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Part II: Tips on Handling Fights in Marriage

Marriage, Prayer

Why is handling fights in marriage carefully a Destined Initiative? Because marriage can make or break you… You want to reach your destiny with your marriage in one piece. Let’s be honest, divorce can set you back in quite a few ways. More importantly, marriage is sacred in God’s eyes, so it should be cherished even when it doesn’t feel good. The context of marriage can feel like a boxing ring, but we have to remember that our spouses are not the enemy (always, lol). You’ve undoubtedly second guessed your marriage at points in time, but you’re married now, so you have to roll with the punches and learn to love, respect, and forgive unconditionally. Check out these additional 5 tips on handling fights in marriage. (See the first 5 tips here)

1.Keep negative people out of your marital business. Misery loves company, so if you’re talking about your marriage with someone who’s miserable, bitter, hopeless, and not even trying to make things better, you can bet that the conversation will consist of endless spousal bashing with no hopes of a better day ahead.

There’s a difference between someone stating the truth in love and concern and being plain disrespectful. You don’t need that negativity in your head, so don’t even let them sow those seeds of discord. Quickly run away from anyone that talks negatively about your spouse after you’ve tactfully put them in their place! Your spouse is your other half, so any ill spoken words against them are spoken over you too!

Venting is a relieving exercise, but we have to condition ourselves to vent to God first because everyone shouldn’t know your business and it can become the hot gossip topic really quickly.

Be very cautious of getting advice regarding your marriage from people who aren’t skilled in resolving marital issues. Some people are not objective and mature enough to give you sound advice. They may be biased toward either of you and pass judgment and hold grudges beyond the forgiveness that takes place between you and your spouse.

The person that you discuss your marital issues with should be spiritually minded and willing to withhold from giving you advice if they don’t have anything constructive to say. They should encourage you to pray, pray with you and/or give a recommendation to someone that may be able to help you.

I learned quickly that everyone’s “good” advice caused entirely too much confusion. Talk to Jesus about everything first and if you’re still having a hard time managing the issue, seek wise counsel with someone who’d handle the issues with understanding and approach your marriage as a precious jewel that needs to be preserved.

2.Seek wise counsel. You don’t have to run for counsel for each argument you have. Please don’t burden people with every fight. Your line of communication to God should be in full operation, so technically, you should be able to resolve most of your marital problems between the two of you, but seek counsel if things seem to be breaking down faster than you can build them up. Get help if you notice any of the following situations:

  • You’re arguing uncontrollably every single day
  • You’re constantly arguing in front of your children or people outside your marriage
  • Your marital issues are drastically affecting your life and responsibilities outside of the home
  • There is physical, sexual, or extreme verbal abuse

If at all possible, try to be aligned on the decision to get counseling and who to get it from.

3.Meditate & believe that God will get glory somehow. As you wait on God to give you a resolution, remember that all things work to the good of those that love God and are called according to his purpose. Winning in marriage is a matter of real love. Maybe marriage is unbearable because either of you have an issue with love in general. Do you really love God with all your heart, mind, and soul? If so, obedience will follow and we’re supposed to love and forgive unconditionally. If your spouse is not a believer, then you have to be a light and win them with godly love. We have to be ministers to our spouses first before anyone else because happiness starts at home.

4.Cover your spouse no matter what. Covering your spouse is essentially covering your future together. During marital wars you may very well wish destruction, the wrath of God, or even death on your spouse. (Hey, I’m just being honest), but at the end of the day, you have a responsibility to cover your spouse’s imperfections with love, protect their reputation at all times, because once the resolution comes, you’ll want to move forward in life, but it’ll be hard to do that if you’ve vented your marital issues on social media or told the whole wide world that your spouse is a rotten egg. People won’t be as forgiving as you are and it’ll seem like they can remember your marital issues more than you can. Essentially, conflicts should boil down to bumps (or huge potholes) in the road that make you stronger and more experienced. Conflicts are opportunities to draw you closer to each other. Makeups seal the deal and they feel like honeymoons! Hey, who doesn’t like makeups?!

5.Bite the bullet! There will be plenty of times when you’ll have to take the beating for the team. You’ll have to eat that good old humble pie, admit when you’re wrong and apologize even when you didn’t intentionally mean to offend. A major goal of marriage is to make it to the end together as better people. When you stand your ground to prove that you’re right or hold a grudge unforgivably, it may send the message that you care more about being right than about the marriage as a whole.

