Have you ever observed what unfaithfulness can do between a husband and wife?
I have, and it is devastating.
The name of this blog did not come about by accident. Throughout the course of my married life, I have been witness to the crumbling of several marriages – close friends who have for some reason or another – walked away from faithfulness to their spouse. To watch the marriage bond be assaulted at best, destroyed at worst – led me to desire to do all that I can to help strengthen the relationship between husbands and wives.
This spills over into all of life – we are called to be faithful in so many ways – faithful mothers, diligently seeking ways to love and serve and nurture our children, faithful children, who honor and respect our own parents, faithful friends, who don’t depart when the chips are down – and most important, faithful servants, faithful sons and daughters of God the Father thru Jesus Christ. I want to encourage you to be faithful in ALL areas of life.
But first and foremost – I want to urge you, if you are married, to be a faithful spouse. If you are a husband, I strongly remind you of your duty to love your wife – more than yourself. If you love her, cherish her, seek the best for her…if you put her well-being ahead of your own, her importance ahead of yours, you will be fulfilling your role before God. You’ll have a good marriage, besides! You will be an excellent example to your own children. Your son will learn how to treat his future wife, and your daughter will know what to expect from a husband. She will know, instinctively, how to choose a good mate. She will know that she should not accept a marriage proposal from someone who behaves poorly. She will know that she is worthy of honor.
If you are a wife, I remind you to give of yourself to your husband, in every way. Make it your task to find out how he feels loved, and then make it a priority to fulfill him. I’ll make it even more simple. Make HIM your priority. Love him, better than yourself. Seek his good, before your own. Rub his feet when you are needing a foot rub. (Hint: if both husband and wife do this, both people’s needs are met…there won’t be one giving more than the other. An atmosphere of love and sacrificing for the other will be created – which is an amazing climate to live in and raise children in.)
In a marriage, selfishness is out, sacrifice is in – for both the husband and the wife.
Faithlessness occurs when one spouse begins to feel that their needs aren’t being met. I’ve seen and heard the following excuses precede an affair:
She doesn’t have time for me.
She spends all of her time on the children.
He doesn’t talk to me.
He doesn’t provide for me.
She doesn’t give me what I need.
Some of those excuses might be fair, and they might be true, dependent upon the couple. But do you notice the focus on self in each of these statements?
Me.
Of course there are instances where one spouse in a marriage is a complete and total abuser – and I want to make sure that I leave room in this conversation for that situation. I have seen abusive relationships, as well, and I don’t believe that any human being deserves to be abused. It is beneath human dignity for one adult to strike or belittle another adult – and it should not be tolerated.
I am rather talking about two otherwise caring people, who get their eyes off of their spouse, become disgruntled with their marriage, and find someone else who they think will really meet their needs. They leave faithfulness behind, and slip into adultery.
March 22, 2007 at 11:57 am |
hey there, Holly, I’d like to email you…
March 22, 2007 at 2:06 pm |
What can I say? This is such good encouragement to spouses to be faithful to each other. I won’t repeat your thoughts here, but I could echo every word. An excellent post!
March 22, 2007 at 8:26 pm |
Thank you, Holly. I, too, seek to foster a relationship that encourages faithfulness rather than opens the door to temptation. We know there are plenty of temptations out there, and I, for one, wnat to do and be everything I can to help my husband walk away from any temptation.
March 22, 2007 at 8:48 pm |
E-mail away, Renee. My addy is seekingfaithfulness(at)hotmail(dot)com.
E-Mom- You have been a WONDERFUL encouragement and support. I will be sure and link your article!
Revka – Thank you! A fully committed heart is what it takes!
March 23, 2007 at 3:21 am |
My husband and I re-committed our lives to Christ about 2 years ago because of an affair. It’s easy to say he had the affair–but it’s harder to say that I wasn’t far behind! It took about six months for me to admit that I had not been a good wife in more ways than one.
I’m happy to see a post like this. I’ve recently started reading Christian mother’s blogs and sometimes I feel a little left out. I think you or maybe it was someone else who wrote a post about ‘would you marry your spouse again’ and everyone gushed about how ‘oh yes–of course’. It’s not like that for everyone. I tell close friends-and I’ve said it to my husband-that I think the only reason we got married was because we drank the same kind of beer and smoked the same cigarettes. It’s a joke of course but not too far off!
When you live a life around booze, bars, and members of the opposite sex; when life revolves around work, college, getting more, more, more–everything, even your children fall to the wayside. My son was 1 1/2 when our marriage exploded and I was about 4 months pregnant. I went 3 states away to attend classes required for my job when my son was 9 months old. I was gone for 10 weeks–coming home every other weekend. Did my marriage fall apart just because I went away? No. Would everything have been perfect if I’d just come home when my husband begged me too? Absolutely not. Do I regret that decision? Every day of my life! Can I change it? No.
