Relationships can be as tough as they can be sweet. The challenges of life do not spare marriage. Marriage as an institution come with its own troubles as beautiful as it can be.
The issue however is the ability to handle it the way challenges are handled in other areas of life.
Success in any endeavor is driven by vision and the resolve to drive through the inhibitions and the challenges to arrive at the target, doing everything necessary to get there.
Most endeavours in life would require some interactions with material, financial and human resources to achieve success. When we treat the factors right, dealing with each as it should be dealt with, it produces its potentials towards overall success.
In marriage, retaining, maintaining and growing love is the goal and that’s also the target of the challenges which if not properly managed can hurt the heart, drain love and fill the heart with hatred and resentment.
Love makes us vulnerable. When we lose loved ones to death or to breakups we feel hurt and we are pained. When a friend betrays love and trust, we become heartbroken. Love makes us vulnerable, the ones we love the most can hurt the most. And relationships and marriage are driven by love with the potential of being hurt.
If love is not managed and properly maintained, it may break and so lose its contents. It is like a glass jar holding the things we cherish the most which must not be broken.
Saving marriage is saving the love that binds the marriage. Love means care. It means seeking the wellbeing and the pleasures of the other. Love means freedom in the trust that the other won’t be disturbed and can accommodate the openness of responsible freedom. Perfect love cast out fear.
Saving marriage is in saving the love that binds. Love must be free to express itself and must be empowered to always have its way against the things that militate against it.
Pride is a major enemy of love. Pride holds one back from expressing love. It makes one feel like begging for love. It makes one feel lower than one is. Watch out for pride if you want to save your marriage. Pride and love don’t help one another.
Watch out for fear and distrust if you want to save your marriage. Love and fear don’t work together. If your spouse is afraid of you for whatever reason, love won’t stay much longer. Whatever is causing that fear must be expunged to save love and preserve marriage. It may be physical or psychological but if there is an iota of fear, love is threatened.
If you are afraid or you have fear or distrust for your spouse, you’ll have to bring it up to deal with to save your marriage. Your fear will militate against your love for your spouse. Marriage isn’t a place to be afraid.
Offenses threaten love and can hurt marriage badly. When we are offended or we feel offended we hurt. Little things hurt some people but it means those little things matter to them. We must honor our spouses by understanding and being sensitive to the things that matter to them the most so as not to offend them. We didn’t get married so that we can be close enough to offend and hurt one another even if it’s unavoidable that those who are closer can hurt more.
It’s unthinkable that a spouse will deliberately hurt or offend his or her partner. That’ll be outright wickedness. But how do we get to that point? When we don’t want to see that the other person won’t want to hurt us deliberately, we seek to retaliate or to do something that would make them see how bad what they had done is. This threatens love.
We may mistakenly hurt one another but we must ever be ready to forgive offenses. We must seek to heighten the bar of our vulnerability to offenses. We shouldn’t take offense before asking questions. And if we aren’t satisfied with explanations we may demand an apology and bury the hatchet right there and then.
Be careful not to keep a catalogue of wrongs suffered. It’ll eventually hurt love and lose the marriage. Forgive, get healed and move on.
We don’t have any right to punish our spouses for offenses they commit as if disciplining children. Of course, we wonder where justice is when those that love us can’t pay for the hurts they cause us? These are part of the essence of love. Love suffers long. But we must also understand that in marriage founded on love, you hurt when your spouse hurts, even if that hurt is caused by you directly or indirectly. Our spouses hurt when we hurt.
It constitute an abuse if you have to punish your spouse for offenses. Rather talk it over with the aim of forgiving and moving on in love and in happiness.
Anyone who takes offense too easily, who won’t forgive quickly but would rather retaliate and punish a spouse may need therapy before such destroys his or her marriage.
If your marriage is important to you, then make sure you work to save it. Maintain love and care for one another, be slow to anger, let it be for only a moment, forgive quickly, don’t seek to retaliate and don’t keep a record of wrongs suffered to allow them affect your actions and reactions to your spouse. Beware of offenses, either in offending your spouse or in getting offended.
Being slow to anger, keeping it only for a moment and forgiving quickly are things we inherit from our Father, God, everyone born of God has them… They form the salvation attitude, it’ll work also for the saving of your marriage.
[My Offline Bible] Psalms 103
8. The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
9. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.
10. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
[My Offline Bible] Psalms 30
5. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Now, go and tell your husband or wife, what you just read and share it with your friends, it’ll help someone.
Have a loving and lovely weekend!
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