No marriage, no matter how good, is immune to tough times. The inevitable bad things in life that come into every marriage don’t have to harm the marriage, in fact bad things can strengthen a marriage. A destructive marriage myth says, “Everything good in a marriage should get better in time.”
What makes a good marriage? A good marriage is built by the couple’s capacity to adjust to bad things.
Why do tough times come in marriages?
1. Unfulfilled expectations.
2. Unexamined selves.
Lamentations 3:40 Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.
3. Unskilled couples.
4. Unhealthy choices.
Joshua 24:15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.
5. Unpredictable circumstances.
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6 Things That Can Sneak Up on Marriages:
1. Busyness – regardless of the reason, most husbands and wives agree that they are too busy. To battle busyness, your marriage neeeds to be defined as “urgent” in your list of priorities. Schedule time for the marriage well in advance.
2. Irritability -when we are stressed, we become cranky and grouchy with our partners. Most of us justify our irritability with thoughts like, “This isn’t really me treating my mate poorly; I’m really a caring person. This is just me after a grueling day. The real me will show up later.” We have to be conscious on how we treat our spouse.
Proverbs 21:19 Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
3. Boredom – we have to fight boredom by speaking up and reawakening your former interests. Read the passage below and be reminded that boredom begets temptation.
David and Bathsheba
1 Samuel 11:1-2 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,
4. Drift – two things to do to reverse drift: reorder your priorities and include your partner in your life.
5. Debt – the keys to financial freedom are: give, budget and become accountable.
6. Pain from the past – many couples enter marriage carrying scars and wounds from a painful past that has nothing to do with their partner. Sooner or later the past pain becomes part of the marriage.
Philippians 3:13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
