I will be
honest with you; not many people told me things that were actually helpful
before I got married. It became really easy to identify who would give me what
sort of advice. The ones who had gone through several serious marital (or
nearly marital) relationships would “wish me luck” with a sarcasm that said
their relationships had been poisonous, so I should expect that too. The ones
who had worked through a marriage that was difficult always said that the
rose-coloured glasses would come off, and I was in for a rough life. People who
were happy in their marriage were most genuine in wishing me a blessed future,
usually saying – quite honestly – that marriage is hard, sometimes, but also a
great joy. When I married, the advice had been so inconsistent, I wasn’t sure
what to expect, and I found that all of the advice and none of it truly applied
to us. There were some things, however, that I wished people had told me before
I married; since people are marrying every day, I wanted to share these things
and hopefully help others either about to be married, new to marriage, or
perhaps even wrinkling. The list is, of course, determined by my personal
experiences, so it won’t apply exclusively.
1. People
say that if you act in the way you want your partner to act, they will change.
I think a lot of women translate this to “if I always serve my husband well in
this action, he will serve me well in ____” Sorry. It doesn’t work that way.
You have to actually say: “I consider this service to be an equal to this
service. Even though it’s hard for me to ____, I do that out of love for you. I
know ______ is hard for you, but could you sacrifice a little in honour of
mine?” It isn’t selfish to ask for what you want as long as you’re
willing to allow your spouse to ask for what he or she wants.
2. We’ve
all heard that we shouldn’t nag and we need to love our spouses in spite of
faults, but you occasionally need to lecture each other. You don’t have
parents, anymore, who can tell you your motives are off, your actions are
childish, or you’re doing something wrong. The hard thing is to choose those
lectures well, and I will emphasize the word sparingly. You might only need to say one sentence, depending on
how well you phrase and communicate what you’re saying. Make sure you aren’t
being accusatory, have the right motives, and be certain that you’re actually
pointing out something that will make a permanent difference in your lives. You
don’t need to lecture your spouse about not doing the dishes or remembering a
promise, because those are temporary and can be fixed gently. You may need to
call attention to ways that your spouse handles stress or manipulates you, with
or without realizing.
3. And
here’s the one that might make people uncomfortable, but I’m going to say it
anyway, because it has been vital to my own marriage and is applicable to all
marriages: have sex as often as the spouse with the highest sex drive wants
to have sex. Better yet, if one of you feels the inclination, it had better
happen. This will be really hard for the
person with the lower sex drive. There is no way around it, because you are
two people with two different brains and two different bodies. Why do I emphasize
this so strongly? Because infidelity is one of the top reasons for divorce.
Adultery on the side of the man is a little more complicated than that (my next
point), but in general, why shouldn’t you err on the safe side? Paul says
people should marry so that they don’t have to “burn with passion” (1
Corinthians 7:9). If your spouse is interested in sex and you say you aren’t
interested or you’re tired, they will desire a release elsewhere, even if that
wouldn’t be their first inclination. Obviously, the first inclination was to
share passion with you! It is a sacrifice, but it’s worth it.
4. Men
aren’t made like women. Relationships to women are permanent, lasting, and are
maintained even over long distances. To men, they are temporary, and it’s not
so important to keep friends as to have them. When a woman moves from Arkansas
to Colorado, she’s going to keep in touch with all her friends and probably
make new ones. A guy will just make new friends and often not worry too much
about past ones. All this to say: most men aren’t unfaithful because they
want to be. Because men and women view relationships so differently, I
would imagine that many couples deal with unfaithfulness on some level or
other, whether it be looking at pictures of other women, watching pornography,
wanting other women (fleetingly or not), or sleeping with them. This is
something that women, as wives, teach their husbands – to value the
relationship and remember that it is meant to be maintained over time. And they
will probably have to do it multiple times. Wives, it is crushing, and it will
break your heart, but it isn’t because he doesn’t love you or want you. He just
needs to learn to constantly remind himself that he chose you, and by choosing
you, he chose to forsake all others. And you can help by reminding him and being
understanding and loving when he slips.
There are other things, of course,
that have been helpful, such as “Don’t expect your spouse to
read your mind.” Oh, yes. I needed that one. Or, my personal favourite: “your
spouse will do things that drive you crazy. Get over it.” Essentially, marriage
is hard in that people are selfish beings. When you aim to serve your spouse in
your marriage, it seems like every hardship is smoothed over as a result of service itself. If something is hard, it’s probably because one of you is holding
on to something and refusing to step out of the “safe” or “comfortable” zone.
Once you recognize that, you can attack a problem by seeking out whatever may be holding you back and fixing it.
And speaking of service, I should fix
my husband’s lunch.
