Marriage reveals what is going on in our hearts. If we take a step back, it can show us so much about ourselves. Over time, we get into our routines; our daily habits—and our spouse is doing the same thing. Marriage can become a convenient place that serves as an end to a means. I feel a lot of marriages exist in this place. I can’t tell you how many women I have talked to that are in this place and then something happens, the kids leave home, now they are an empty nester. Their husband retires and they freak out because now they must be around their spouse 24/7. Or, maybe you, or your husband, have better relationships with co-workers and spend more and more time with them after work, avoiding coming home. You look forward to spending time with friends and not being “stuck” at home with your spouse.
These are all scenarios that happen. How about you? Has your marriage turned into a place of convenience? It’s fine but there is no spark; very little passion. You don’t fight, but you don’t share what’s going on deep inside of you? You aren’t having fun together; you are co-habituating.
The reason these scenarios happen is because we have either forgotten why we got married, we have a lot of anger and resentment built up within our marriage, we have gotten bored with the person we married, or, maybe, we just got lazy, and we’ve neglected the person we married for so long we feel it’s too hard to change things.
Do You Like Who You are in Your Marriage?
Have you become critical? Have you become numb? Have you become a doormat with no opinion because it’s just easier that way? If someone could hear your daily thoughts about your spouse, what would they hear? Would they hear loving thoughts, hateful thoughts, or no thoughts about your spouse at all? Your inner world, your thoughts, are creating the marriage you have.
What is going on in your brain about your marriage? Only you know these thoughts. Our thought life comes out in our actions. Really think about this. Here is a little example, if you are mad at your husband about something, how do you treat him? With love and affection, probably not. You probably pull back emotionally. Or, maybe you lash out over something small. Your heart-life matters. It comes out in our actions.
So, what do we do with all this pent-up anger, with these thoughts about our spouse? Do we just keep stuffing it down to the hidden place where we are hurting? Do we keep lying to ourselves that it’s not that bad? We convince ourselves that this is the way most marriages are.
Its a Heart Issue
This is the real issue that you have been keeping a secret. It’s what is holding you in bondage. I know what it’s like because I was there too. I had convinced myself I was given a raw deal in my marriage. I was so dead inside because I had convinced myself this was as good as it was ever going to be. I was in a season of my life that I could no longer just keep myself busy ignoring my soul. I felt I had no purpose. It all looked good on the outside, but on the inside I was miserable. My thought life was where I would go to hide. I would think: “If people really knew my thoughts, they would be shocked.” That is when God opened my eyes. He revealed to me that what I really wanted was a loving, thriving, passionate marriage. That was my purpose. To love this man God had given to me as a gift. And I was blinded by my own need for self-protection I had built up over the years. All the ugly fights we had ever had, all the negative things I felt about my husband all came rushing out. It was ugly. I was arguing with God. I was in such a blame mode. I was the victim and I had convinced myself it wasn’t about me.
God showed me my heart; my problem was that it really came down to trust. I didn’t trust God and I didn’t trust my marriage. I had done all the church, joined all the Bible studies, I had amazing head knowledge about the Bible. I had learned how to parent, how to be a good wife, all of it. I had incredible head knowledge. It wasn’t the head knowledge that was the problem, it was my heart!
What about you? Are you willing to look at your heart? Your soul? Are you willing to stay on this journey with me and pull back the layers. All the lies you have convinced yourself that you believe are true. Believe me, if you want a different marriage, you are going to have to examine your heart. When I finally surrendered and trusted, that is when God began to reveal his truths that I had been so stubborn, I didn’t want to see.
Where are your thoughts right now? Are you defensive, are you saying but if you knew my husband, what he is like, what he won’t do. It’s not me, it is him. He doesn’t want a better marriage. If you stay with those thoughts, nothing will really change. Even if some of those things are possibly true, that’s not the problem. The truth is it is our heart.
God did not give us our spouse to change them. God gave us our spouse and our marriage to change us; to reveal to us who we are. Our relationship with our spouse is the space where God wants us to read and study his word—not for head knowledge but to transform our hearts. He can transform us to be more like him and our spouse gets to experience the benefit of the fruit of the spirit: love, peace, patience, and understanding. Marriage is a gift. But we are all, me included, so prideful and full of ourselves, we are treating our marriage like it is a curse instead of a blessing.
How we view our marriage is the start. God has put you in this place for a reason, married to the exact husband you have right now. When I made the decision to love my husband, I mean really love him, and God showed me he could give me a thriving, passionate, loving marriage, if I would just trust him, my life changed. It wasn’t an easy journey. It was very scary. It took a lot of courage. It took a lot of trust. It took a lot of self-reflection. I questioned why I believed certain things and was open to what the Lord would reveal to me about myself. I had to be willing to consider what could this mean? I approached my marriage with love, not self-protection. I stopped believing Satan’s big lie that I was a mind reader and I knew why my husband said and did the things he did (most of the time from the worst possible viewpoint). I questioned myself, what thoughts was having that made me so critical. I am not God. Maybe I don’t know. And my heart began to soften. I could see where my own baggage was clouding my judgement.
My mind was very good at not giving my husband a break. Believing he had all these mean reasons for doing whatever he did that I didn’t like. God slowly revealed how bitter my heart was and all the unforgiveness I was holding onto. It convinced me that he was the problem—not me.
First, God showed me that I wanted my marriage. That it was God’s gift to me, not God’s life sentence and that I really wanting a thriving marriage, that I wanted my husband to be my best friend not my enemy!
Next, I looked at my own heart issues. Why did I feel so dead inside, so lifeless, so sad? God was revealing to me that all the efforts I had made to self-protect were the very things that I needed to hand over and to trust God, that he had a better plan if I was willing.
What About You?
Do you want a loving thriving passionate marriage? Are you willing to take a look at your heart? I believe if you are, this is where the work will begin. This is about you!
I believe that the more you are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to change you, it will change how you view your marriage, and God will make some miraculous changes in your marriage.
Get out that journal. Pray about what I have shared with you. Listen to what the Lord is telling you. You have a unique marriage relationship. Write what is on your heart. Not the head knowledge stuff, I want you to write from your heart.
Monette hosts a weekly podcast: Mornings with Monette. She has been a life-long learner and and appreciates the opportunity to share what she has learned–both through her podcast and here at The Best-Life Project (based on the content of her weekly podcast). Her messages are raw, honest and straight from the heart. She lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband Leland. They have three adult children and are enjoying living their best lives filled with travel and adventure.