How do You Keep Your Valentine Your Valentine?

-

How do you keep your valentine your valentine? My husband and I have been married for 30 years now. That pales in comparison to some we know but is also far ahead of others we know. What makes a marriage work year after year? Here’s 10 nuggets I think can help us in our marriage.

1.    During disagreements, commit to find and understand your spouse’s perspective instead of INSISTING they understand yours.

2.    It doesn’t necessarily matter that you disagree or even how often you disagree but what matters more is your commitment to not necessarily “win” the disagreement or get concession from your spouse to your viewpoint but moreso come to an agreement that favors both of you. Every marriage has disagreements, how you resolve them is what matters most.

3.    Ask yourself these questions. Did you show love and respect in the heat of the disagreement? If not, what can you do differently next time? Apply your answers next go around.

4.    Before you expect your spouse to understand your emotions you need to understand your emotions. Emotions are always heated in the moment. If you cannot rationalize that your spouse has a place and a say in your disagreement because of your emotions you need to step back and break away for a moment to cool off and gather yourself. Heated words in the name of “resolving the matter” never bring forth good results.

5.    Anger, resentment, frustration and even competitiveness have no room in any arguments with our spouse. If we recognize these in ourselves or our spouse we need to put an end to the discussion momentarily. Unless you can truthfully assess what things may be like from your spouse’s viewpoint you shouldn’t continue the effort to resolve the disagreement. 

6.    Don’t ever minimize the emotions of your spouse. Don’t tell them something they’ve come to you with is not a big deal, that they are overreacting or that they are wrong. Make an effort to find out why they are feeling the way they are feeling.

7.    AVOID the inclination to defend yourself and attack your spouse. We all tend to get defensive very quickly and it never leads to true reconciliation.

8.    Understand you bring plenty to the arena of conflict within your marriage. Recognize that as much as you think your spouse has to work on, you have just as much. Amplify your own faults (to yourself) and praise your spouse’s strengths. 

9.     Sometimes it takes only one of us in the marriage in the heat of the moment to lay aside ego, lay aside the right to be right, to lay aside the insistence of making your point the right point. Recognize when you need to be that one. 

10.    ALWAYS take the time to pray together...even if it’s only 5 minutes, pray together!

Putting these nuggets to practice on a regular basis will take time and commitment but when you do your marriage will, step by step, become an unshakable force that nothing can divide. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JUNE

-
For some reason God has highlighted different months to me in different years. Back in 2012 God spoke to me in January that the month of May would be significant and that was the only detail He released until May was upon us and the month was most definitely significant. I have seen God be faithful over and over again as He has breathed a word on a particular month and He is doing that with June. God is desiring to move in a might way but the truth is He needs our cooperation. This is really one of the main points of prophetic words going forth so that the people who have ears to hear can begin to prepare for what is ahead of them and pull on the promise of the prophetic to get them through difficult moments reminding themselves of the promises of God to get them through. I know God is faithful, I know He is reliable to perform His word, almost obligated to do so. I will hold on to those promises I know are from the throne of God whether spoken directly to me by God or through a yi...
Read more

What is a Good Marriage?

-
Image
What's a good marriage? How would you define it in your mind? Is it a spouse that makes you "happy." What is making you happy? Is it meeting your every desire and whim? Is that a good spouse? I beg to differ. I believe a good spouse is one that, yes, knows your desires, knows your likes, knows your wants and from time to time randomly surprises you with such. I see (mostly wives) post that they have the "best" husband in the WHOLE world. Really?? That's a pretty big role to fill and yet an expectation that especially young brides place on their husbands. This statement is usually made after their husband has "made them happy" about something. I don't believe there is any "best in the whole world" husband out there. I believe he or she is the best for YOU even in the most when he or she is not giving into your tantrums and/or hissy fits. A good spouse challenges us in our weak areas. A good spouse is willing to point out to us what...
Read more

God’s Righteousness vs. Our Inability

-
Image
Jesus covers us BUT He doesn’t excuse us. We have all sinned, yes, we have all fallen short, yes. (Romans 3:23) We’ve seen the pictures of Jesus being the bridge connecting our inability to God’s righteousness making us the righteousness of God. Jesus covered us so we CAN become the righteousness of God by remaining IN HIM. (2 Cor. 5:19) Does Jesus covering us say go do what you want, be what you want with no regard as long as you have accepted Jesus into your heart you’re good, He has you covered? If the answer is yes then we’re saying repentance, surrender and obedience aren’t required when we know biblically they are.  Philippians 2:12 tells us it’s important to continue in obedience AND to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And, of course there’s Romans 6:15 that asks a question and answers it for us...If God’s grace covers us can we continue in sin and then answers with a certainly not. My question is if righteousness covers all then why not? What is the true stam...
Read more