepared to accept that certain things may never happen in their marriage & to grieve the loss.

For example, they may never have a spouse they can truly trust or be with a mate who pursues them passionately. By accepting & grieving the loss of things that will not happen (what is not possible), a person becomes free to focus on what is possible in the marriage. For example, you may find yourself thinking, Okay, you will never be a great spiritual leader or encourager of dreams, but I will discover something in you that is valuable & we can enjoy, even if it's only in passing moments.   

Hope for Patty & Dave   

"You both are saying that your hope for a better marriage is dependent on the other person changing. My guess is that you are experts in telling each other how badly you are being failed. I'm sure you have communicated countless ways the other could change so that you could be happier. And you're sitting here hoping that I can get your message across to your spouse so you can get some relief. I want to challenge you to consider another way. Dave, what if Patty never changes into a woman who enjoys sex with you or appreciates you as a man? Patty, what if Dave stays angry & negative & doesn't value your needs?" The feeling of tension in the room changed to the sound of groaning.

"Look, you've spent years being angry & hurt. You are so tired of being in pain. You've tried everything to fix this marriage—mainly to get each other's attention about how the other person is messing up. You are enslaved by your hurts & hopelessness. Neither of you is free to love — your hearts have become corrupt. Would you consider that you can be alive & enjoy life only after you stop trying to survive & fix each other?"

What If:   

You believed God was less concerned with whether or not your needs were being met & more concerned with the state of your heart?

You were able to give up all efforts to become happy by trying to change your spouse?

You no longer desired to show your spouse how poorly you are being loved?

You had the capacity to accept your spouse as he or she is & have a lifestyle of forgiveness?

You knew God's grace in a way that freed you from guilt & shame so you could honestly explore the ways you don't love well?

You believed in God's love for you so deeply that you were confident you could love strongly & wisely no matter what?

You committed to finding purpose & passion for life that didn't depend on your spouse's response or approval?

Your heart was no longer characterized by bitterness, despair, pride, or apathy?

You were able to disengage from the destructiveness of your marriage while developing a desire to constructively engage in what was God-honoring?

The look in Patty & Dave's eyes told me they had never considered really being alive & thriving if their spouse never changed. Yet the idea captured something in their souls: There is another way. Hope is alive.

[UnicornSearcher]

Came across this just now & definitely has great food for thought especially for those dealing with truly repentant formerly wandering spouses.

http://www.victoryinjesus.net/on_the_brink_of_divorce.htm

ON THE BRINK OF DIVORCE

"We Can't Ever Be Close Again"  By Ken Sande

Rick could not forgive his wife's adultery.  Even though Pam had given every evidence of repentance & had begged for his forgiveness, the offense stood between them like a towering wall.  (Name have been changed).

As a Christian, Rick knew that he should forgive Pam.  So to appease his conscience, he told her, "I forgive you, but can't ever be close to you again."

His hollow words only increased their hopelessness.  Soon divorce seemed to be the only way to end the pain.

Empty Forgiveness

When Rick came to see me a month later & unfolded his story, it was clear that his bitterness was contributing to the destruction of their marriage.  His empty "forgiveness" had no power to dispel the memory of Pam's adultery, which was a dark cloud over their relationship.

There was only one genuine way to put the past behind them:  true forgiveness --- not the meaning less statement that Rick had made to appease his conscience, but the rich, redeeming, thoroughly cleansing forgiveness described in Scripture & modeled by our Lord.

To demonstrate to Rick the hypocrisy of his empty statement, I said, "Rick, imagine that you had just confessed a serious sin to God, & that he responded audibly, saying, 'I forgive you, Rick, but I can't ever be close to you again.'  How would you feel?"

After an awkward pause, he replied, "I guess I'd feel like God hadn't really forgiven me."

"But isn't that exactly the way you are forgiving Pam?"  I asked.  Rick looked at the floor, wrestling for an answer.

The Four Promises of Forgiveness

I continued gently, "Imagine if instead God said, 'Rick, I promise never to think about your sin again, or to dwell on it or to brood over it.  I promise never to bring it up & use it against you.  I promise not to talk to others about it.  And I promise not to let it stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.'"

After a long silence, tears began to fill Rick's eyes.  "I would know I was completely forgiven...But I wouldn't deserve that kind of forgiveness after the way I've treated Pam."

