When You Don’t Know How to Improve Your Difficult Marriage

You know you would like to have the marriage you have always dreamed of having but somewhere along the way the challenges of life have happened. And now you find yourself not knowing how to improve your difficult marriage.

In our previous post, Why Do You Settle For a Difficult Marriage, I gave a challenge for anyone who felt stuck with no intention of doing anything about the condition of their marriage. I talked about how marriage was designed by God to be a place of “One Flesh” unity and that God esteems marriage in such high regard that He even chose marriage to illustrate the relationship between Christ and the church.

As I mentioned in my challenge, “if marriage has been given the responsibility from God to represent what Christ’s relationship with us the Church should look like, shouldn’t we hold marriage to the same standard of honor and glory that God has already placed on it.”

But maybe you’re someone from my last post who answered yes to the question, “Are you in a marriage that could be better, but you just don’t know how to get there?” And so if this is you, I know you’re not looking for something that simply inspires you to do better. You are looking for some practical advice of what you can do. Read more

Why Would You Settle for a Difficult Marriage?

A difficult marriage is a hard thing to endure. The stress of bickering and division never seems to end. Even when there are moments of hope because love and peace are temporarily restored. That hope quickly fades as another day presents another challenge. Soon, husband and wife fall right back into their ruts of strife, anger, hurt, and confusion. And sadly too many men and women who have this type of marriage have no idea they don’t have to settle for it.

For 19 years I was willing to settle for a difficult marriage. For the most part I was always blind to how troubled my marriage was. I thought it was normal for couples to argue and have disagreements. So I thought what was going on in my marriage was just as normal as anyone else’s. I committed to marriage for life even if I didn’t like the condition of it. Read more

Is Your House Divided?

“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” – Mark 3:25

Marriage is a wonderful gift from God. It’s the union of two unique individuals blending their lives together to become as the bible says, “one flesh.” This unity does not happen when husbands and wives become the same in every way possible. Couples establish and hold true unity in marriage by celebrating what they have in common. While at the same time learning to accept and embrace each other’s differences. Couples that strive to become “one flesh” know there is beauty and strength in both their similarities and in their differences.

But there is something seriously wrong when couples begin allowing their differences to create a divided home. Because when they accept and tolerate division in their relationship they open up the door for greater trouble in their marriage.

This Should Not Be Missing From Your Marriage

Truthfully, marriage is complex. It takes the complexity of many factors to make a marriage thrive the way God created it to. However, on this post today I want to discuss just one thing that should not be missing from your marriage. Because when it is missing, it makes the journey of marriage very difficult. At least it was for me.

The uncertainty that flooded my mind time after time in my marriage was torment. It reminds me of when I was a boy pulling petals off of flowers over a childhood sweetheart.

“She loves me, she loves me not; she loves me, she loves me not.”

The insecurity of not knowing if my wife would love me one day and then not love me the next was incredibly difficult to live with. It wasn’t that she was always giving me a reason to feel insecure. There was just always something missing in our relationship, something I didn’t know how to describe, but I knew it was missing.

As it turned out, it was the same thing Janet was always missing that made her feel so insecure about our relationship. And neither one of us knew how to fix the problem because we never really understood the problem. We had times when our love for each other seemed strong enough, yet we both lived with the nagging feelings of not knowing how long our love would last.

The Wrong and Right Way To Let Go of Offence

There is a wrong way and a right way of letting go of the things that hurt you. When someone does us wrong or has bad behavior that offends us, we will often say “I just let it go,” or “I don’t even let it bother me.” But often when we think we are letting go of something that hurts us, the truth is the offence actually still has some effect on us and could be damaging to our future.

So what is the wrong way and the right way of letting something go?

Oh God, I Can’t Do This On My Own

When I think of the countless men and women who are fighting to save their marriage, my heart breaks and my eyes fill with tears. I may not know who you are or exactly what your situation looks like, but I do know how it feels when you cry, “Oh God, I can’t do this on my own!”

The pain in your heart is deeper than words can convey and the waves of torment that flood your mind are too much to bear. You fight through rejection and confusion and there are times you simply want to give up, but you won’t. There are times you want to cave into anger and bitterness, but you know you can’t. And then there are times you just want to fall apart, but you don’t.

You fight, you stand, you hang on because you believe in your marriage because you love your spouse because you love your family. Losing your spouse and family is not what you signed up for and you now find yourself going through HELL trying to keep your world from falling apart.

Should You Try to Save Your Marriage

There are many of you who are in a very difficult place right now. Your marriage is in trouble and all you know to do is stand your ground and save your marriage. You’re in one of the greatest challenges a person can face in life. And I know some of you ask yourself how much more you can take.

I want you to know Janet and I admire and appreciate every one of you facing this battle. It takes a lot of courage and conviction to take this stand. As many of you know I have been there, and I know too well how difficult it is.

Your story may be different than what I went through trying to save my marriage. But I still know the delicate balance you have to walk between heartache and hope. One minute your heart is so torn and broken you don’t think you can go any further. Then the next minute your heart is alive with the hope of your future if you can just hang on.

Don’t Throw Your Marriage Away, Save It.

I’ll be the first to admit I have a problem deciding when to throw something away and when to save it. The struggle I have is when I look at something thinking I might throw it away, I then think to myself, “maybe if I throw it away now I will one day in the future wish I still had it.” Because what I’m really trying to decide is, has this lost its usefulness to me, or does it still have some form of value to me?

That’s the same problem I see a lot people have when it comes to their marriage. They are trying to decide if their marriage has lost its usefulness to them or not. If they determine that it no longer has the value that it once did, such as “makes me happy,” “fulfills me,” “completes me,” or “satisfies all my needs,” they are ready then to dispose of it.

Growing Your Marriage Through Confession

These two simple words “I’m sorry,” can be so powerful for growing your marriage and yet these two words are so seldom heard.

I’m sure you know saying “I love you” is very important for a strong healthy marriage, but confessing your faults to each other and saying “I’m sorry, I was wrong” should be just as important to you as saying “I love you.”

Confessing you are wrong is actually a major part of demonstrating your love for your spouse. It can be an act of devotion to your marriage and love for your spouse for a number of reasons.
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