What has happened to our world that marriage has no true commitment value any longer? No finger pointing as I have been married twice, three if you count marrying Julie twice. It seems so simple now, treat your wife as if she were your best friend, which she should be. And of course the reverse for your husband. Julie and I work our marriage as a triple braided cord with Christ as the center strand. We still have issues but we rarely if ever get into the blame game. I have friends who I love dearly but Julie is the only one I know that truly has my back 24/7. Isn't that the way it is supposed to be? I am big on personal responsibility and I imagine I haven't always been the most solid friend, but who should and can you count on when the chips really are down. You can marry for looks, or sex, or money, or whatever, but shouldn't we all be looking and wanting someone to care for us no matter what? Now I have this with Christ and if something were to happen to Julie He would sustian me. If you read the Bible though, God did not just create intimacy just for procreation. We should be bound to our spouse as we are one, as an extension of our own body. If you were not as coordinated with one hand as the other would you cut it off?
When someone comes to me to speak of challeges with a spouse I always ask them if they could be married to themselves. That's why Julie is so awesome because I probably wouldn't put up with me.haha There are definite situations where one spouse is acting worse than another. This is why we should do our best to marry someone we truly like. We accept the faults of people we like, but expect our spouses to be near perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, especially ladies, men to a great deal and people in general don't change just because you say they should. If you are in a shaky or bad marriage please turn to Christ. First it will give you someone for support. Next as you may not be feeling good about yourself He will show you the love you deserve. This will allow you to survive and give you the heart to try and find out why your spouse is loving you properly. Now if you are in a dangerous mental or physically abusive relationship get out!! These other rules don't apply because harm is different than disagreement. For just the bad relationships though we need to try and understand why our spouse is acting out. I do not believe there are a handful of truly evil, mean, or unlovable people out there. If you married them, for the most part, they have some redeeming quality. Their actions are from anger, hurt, fear, and a bigee past emotional pain. There are numbers of good Christian relationship books out there to help and in the beginning you may be the only one working at it. Christ will give you the strength if you lean on Him. Yours in Christ