"Would you ever deserve it?"  I asked him.  "God's forgiveness is a free gift, purchased for you by Jesus' death on the cross.  He doesn't forgive you because you've earned it.  He forgives you to display his glory & the riches of his grace.  When you truly understand how precious & undeserved his forgiveness is, you will want to forgive Pam the same way he has forgiven you."

"I know I should," he answered, "but how could I ever keep the four promises you just described?  I can't imagine forgetting what Pam did!  And I just don't feel like I could ever be close to her again."

"Where does the Bible say that forgiveness is forgetting?...or that it depends on feelings?" I asked, "Forgiveness is an act of the will, Rick, a decision you make in spite of your feelings.  Of course it's hard, especially in a case like this.  But if you ask for God's help as you make those four promises to Pam, he will give you the grace to follow through on them."

Forgive to Forget

After another thirty minutes of discussion, we prayed together, & Rick's doubts & fears were overcome.  An hour later, he met with Pam to confess his sin of bitterness & unforgiveness.  When she repeated how sorry she was, he responded with these words.

"Honey, I want to forgive you the way God has forgiven me.  With his help, I promise not to dwell on this any more.  I promise never to bring it up & use it against you.  I promise never to talk to others about it.  And I promise not to let it stand between us or hinder our relationship."

Pam fell sobbing into his arms.  Rick's commitment to true forgiveness marked the beginning of their healing process.  It would take many hours of counseling to address the root causes of their marital problems.  But within two weeks, Rick told me that the four promises of forgiveness were really working.

"After I promised not to think about Pam's sin," he said, "I realized that the burden had shifted to me.  Now when I catch myself thinking about what she did, I confess to God that I am breaking my word.  I ask for his help & then focus my thoughts on the immensity of his forgiveness toward me or on Pam's good qualities."

"I praise God for his healing.  The negative memories have started to fade, & I am beginning to love my wife again!"

What the World Needs to See

What about you?  When others desire your forgiveness, don't communicate:   I forgive you, but I can't ever be close to you again.  When you do, you destroy not only your relationships but also your ability to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When Christians forgive others with empty words, they send a message that God's forgiveness has little value.  Why would anyone seek God's forgiveness if he believes that God will still hold him at arm's length for eternity?

On the other hand, if you practice the radical forgiveness found in Scripture & summarized in the Four Promises of Forgiveness, there is not limit to the good that will follow.  In addition to preserving precious relationships, you will send the message that God's forgiveness tears down every wall completely and forever.  What could better glorify God & prepare the way for others to hear about Jesus Christ?

[UnicornSearcher]

http://www.garythomas.com/how-to-appreciate-an-imperfect-spouse

How to Appreciate an Imperfect Spouse by Gary Thomas

Even if I’ve never met you, I know one thing that is true about you & your spouse: you’re both married to an imperfect mate.

I also know another truth about you: the Bible calls you to still respect & appreciate your very imperfect spouse. This is true whether you’re a husband (1 Peter 3:7) or a wife (Eph. 5:33).

How do we do this, in a practical sense? How can we honestly and sincerely respect and appreciate someone who is so imperfect?

1) Accept the Reality of Human Relationships

James 3:2 lays out the human condition as clearly & as succinctly as anyone can: “We all stumble in many ways.” Think about the impact of the words “all” & “many.” What James is telling us is that if you were to divorce your spouse, interview two hundred “replacement” candidates, put them through a battery of psychological tests, have follow-up interviews conducted by your closest friends, spent three years dating the most compatible ones, & then spent another forty days praying & fasting about which one to choose, you’d still end up with a spouse who disappoints you, hurts you, frustrates you, & stumbles in many ways.

The word “all” means there are no exceptions.

A new spouse might stumble in different ways, but he or she will still stumble. This is the reality of human relationships in light of sin. Your spouse is human; therefore, they stumble— & not just once or twice, but in many ways.

Once I accept that my spouse will regularly stumble, the point of evaluation changes dramatically. Some people compare to their mates to perfection. Well, there was only one perfect person who ever walked this earth, & he never got married.

When I embrace the biblical truth that every spouse stumbles in many ways, when my wife acts up, I realize she’s acting normally. This means that, instead of focusing on the occasional disappointment, I can be grateful for the positive acts of love: every spouse stumbles, but not every spouse acts so kindly. Every spouse stumbles, but not every spouse would put up with me for 22 years!

By accepting the negative as inevitable, I’m able to appreciate & showcase the positive evidences of God’s grace.

2) Accept the reality of human marriage

During a Sacred Marriage conference, a woman came up to me & said, “I have a very difficult marriage…”

“You don’t have to tell me you have a difficult marriage,” I answered. “That’s redundant!”