Most Christians haven’t lived perfect lives. We haven’t all been attending church every Sunday and Wednesday, dating and falling in love with the perfect Christian man, and marrying him in the perfect church wedding with Christ being the focus of your lives together. No, i think many of us have slogged around making mistake after mistake and come to the foot of the Cross beaten, bruised, and truly unworthy. The Lord speaks to us in a loud booming voice as we stand in church begging for forgiveness and guidence out of our self-made disasters.
I, for one, have tried to be very upfront about our lives. We lived across the street from a young couple who had just gotten married and had no children. They drank excessively, like we used to, and had fights that would wake up the neighborhood (kind of like us!). I pulled her aside one day and told her “I know you think we’re the perfect little couple with two adorable children and the SUV that go to church 3 times a week and have it totally together. But here’s the truth…” My husband talked to her husband several times, usually late at night when my husband got home from work (he worked in a bar at the time), and one time even up on the guy’s roof! They had a 2 hour conversation that night about God, Jesus, the church. All of it. My husband said later he felt the Lord was putting the words right into his mouth.
I don’t know what happened to that couple. We moved away soon after those conversations. What I do know is that the Lord has put us back on track. Sometimes I question our marriage but usually I’m very happy. We support each other unconditionally and work for our FAMILY not just ourselves. The change has been tremendous! Are we perfect? No. And yes we still fight sometimes but that’s ok. We get over it. We don’t go out drinking till 2 am playing tit for tat. We try to stay out of that ‘vortex’–that’s what I call what we did for the first 3 years of our marriage-you make me mad, well just wait till you see what I do to YOU!
Okay I’m done. Baby girl (who’s now 21 months) is up from her nap. Mommy time is officially over! Thank you for the post and the opportunity to vent. Hopefully someone will get something from it.
March 23, 2007 at 6:56 am |
I’m sure this post will minister to many Holly. Bless you for writing it!
March 23, 2007 at 8:01 am |
Alison,
I thank you for writing. I don’t necessarily like to talk about stuff like this – it is much more fun to talk about happy, easy, fun things…
But that would be denying reality – and reality assaults us all, every day!
I DO have a great marriage (and yes, that was me that wrote asking, “would you marry him all over again.) But that doesn’t mean that I think that everyone does. (I DO think that we should be careful about saying outloud to our spouse I WISH I HAD NOT MARRIED YOU – because that is a constant negative thing to say.)
There are many difficult things in this world. Some people are Christians who despite their best efforts are in a difficult marriage. Some people think themselves Christians, but are living a life that is still in bondage, and they reap the negative consequences in their marriages. Still others are not Christians. (Some have happy marriages, some do not.) We should hold up an example of what is good, right, and honoring to God and the other – yet offer a hand up to those who find themselves in difficult circumstances. At least, those are my thoughts.
Marriage can be so good, it can be so bad – as to come to an end. I do know that when I speak to my unmarried neices, I try to encourage them to make a good, wise, prayerful choice about a husband. I don’t want them to go through the pain that some of my loved ones have gone through – the pain that you describe.
Alison, hon – thank you so much for speaking up. You have a solid testimony that others need to hear. I pray that your marriage will continue to become stronger each year. Thank you for sticking it out. Thank you for doing the hard work that it has taken to wrestle through this stuff and forgive. Thank you for looking deep within yourself to see where you have needed to change, as well. It is clear that God has been doing an amazing work within your life, and your husband’s too. Thank you for deciding to work things out, for giving your children a mom and a dad who live together! Now that you have felt His direct hand in your lives – I urge you to never let go. Don’t forget what He has done! Continue to get to know Him, and to live for Him! Keep forgiving!
March 23, 2007 at 8:52 am |
Holly, you just rock.
anyway, you are not that much older than me, but I wish you could be my mentor.
As always, great words that need to be addressed. Thank you for the reminder for me to do more for my husband. I know I can always do better in that category. And, also, to be faithful in everything.
March 23, 2007 at 9:57 pm |
You know, my husband, the fabulous Phil
, has always said, “As long as Sheila and I are each one completely devoted to the Lord in our individual lives, I have no worries about our marriage!” Something like that, anyway. It’s true, too. When we’re where we need to be with God, how could we not help reap the benefits, all around? (I can, sniff, say this enthusiastically, sniff, as Phil is gone on a missions trip right now, and boy, do I miss him!) My husband’s mantra has always been, “It’s not about me!” Grrr, how I often hate to hear that, and yet the whole of the Christian life is about self-denial. Thanks, Holly, for your thought-provoking words!
March 23, 2007 at 11:18 pm |
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