5 Sure-Fire Ways to Save Your Marriage!

It’s come to my attention that there are a bunch of married couples out there that are barely married and they are contemplating ending their marriage. 

You know who you are! 

You’re the ones who put on a good face for your friends, family and neighbors or at least attempt to.   You’re the ones who look at their spouse with frustration, anger and disgust.  You are the ones whose children are acting out at school, church and everywhere else for that matter. 

Now I don’t know all of the reasons why your marriage is a mess and I don’t know all of the pieces to the puzzle that has made up your messy marriage but I do know one thing…it doesn’t have to be that way!

Here's one scenario (of many possibilities) why your marriage has gone wrong, but please correct me if I'm wrong:

You got married, had a good thing going, worked like dogs, had a child, worked a little harder talked a little less and were a lot less intimate.  Your time became less about you two and more about the child.  Subsequent children added to that same pattern and communication and intimacy were basically squashed.  Your relationship became more like robots and instead of having a wife or a husband you ended up with a roommate who annoyed you because they didn’t understand you anymore and your needs were no longer met!  

Let’s add in the possibilities that other distractions entered the picture due to the lack of communication and intimacy – things like more work, hobbies, sports, video games, internet and other media and even friends.  

In fact, let’s throw in the messed up past of each person in the marriage, each other’s personalities and temperaments and the God-Hated sin we call Pride and BAM – you have one hot mess of a marriage!

Am I getting close?

There are probably a hundred different scenarios but  there are three words in the above scenario that might fit in any given scenario:  Lack of Communication and Intimacy and too much Pride! 

Want to fix this thing?  Then here are 5 surefire ways to turn the ship around:

1)      Work on your heart – You can’t change the heart of your spouse if your heart isn’t 100% committed to making your marriage work.  If you have relationship with Christ, then your heart has already been replaced with one that has the strength to save your marriage (2 Corinthians 5:17) if you are not then it will be harder.  In any case you have to get your game face on!

2)      Go to a Professional Christian Counselor – Seriously…do you really think you can solve this alone?  How well is that working for you now? Grow up – man or woman and find a counselor to talk to right away.  If you cannot afford it – first ask you insurance if it’s covered, if not, ask your local church if they would be willing to cover a session or two, or ask a friend or relative to pay for a session or two.  DO NOT LET PRIDE MAKE YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU DON’T NEED IT! EVERYONE NEEDS IT!!!!!!!!!  and if you say your spouse needs it but you don’t then guess what?….you need it the most!  Look here for one: http://www.aacc.net/

3)      Find out how to communicate to your spouse AGAIN – here’s the deal, the way you two communicated to each other when you were dating or early married is different now.  You must re-learn each other.  This requires help from a professional (see #1) and read these: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/. http://store.marriagetoday.com/ , http://tinyurl.com/ofvwsyv

4)      Date Your Spouse AGAIN – Get childcare and get out of the house with your spouse!  If your spouse asks what you are doing, tell them that you are committed to making your marriage work and that you are courting her/him again.  If your spouse doesn’t want to go out, then start working on having home dates and send the kids to friends’ houses and cook a nice dinner and make it special.  Don’t give up on this! Easier said than done but stay persistent and consistent.  Dating is the Best Marriage glue ever!

5)      Remove Pride in the Marriage – the letter “I” is in the middle of pride and pride always manifest itself in selfishness.  Pride in the marriage is self-centered and does not play nicely with others.  Satan uses pride to make us believe that our needs should come before our spouses and that’s not how God would have it.  See this article about Ephesians 5:21-32.  The marriage is all about God and then it’s about the other person and by the way the kids are simply welcome editions to the family not the focus.  God First, Spouse Second, Children Third!  

If the 5 suggestion above seem like too much trouble then perhaps, getting and paying for a lawyer, wrecking your children’s lives, finding another place and moving out, being alone, going through the dating process again and wrestling with God sounds easier? 

Sounds like hell to me!  Just trying to make you think before you pull the trigger!

Remember this… God is bigger than your troubles!  Nothing is impossible with Him – Even fixing your marriage!

Brian