It took a while for what I was saying to sink in, but eventually, it did, & the woman smiled.

Because of the reality of sin, every marriage has difficult moments. We’re not marrying gods & goddesses! We’re marrying people that the Bible promises will stumble in many ways. How can that possibly be easy?

Once I accept that marriage is inherently difficult, I’ll no longer resent it when my marriage is difficult.

Disappointment & a lack of respect are often birthed out of unrealistic expectations. It’s not fair to compare your marriage to something you’ve seen in a movie or read about in a novel—that marriage isn’t real. And even if you see a marriage at church, you don’t know what’s really going on during less public moments.

Because of my occupation, I regularly speak to thousands of married couples, & I haven’t found a single one that has told me their marriage has been “easy.”

Rewarding? Yes. Soul-forming? Absolutely. But easy? Never.

This understanding gives me great appreciation for my spouse, who is willing to engage in a difficult task with me. Even though it can be really hard, my wife has hung in there with me; we confess to each other, we forgive each other, & sometimes we have to learn to forget what each other did. What an amazing thing that another human being would do this with me instead of running away.

3) Accept the Reality of Your Own Sin

“Gary,” the email read, “What does a wife do when her husband doesn’t love her like Christ loves the church?”

The woman then shocked me by giving the rest of her story: “Before I got married, I read many Harlequin romances & I thought marriage would be like that. For a while it was, but then things cooled off. A couple years later, I found that exciting love once again by having an affair; but after a number of months, that too, cooled off.”

At this point, she threw herself into the church, but after a while even God became boring. That’s when she “fell” into yet another affair that—no surprise, here—also eventually cooled off. In the aftermath of those two affairs, in which she wounded & humiliated her husband about as deeply as a wife can, she wrote to me, consumed with how her husband wasn’t loving her like Christ loves the church.

Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but all of us have hearts that tend toward dismissing our own faults while magnifying the flaws of our spouse. Sometimes we need an extreme example to show us how dark our own hearts really are.

Jesus could not have been clearer: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye & pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, & then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Luke 6:41-42).

If you’re thinking, “But in my case, my spouse really is the worst sinner,” then know this:

Jesus is talking specifically about you. This is precisely the attitude he finds so offensive.

While we tend to rank certain sins, in the glory of God’s goodness every mark of sin—whether an errant attitude, a prideful spirit, or a lust of the flesh—is vile & offensive in his sight. I’ve seen wives who have abused food turn around & disdain husbands who struggle with pornography. I’ve seen controlling & arrogant husbands disdain wives who watch too much television. Both seem completely blinded to their own shortcomings.

We’re not called to judge our spouses—ever. We are called to love them.

We are not called to recount their failures in a Pharisaic game of “I’m holier than you”—we’re called to encourage them.

We are not called to build a case against them regarding how far they fall short of the glory of God—we are called to honor & respect them.

We learn to appreciate our imperfect spouse by getting in touch with the reality of our own sin, humbly asking God for forgiveness, & honestly realizing that we’ll never be asked to forgive anyone as much as God has forgiven us.

4) Accept the Call to Praiseworthy Thinking

I have found Philippians 4:8 as relevant for marriage as it is for life: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Obsessing over your spouse’s weaknesses won’t make them go away. You may have done that for years— & if so, what has it gotten you, besides more of the same?

Author & speaker Leslie Vernick warns, “Regularly thinking negatively about your husband increases your dissatisfaction with him & your marriage.” You will have to have to fight the natural human tendency to obsess over your mate’s weaknesses. When I urge you to affirm your spouse’s strengths, I’m not minimizing their many weaknesses. I’m just encouraging you to make the daily spiritual choice of focusing on qualities for which you feel thankful.

To make this realistic, you have to keep in mind that no man or woman is ever “on” all the time. This explains why your husband can be so thoughtful, caring & attentive one day, & so aloof, harsh, & critical the next day. You have to give your spouse room to be a less-than-perfect human, to have bad days, “off” days & “average” days.

The spiritual challenge is that you are likely more apt to define your mate by the bad days than you are to accept the good days as the norm. Hold on to the good; begin to define him by the good; thank him (and God) for the good; & thereby reinforce the good.

5) Accept the Reality of Your Decision

Everyone comes into marriage with their own hurts, wounds, & spiritual “baggage.” Maybe your wife’s siblings teased her. Maybe your husband’s former girlfriend cheated on him & broke his heart. Maybe your spouse’s parents were abusive, or neglectful. The possibilities, sadly, are endless.

