Marriage Advice that Will Make a Difference

Maybe you stumbled across this article after another night full of frustration. You and your spouse have tossed around the divorce word more than once. Or maybe it’s been years since you’ve had a fight with your spouse because you’ve emotionally checked out of the relationship.

The only thing keeping your marriage intact is the thought of your children. Although it hurts to admit, you are desperate for a solution. You might even be asking, “Is it even possible to salvage my marriage?”

The good news is you can actually stop fighting and starting loving each other again. Here are four practical ways to start saving your marriage today.

Tip #1: Put your marriage first

Marriage frequently gets put on the backburner. Your love was once a blazing fire but has since been snuffed out. When you get married it’s similar to moving into a home. What happens if you never perform any maintenance on the once immaculate home? The faucet leaks, the grass is overgrown and there’s mold in the kitchen.

Your marriage needs maintenance just like your home does. Weekly talks with your spouse about the state of your marriage will keep you drawing closer instead of drifting apart.

If you’ve been ignoring your marital problems by investing all your time into work or kids, it’s time to adjust your priorities and make some deposits to your marriage. Careers and kids aren’t bad, but your marriage should take priority over both.

Here a few practical practices I have found helpful over the years to make your marriage a priority.

• Pray together daily.
• Share with each other what you’re learning in your spiritual walk.
• Build each other up instead of breaking each other down.
• Look for opportunities to build confidence into your spouse’s insecurities.
• Take a walk every day to discuss the highs and lows of your day.
• Read books on building a better marriage.
• Serve together in the community or at church.
• Find a fun activity that you both enjoy.
• Sprinkle spontaneous moments of romance or appreciation throughout the day.

If you evaluate your marriage and don’t see any of these tips working for you, consider bringing a counselor into your strategy for saving your marriage.

Tip #2: Stop keeping score

Are you still upset about something that happened five years ago? Do you bring it up and throw it in your spouse’s face every chance you get? This is not to say that we shouldn’t talk through issues in a productive, healthy manner, but keep moving forward once something has been resolved.

Marriage is a constant battle between swallowing your pride and living sacrificially. Many marriages get stuck in one place instead of extending grace, practicing forgiveness and moving on with life.

Ephesians 4:32 gives us a lesson that’s hard to put into practice when we are filled with unforgiveness or brimming with bitterness. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

When you stop keeping score, you can begin to reflect on your own personal character flaws. How has your behavior contributed to the problem? What could you do today to take a step toward healing the marriage instead of adding additional harm? Erasing the score and giving your spouse a clean slate is one place to start.

Tip#3: Be the change you want to see in your marriage

As the saying goes, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” It sounds slightly ridiculous, but there’s truth in its simplicity. We’re creatures of habit and some patterns get hardwired into the way we operate. A husband may only want headlines from their wife’s day, but the wife wants to share the entire newspaper. She longs for emotional intimacy before even contemplating physical intimacy, but her husband would rather have physical intimacy and shuns the emotional attachment his wife desires.

This can create an unhealthy pattern in your marriage. The first step in changing a pattern is recognizing the part you play in it. Resistance may arise as you change directions, but persistence is key if you want to see lasting results.

Using the example above, the wife can start being honest about what she needs for a fulfilling romantic relationship. She may offer a boundary like, “I become more interested in romantic activities when we spend time talking with each other after I come home from work.”

The wife might get some negative feedback from the husband, but gentle firmness will help show she is serious about her stance. Hopefully, the husband is concerned about making sure physical intimacy is enjoyable for the wife, too, and will try to improve in areas that build overall intimacy.

Tip #4: Commitment is greater than chemistry

Those rose-colored glasses seem to vanish after a while in marriage. Feelings fade fast when reality sets in. Bills flood your mailbox, arguments on how to manage finances erupt, children demand your energy, and work consumes more time than it should. The scenes of your marriage don’t match the expectations you formed in your imagination.

Marriage often has a tendency to expose each spouse’s flaws. Either things you didn’t know were problems are uncovered or the problems you already had are magnified. Good looks won’t last and money can be here one day and gone the next. Yes, there needs to be chemistry, but above all else, there needs to be a commitment to each other.

If your marriage is built on a friendship foundation first, you are more likely to respect each other and not want to leave your spouse. If your marriage is built on lust and physical encounters, the marriage can crumble at the first sign of trouble. As your feelings fluctuate, so does your willingness to stay married.

If you notice that friendship is absent, take time to develop a friendship again. Genuinely get to know your spouse and study her likes, dislikes, passions, and ideas. See your spouse from a different perspective, as someone who is beautifully different from you but who still wants to be known and understood. A lot of marital problems exist because spouses never realized their differences and how to communicate through those differences.

Instead of fixating on falling out of love, turn your attention to walking in love as Ephesians 5:1-2 tells us: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

How Christian Counseling Can Help Save Your Marriage

Sometimes couples can’t see past their pain to apply the tips mentioned in this article. In those situations, a professional counselor can help dissect and decipher some of the underlying issues. Involving an unbiased third-party in your plan for saving your marriage is one way to see patterns you might have missed and work together to attack problems instead of your partner.