Saying a prayer for you and your marriage!

You can’t see it, but I’m applauding this comment. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.

Great word picture there! Love that. And I recall my wonderful flute teacher (I played in high school) noting that if a musical phrase or song’s measure was difficult for you, that’s where you have to focus more attention to work out the kinks and get it right. So true in marriage as well, right? But she also would tell me that if I got frustrated doing that, to play through the parts I’d mastered and loved to remind myself of the beauty of the music as a whole.

(Hey, maybe we need a post here on what musical mastery can teach us about marriage mastery… ☺)

My encouragement to all of us … grab a bag of M&Ms or whatever we consider a reward and each time we make a healthy choice, reward ourselves. Thanks for the reminder, J.

OK, now for the serious part of my response. First of all, I don’t read marriage articles or books to save my marriage. I have a wonderful bride of over 30 years. We both realize our marriage is two imperfect people with a perfect God trying to make a life together. That means there will be ups and down, we will disappoint each other at times, yet we will reach highs as well as lows. I read marriage articles that focus on scripture, in context and not looking to promote a personal agenda, because I want my marriage to always be improving, realizing it will never be perfect.

One of the primary pieces of information I have learned from books on marriage (online articles obviously weren’t a thing early in our marriage) was not to go complaining about one’s spouse to other people. Most people, unless they are a true friend and bold in their convictions, will agree with you that your spouse should never do such and such, encouraging your discontent. The other thing I learned early on is that I am responsible for myself, not my wife. I fully agree with scripture when Paul states a wife is to submit to her husband (it really doesn’t matter if I agree with any part of scripture, it doesn’t make it less true). However, it is not a command to me. I am not told to make my wife submit, I am told to love my wife as Christ loves the church, something that is impossible to actually do, but I hope I have come closer to this goal as I have matured. Therefore, your advice in this article is outstanding. While one can encourage their spouse to change, it is not up to them. Trying to force change will only bring frustration. From my experience, looking at myself and examining where I need to change (it is not typically “if” I need to change) tends to encourage my wife to change in ways that also improves our marriage. Yes, there have been issues that have had to be directly addressed, but these have been far and few. Most of the time it is simply complacency; getting too busy with other things to prioritize our marriage, letting kids become a priority instead of each other, military deployment taking over every thought rather than giving each other the support needed, etc. When my focus is not on what my wife can do better but is instead on how am I doing as a husband, how am I doing in my walk with Christ, and how am I doing in handling life, I find I can give her the support she needs to also be more emotionally healthy, which then makes our marriage more healthy.