Before a casual relationship morphs into a permanent commitment, many men & women see a hurting person & think, I want to help them. But something about marriage often turns that around & makes us say, “Why does he have to be that way?”

Our spouse’s needs once elicited feelings of nurture & compassion; now those same hurts tempt us toward bitterness & regret.

Before we get married is the time to make a character-based judgment (“Do I really want to live with this person’s wounds?”) Once the ceremony has ended, God challenges us to maintain an attitude of concern & nurture instead of resentment & frustration.

Can you maintain a soft heart over past hurts, patiently praying for long-term change? Or will you freeze your spouse in his or her weaknesses with judgment, resentment, condemnation, & criticism? Can you maintain a nurturing attitude instead of a judgmental one? Remember: this is a spouse you chose to marry. Will you abide by your own choice?

6) Accept the Biblical Call to Respect

Here’s what it comes down to. If you’re a believer, the Bible calls you to respect your husband (Ephesians 5:33) or your wife (1 Peter 3:7). It doesn’t say wives should respect perfect husbands, or even godly husbands. It doesn’t say husbands should respect agreeable or unusually loving wives.

There are no qualifiers, because biblical respect, in one sense, comes with the position, not with the person. The apostle Paul insulted a man with bold language (“you whitewashed wall!”) but then apologized after he learned he had been speaking to a high priest: “Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written, ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people’” (Acts 23:3-5).

Your spouse, because he/she is your spouse, deserves respect. You may disagree with his judgment; you may object to the way she handles things—but according to the Bible, their position alone calls you to give them proper respect.

7) Form Your Heart through Prayer

It’s one thing to know I’m supposed to respect my spouse, but it’s another thing entirely to do it. Can I retrain my heart? Can I spiritually form my mind to accept them as they are?

Yes, I can. Prayer can be a very practical tool in this regard. Simply practice praying positive prayers for your spouse. Find the five or six things he or she does really well—or even just one or two!—& try to tire God out by thanking him for giving you a mate with those qualities.

Follow up your prayers with comments or even cards that thank your spouse personally for who he or she is.

I’ve practiced this with my wife. One morning I awoke early & immediately sensed my frustration from the previous evening. We have an issue in our relationship that we had talked to death over the previous two decades. Lisa acknowledged her need to grow in this area, but events of the previous weeks had convinced me that nothing had changed.

I felt resentful, & in my resentful mood, I can slip into what I call “brain suck.” I start building my case. Like a lawyer, I recall every slight, every conversation, & prove to my imaginary jury how wrong my wife is & how right I am.

I started thanking God for a quality in Lisa’s personality for which I feel very thankful. That reminded me of something else, which reminded me of something else, which reminded me of yet another quality. After about fifteen minutes, I literally started laughing. I saw so much to be thankful for that it seemed preposterous that I should waste time fretting over this single issue.

Prayers of thankfulness literally form our soul. They very effectively groom our affections.

Make liberal use of this powerful tool. We have to give it time—one session of thankfulness will not fully soften a rock-hard heart. But over time, thankfulness makes a steady & persistent friend of affection.

Ask God to Change You

As soon as you begin offering prayers of thankfulness for your spouse, be sure of this: the enemy of your soul & the would-be destroyer of your marriage will remind you where your mate falls short. You can count on it.

You’ll find yourself growing resentful: “Why should I thank God that my husband works hard when he comes home & won’t even talk to me at night?” “Why should I thank God that my wife has always been faithful to me when she’s so critical?”

You need to respond to this temptation with a healthy spiritual exercise: as soon as you recall your spouse’s weaknesses—the very second those poor qualities come to mind—start asking God to help you with specific weaknesses of your own. That’s right—as backward as this may sound, respond to temptations to judge your mate by praying for God to change you. Go into prayer armed with two lists: your spouse’s strengths, & your weaknesses.

This exercise will help maintain a positive spiritual balance of remaining aware of your own shortcomings, & of staying sensitive to your spouse’s strengths.

We’re All in This Together

Every one of us is married to an imperfect spouse. We confront different trials, different temptations, and different struggles—but each one of us faces the same reality: living as imperfect people, in an imperfect world, with an imperfect spouse.

Learning to love, appreciate, * to be thankful for that imperfect spouse is one of the most soul-transforming things you can do. It’s not an easy journey, but it’s a profitable one, & I urge you to remain committed to it today.