Marriage Crisis

Scriptures: Philippians 4:8, John 10:10, Proverbs 27:17, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

The Relationship Counseling We All Need

If you find yourself in a marriage crisis right now, you’re not alone. Over the next few days, we’ll explore some stories from real-life people who have made it through addictions, affairs, and brokenness. They’ll share what they’ve learned through the mess and give us some practical tips for navigating situations that seem too much to handle. But first, what if you’re trying to prevent a marriage crisis in the first place? Here’s some general relationship counseling advice anyone in any marriage could benefit from. 

Wouldn’t it be great if we had classes like “People Skills” and “How to Budget”? But of all the classes we would have found useful, I think none would have been more important than a relationship counseling class. Why? Because we all have holes in our relationship knowledge. We’re good at navigating certain situations … and at a loss when it comes to others. If “Relationships 101” were a real class we could take, here are a few of the basics we would learn.

4 of the Best Pieces of Relationship Counseling for Everyone

1. We are all flawed. And we marry flawed people. I used to find myself drowning in a dreamy standard of marriage that I couldn’t meet. The resulting stress wreaked havoc in our home. I needed to embrace a big dose of God’s grace so I could then extend a big dose of grace to my husband. God’s grace, extended through one another, is probably the most important ingredient in any relationship.

2. Focus on that which is praiseworthy. It’s so easy to focus on what’s wrong. However, the Word of God tells us in Philippians 4:8 to focus on that which is pure and admirable and praiseworthy. Living any other way stifles the abundant life God has in store for us. It takes discipline to focus your attention on what’s good, but it’s a blessing to both your relationship and your soul to learn this valuable lesson.

3. Good relationships take effort, time, and investment. We all come from parents we didn’t choose, in cities we didn’t choose, in a time in history we didn’t choose. But God can use our relationships to make us into better people—if we are willing to put in the time and effort. We can’t change others, but we can choose to have a gracious and forgiving heart. 

4. The greatest of these is love. Love is patient and kind. It does not brag and is not arrogant. It does not act unbecoming or selfish. Love covers sin and does not expose it. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13 is often preached as a standard of conduct we must achieve. However, it is a beautiful picture of how Christ loves us. As we comprehend and embrace His love for us, it will spill over into our relationships. 1 Corinthians 13 is the best “relationship counselor” for those of us who need it. 

Not a bad syllabus, right? But no one actually graduates from the “Relationship 101” class. We will spend our lives learning more about this subject. Life beckons us to study well. A wise life is well-lived and is deeply rooted in relationships well-loved!

Scriptures: Psalms 30:10-12, Matthew 6:14-15, 1 John 1:9, Isaiah 1:8, Micah 7:18-19

So One of You Had an Extramarital Affair? You Can Make It

I vividly remember the day I found out my husband was having an affair. The following days were met with confusion, sorrow, prayer, and counsel. How could I, a therapist, be in this situation? What did I not see? Were there signs of trouble that I missed? But one question outweighed all the others. What do you do when you discover your significant other has had an affair?

There is no simple solution, but there is hope. Hope in a God who heals. Hope that, with some hard work and a lot of prayer and hard conversations, your marriage can be restored. In my experience, the couples who emerge healed take three steps.

Three Steps Toward Healing After an Extramarital Affair:

1. Make an Honest Assessment
The most important decision to make is whether or not the marriage is worth fighting for. If you’ve been cheated on, you’ll need to see more than just remorse from your spouse. You’ll need to see signs they’re turning from their old ways—and turning toward what God wants for them, instead. This is how you’ll know you can walk forward together toward healing in your marriage. 

I wish I could say this always happens. Sometimes, it doesn’t. But you can be sure that God will restore you to a place of healing as a single person, too. Whether or not you and your spouse are walking forward together, don’t delay in moving on to the next step on this list.

2. Get Help
You must find someone to talk to. Go to your mentor, pastor, a therapist, or a counselor. If you’re both willing to fight for your marriage, find someone you both trust and feel comfortable with. It’s important for both of you to feel comfortable in order to create a safe environment in which to communicate honestly and vulnerably.