Jesus is the perfect model of this kind of commitment. He made the decision to take on death for us, so that we could reconcile with him, be in relationship with him, and enjoy the benefits from being united with him as the holy bridegroom. This is LOVE. Sometimes it seems like marriage is full of suffering, denying yourself to pick up a cross and follow Jesus to honor the sacredness of marriage. Remember though, that those that suffer for the sake of obeying God and sticking to his standard of life, will reign with him in eternity. God will give you strength to endure to the end.

I’d love your feedback and/or grace us with some tips that you’d like to share.

5 Tips to Handle Lasting Disagreements in Marriage

Faith, Marriage, Prayer

Let’s face it, if you’re married, you’re more than likely to have disagreements that seem to last forever! Marital fights seem to be the ugliest of all. The best thing to do to resolve conflict is not always clear cut, especially when both husband and wife feel as though they are right and the other person is glaringly wrong. Lasting disagreements come about from issues in finances, fidelity, love life, work/life balance and etc. Sometimes, it may take an awfully long time to reach a point where there is complete peace in the matter. No matter what the issue is, these 5 Tips to Handle Lasting Disagreements in Marriage can help. (Be on the lookout for 5 Additional Tips on Handling Lasting Disagreements coming soon!).

1. Don’t stop doing what you’re supposed to do. When a conflict blows up, it’s tempting to let it to spill over into your routine responsibilities such as house chores and romance life. You’re only asking for more trouble if you give in to this temptation. When you stop doing what you’re supposed to do, you’re feeding into defeat and/or operating in pride. Trust me, I know that when you’re emotionally drained from fighting with your spouse, you don’t want to do anything, but pout and rebel, but if you don’t want irritate the situation more than it already is, do what you’re supposed to do simply because it’s the right thing to do. This will help isolate the disagreement to its own island and will minimize its effect on your marital life as a whole.

Try turning your negative energy into positive energy keeping in mind that you have a duty to build your home, not let it come crashing down. The greatest enemy of marriage would love to blow disagreements out of proportion to make you doubt your marriage’s longevity. Continue cooking, cleaning, giving those back rubs and “I love you’s” in faith that it’ll only be a matter of time before everything passes over. As a matter of fact, become perfect and blameless for your spouse because the enemy is accusing you of everything bad under the sun. The heat amid a fight is enough. Don’t add fuel to the fire by allowing the condition of your home to go down the drain.

2. Silence the noise of negative emotions. Through prayer and meditation on God’s Word, try not to get emotionally consumed by what’s not going right. Serious conflict has a way of vacuuming out any positive thoughts. During an argument notice how suddenly you forget about all the things you love about your spouse because all you see is everything that’s wrong and the words “always and never” start to surface. “You never do this good!” and “You always do this bad!” It’s not fair to fight like this because the recipient of those words starts to feel attacked, underappreciated, unloved, not forgiven and will go into defense mode. When you’re discussing marital issues, try to avoid these words because honestly, you would be in much more trouble if “always and never” were the reality.

As an argument comes to surface, try dealing with one issue at a time. In our emotions we jump from one argument to another. This accomplishes absolutely nothing! Believe it or not, conflicts should be productive in ironing out differences to become a better “one flesh,” but only if they’re handled effectively.

3. Focus on the good things as much as possible.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise”. Philippians 4:8 NLT

When I’m going through a tough time, often times you can find me singing, reading my Bible, and writing in my prayer journal. Now that’s not to say that I’ve achieved 100% perfection in how to handle difficulty, but I’ve come a long way! The reason I run to these sort of outlets is to put the situation in God’s hands. I need to free myself from defeating thoughts and emotions and get spiritual perspective. I’d ask God, what are you trying to do through this test? Why am I going through this? I’m not asking these questions because I think that I don’t deserve to go through it, but because all things work to the good of those that love God and I know that there’s purpose in everything I go through.

Focusing on good things doesn’t mean to deny the situation. This leads to the next tip.

4. Don’t deny the situation. Some people have a more passive nature and will altogether deny that there is a major disagreement in their marriage. Out of fear, some may not want to bring up certain issues with their spouse, so they walk on eggshells to keep the pseudo-peace, but this isn’t a wise way to handle disagreements. Because an argument can turn ugly really fast, sometimes it’s best to leave the topic alone for a while and seek God in prayer on how to resolve the matter, but please don’t ignore it. Rather than drop the ball on past issues, continue to pray about it because sooner or later it’ll come up again and it’ll bite you every time. God can work things out without you saying anything, but sometimes, God will involve you, but you have to have an ear to hear what he’d guide you to do.

