GPS to a Joyful Marriage

Ephesians 5:33 – “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Nowhere in the Bible is the wife commanded to love her husband.  There is reference to her teaching the younger women to love their husbands in Titus 2:3-4, but other than that, women are only called to respect their husbands.  Men, on the other hand, are instructed, repeatedly, to love their wives. God is so cool how he works out every little detail!  What is the most important need for a woman?  To be loved!  All women desire to feel loved above everything else. And for a man, his desire above all else is to be respected. So God’s word directs us, very clearly, that women should respect their husbands and men should love their wives.  When we do that, we are fulfilling our spouse’s deepest emotional needs.  When we neglect these needs, the vicious cycle begins. It begins slowly and very subtly.  We start takin...

The most challenging vicious cycle we often fall into at some point during marriage, is that caused by intimacy and sex.  I know I’ve discussed intimacy and sex numerous times before, but it is always worth repeating.  They say that sex is the barometer that measures the health of a marriage. We need to keep intimacy healthy in our relationships. Generally speaking, women and men differ in their ideas of intimacy. Women’s strongest desire is for emotional intimacy while men desire physical intimacy.  Most women feel the closest to their spouse through conversation and undivided attention.  They don’t desire sex until their emotional intimacy levels are met.  Men, on the other hand, don’t feel emotional intimacy until after the physical act of sex. That’s when they feel closest to their spouse. They won’t think about emotional intimacy until their sex needs have been met. So here we see a conflict that quickly develops into a vicious cycle if not properl...

Through our many years in marriage ministry, Rick and I have narrowed down four areas that we believe are detrimental to a successful marriage relationship – communication, love and respect, intimacy and sex, and priorities.   We have also discovered a pattern of vicious cycles in each of these areas that we all fall into at one point or another.  The secret to a joyful marriage is to never fall into those cycles or learn how to break them. I want to start with the vicious cycle of communication.  Communication is the key to all we do. For example: lack of money is certainly an issue in a marriage, but the way we communicate the issue with our spouse is what makes it a big problem.  We go into marriage communicating the way our parents taught us to, good or bad.  I come from a family where we didn’t talk about issues; we buried them in the sand.  My father’s word was the only word, so I held everything in and never expressed my true feelings....

Okay.  I think I’ve established the fact that communication efforts between men and women are complicated.  Unfortunately, we aren’t told that we need to learn a foreign language when we enter into matrimony. Yes, we women speak very different English from our spouses.  Half the battle, like most anything, is the realization of the problem.  Once you grasp the differences and no longer allow them to drive you crazy, you can easily learn to communicate with your spouse. Your focus should be on your spouse’s needs, not your own.  Allowing yourself to become annoyed at their words that conflict with your desires (unless they criticize you personally) is a selfish act. Putting your spouse’s needs ahead of your own is just a polite way of saying, “Stop being so selfish.”  Selfishness will always cause severe friction in a marriage and usually leads a couple to divorce.  I’ve seen some people tolerate a selfish spouse for many years, but it tak...