Cheryl and I believe in date nights. We actually believe in date days and date weekends and date vacations. Obviously, with our children mostly grown stretching dates over several days becomes easier for us to do, but the point is we have made a practice of spending quality and quantity time together on a regular basis. It’s perhaps been a key to protecting and growing our marriage.
I have talked to dozens of marriages in need of help, but the couples are too ashamed or proud to ask for it or accept it. Somehow, I think if we admitted that all marriages struggle at times, it would help the ones in trouble to seek the help they need.
All eyes are always on the minister’s family and having been on both sides as a full-time vocational minister and years as someone with a full-time secular job, let me assure you that most pastors feel the pressure to live up to the standards of excellence people have set. I’m thankful I have a great marriage (most days) and two great boys. I’m fine with you making decisions about me based on my family life, but still, I, too, sense the pressure to live up to a set of unrealistic expectations at times.
I have tried this quick assessment with marriages in distress several times and it opens the couple’s eyes and my eyes to the real state of their marriage. If you are dealing with a marriage following a major event, mistake or disappointment, considering trying this process. If the marriage in distress is yours, considering a self-assessment of your marriage.
Every 7-year period in a marriage appears to create additional stress to the marriage. I have never understood the phenomenon, and I have no statistical data to support my observations, but I have seen the results of it many times.
I wouldn’t advise my children to try this, but…so far…it’s worked for my grandparents. This week marks 70 years of marriage for them…and they only had 3 dates prior to being engaged. They knew each other a grand total of 10 days.
I realize when I give this advice some immediately rebel against it, because they fear their marriage will be pushed over the edge if they address the problem. When there is a severe crippling problem in a marriage that goes unchallenged, however, one spouse will suffer in more areas of life than just the marriage. (If this is your situation, you already know that to be true.) The problems in the marriage will affect the person’s health, job performance, and entire well-being, not to mention the marriage will never be all God intends it to be.
When you worth is in held captive by an imperfect person, you will find yourself facing unmet expectations many times. While I believe strongly that each spouse has a responsibility to develop him or herself personally, the fact remains that your spouse will never totally meet all your needs.
Many men are relationally challenged. It’s not that we don’t want to have great marriages, but we are often weak when it comes to knowing how to build them. Often the problem is that we have the wrong ideas about the role each of us is to play in the marriage and it affects how we treat them. Men, see if any of these fit for how you’ve been relating to your wife.
Stop for just a minute and think of one couple whose marriage you would love your marriage to look like. Ask them if you can hang out with them, exchange emails with them, or if they will make themselves available to your marriage. Let their iron sharpen your iron.