After time has passed and emotions have calmed down, prayerfully bring the issue up for discussion, but don’t bring it up at an inappropriate time such as in front of other people, at a time with a lot of distractions, or during another argument. As you talk, take note of pain points, and take them to God in prayer to seek wisdom on how to deal with them. As you do this, you should notice that you are becoming more effective at discussing the issue, listening to each other’s perspectives and needs, and getting closer to a resolution.

The last and most important tip is probably the hardest tip to follow…

5. Fully surrender the situation to God. Speaking for myself, it’s not a major challenge to take a problem to the Lord in prayer. The struggle comes when I have to leave that thing there and wait for him to work it out. Out of impatience, I’ll try to put my hands on it and find a quick solution. No wonder the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing because then we’re consistently surrendering to God and overcoming the motives of the flesh.

Impatience is like scratching a mosquito bite. It only irritates the situation, makes things harder and delays healing and harmony between you and your other half. Conflict brings to surface a lot of different emotions and it’s hard managing them all. Some people have the felt need to put all their emotions on display so that their spouse can really see how they feel. Some may be numb and are beyond trying to reason with their spouse. Some feel the urge to escape to things that pacify them and some people want to leave the marriage altogether. This is fear, anxiety, pain and anger that are the opposite of faith. It takes genuine faith to fully surrender to God.

Successfully surrender things to God by venting to him. Venting is different from politically correct communication (lol) because it involves all the raw emotion. Venting to God is so powerful because you’re not venting to any random person. You’re bringing it to the Sovereign One who can not only tell you everything you need to know about you, your spouse, and the disagreement, but he can also change turn it around. Although he knows you and the problem better than you do, he appreciates when you tell him all the fine details because it builds intimacy and trust in him. You make your problems smaller and God bigger. Pray, fast, meditate on scripture, write in your prayer journal, praise, and worship the Lord Jesus. All these outlets are various avenues to relinquishing your troubles to the master marriage counselor.

Destined Initiative:

Why is handling marriage carefully a Destined Initiative? Because it can either make you or break you… Let’s be honest, divorce can set you back from achieving your expected end in God in quite a few ways. More importantly, marriage is sacred in God’s eyes, so it should be cherished even when it doesn’t feel good. The context of marriage can feel like a boxing ring, but we have to remember that our spouses are not (always, lol) the enemy. The enemy works in cunning ways and will try to throw confusion in the mix to make you wonder about your other half, but if you’re married, it’s too late for second thoughts, now you have to roll with the punches and learn how to love, respect, and forgive unconditionally. You are an overcomer! Go get that blessed married life!

Drop a comment and share some other tips you use to handle lasting disagreements. We could all use extra enrichment!

 

5 Myths About Destiny

Marriage, Purpose

There are many definitions of the word “destiny”. What a person believes about life, death, and eternity determines their beliefs about destiny. If a person doesn’t believe in an afterlife, then they may think that destiny starts and ends on earth. I think that this leads to “living life to the fullest” with no regard of consequences in eternity. Some believe in reincarnation, or that hell doesn’t exist; some believe that this life is the only hell that’ll exist. I believe that the Bible tells us everything we need to know about reaching destiny. Unfortunately, there are many believers in Jesus that have the wrong concept of what destiny is. Our destiny is intimately connected to fulfilling our God given purpose (see It’s Time to Grow up and find your purpose! for more on Purpose). It’s highly important to have the correct understanding about destiny and how to achieve it, because we don’t want to go through life aiming for something that isn’t apart of God’s plan. Anything outside of his plan will not stand the test of time and will lead to a life of wasted time, energy, and effort… So let’s discuss five myths about destiny: continue reading

Happiness Starts at Home

Faith, Marriage, Prayer

Sometimes our lives can seem like an utter wreck and for various reasons, most likely a combination of reasons such as relationship problems, financial struggles, being stretched out too far and not having time for what matters most, or internal issues such as low self-esteem, fear, and etc. On the other extreme, our lives can be so predictable and monotonous, that the mechanisms we’ve put into place for that pseudo security have locked out creativity and room for transformation. Some may fall in between these extremes, but have a general dissatisfaction with where they are and where they’re headed. As much as we’d like to get things straightened out and reinvent ourselves, it can be hard figuring out where to start. When I’m stuck, I’m always reminded to keep first things first. I can go down the list and start accessing my priorities in my quality time with God, my role as wife, mother, and homemaker and determine where things need to be put back into order, so that I can experience God’s pleasure in me. This is why I say that Happiness Starts at Home. continue reading