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Making the most of your Marriage

8:12am Saturday, 14th August 2010

Marriage is   a special gift that should be treated with care. There are many books and resources teaching couples how to build their marriage. This column is from “The Mens series” and it’s designed to give men three don’ts and three dos to help grow your marriage.
First, don’t expect your wife to behave the
way she did when you first got married. Many men are wondering; what happened to that fabulous woman that I married all those years ago? What happened to the woman who always laughed at my jokes, watched me play sport, cooked great meals and always found me irresistibly attractive? We need to understand that relationships grow and change.
Secondly, don’t take your marriage for granted, many men behave as if now that they’re married they can get back to their life. They think that all the loving, winning and caring they did previously was only the lead-up work for marriage and now they can sit back and relax.
Thirdly, don’t believe that disagreements are bad, the idea that a good marriage will never have an argument is crazy. When disagreements come up, you should behave with love and respect.   It should be OK for your wife to disagree with you, challenge you, and bring you up when you fall short. A wife shouldn’t act like your mother and treat you as a wonderful and brilliant boy. She should act like your wife and partner, somebody who is willing to disagree with you and stand up to you.
So what about the “dos”, first set the temperature of the family. In Ephesians 5:23-25 Paul challenges men to lead the family, this is not about ruling and controlling your wife. It’s actually demanding something much harder than that. Christ gave Himself to the church completely and totally in service. If you’re going to lead your family, you need to be the leader in service. You need to set the temperature in love and care and be the leader through your words and encouragement. Quite often within family, rather than taking the lead in spiritual things, the men are the dead weight of the family, dragged along by a wife and often unwilling kids. You need to be more than just the leader in tasks around the house, but the spiritual leader as well.
Secondly, learn the best way to express love to your wife. If you’re going to build your relationship and marriage, you need to learn how to express your love best. Love is much more than a feeling and it’s more than any overwhelming inner-desire or attraction to your wife. In 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 Paul makes it clear that love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action. Love describes what you do, not how you feel. If you only express love to your wife when you ‘feel it’, then you will be disappointed and so will she. Love is a choice of your will. You need to express love in what you do, how you speak and how you behave. You need to find out how your wife likes to have love expressed to her and follow through with it.
Finally, be the right person. A good marriage is about being the right person not marrying the right person. In Pauls letter to Colossi (Colossians 3:12-14) he reminds them and us to clothe ourselves with the right actions and attitudes. It is clear that love is something that you do, not something that you feel; you put on the clothes of the right approach and attitude to your relationships. This will help build a great marriage.
Karl Faase from “The Mens series
www.themensseries.com.au