3. Embrace the Process of Forgiveness
Many spouses who have affairs will experience pain, shame, and embarrassment. It’s important to process those emotions, but not hold onto them forever. Part of the healing process involves moving past what happened to a place of communication, vulnerability, and trust. If you’ve had an affair, ask God for forgiveness, ask your spouse for forgiveness, and most of all, ask yourself for forgiveness.

If you’ve been cheated on, you have a path of forgiveness to walk, too. As followers of Christ, we must learn to forgive one another no matter how badly we’ve been hurt. When we choose to forgive, we are healing, we are honoring Christ, and we are becoming transformed into a new person.

Is any of this easy? No. But I’m so thankful my husband and I put in the hard work. My marriage is so different from what it used to be. And, I can attest that those I’ve worked with who’ve had to start fresh after a devastating end to their marriage have also made it. We’re a band of people who are living proof that with God’s help, you can make it through an extramarital affair.

Scriptures: Romans 8:31, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 2 Timothy 1:7, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Porn Can Ruin Marriages, But There’s Hope

Marriage is hard work, but as you may painfully know, pornography makes it even more difficult. If you find yourself stuck in a cycle of watching pornography, and you just want to stop, there is hope. Jesus did not defeat the power of death only to let sexual addiction destroy marriages! Jesus can restore you—and your marriage.

Here are five behaviors of people who live free from pornography:

Behavior #1: Decide you want to stop. Oswald Chambers says we need to make “a complete and effective decision about sin.” In other words, you have to decide you really want to stop. The power of our complete and effective, daily, outspoken decisions cannot be underestimated.

Behavior #2: Visualize “later.” It’s worth asking the question, “What’s the absolute worst thing that would happen to me if I don’t change?” For example, “What if my wife catches me watching porn?” Or, imagine the future as a father addicted to pornography, “What if my daughter caught me using porn?” Visualizing “later” doesn’t solve the problem, but it may motivate you to take the necessary steps to move away from pornography.

Behavior #3: Get brutally honest with people. The thought of sharing your past sexual struggles with anyone may seem terrifying. In fact, your spiritual enemy wants nothing more than for you to keep on believing you’ve “got this.” The truth is, you’ll continue to fail unless you invite a team of trusted friends into your healing. Find one man or one woman who’ll become your mentor or accountability partner. This person is someone who loves God and understands you.

Behavior #4: Close the open doors.

What are you using to access the pornography? Whatever device you’re using, you’ll want to close the door completely by removing access, or, if for some reason you need to keep access, utilize an accountability service to send a report of your internet usage to your trusted friends.

Behavior #5: Pray.

If you’re fighting to quit pornography, then you know it’s a war. When you choose to fight your porn addiction, it will fight you back. Imagine the prayers of soldiers going into battle. They pray for protection, strength, and survival. Does this describe your prayer life? Pray like victory is imminent. Because you have victory in Christ.

Porn can ruin marriages, but there’s hope. If you agree life without porn is a better life and want to take your first step toward living porn-free, don’t wait another day! You can take your first step to living a porn-free life today.

Scriptures: Psalms 51:17, Mark 10:6-9, Matthew 8:23-27, 1 Peter 5:7, Colossians 3:12-17, Joshua 1:9

My Parents Are Divorced, How Do I Make My Marriage Work?

A few years into marriage, I stood alone in our house staring at a sailboat painting on the wall. My husband, Jason, had left for work after another hurtful conversation. I couldn’t help but wonder: how could I make my marriage work when my parents’ marriage didn’t?

If your parents are divorced or their marriage is struggling, you’ve probably felt afraid that your own vows might break into pieces. Maybe you stood in the aisle on your wedding day and whispered a vow never to make the same mistakes they made. 

Internal alarms went off when my husband and I faced challenges. Wasn’t my marriage supposed to be smooth sailing? Had my parents faced the same struggles in their marriage? I had decided it was up to me to make our marriage last, but it wasn’t going well. I began to identify with my parents’ brokenness. 

Here’s what I realized: only when we start looking our brokenness in the face can it tell us the truth.

King David had some brokenness to face. He made several marriage mistakes—including an affair. Still, he kept depending on God with a broken and contrite heart.

Do you find yourself laying out all of your heart to God, or are you depending on yourself? The harder I worked as the marriage-saver, the more I hated losing my temper or disappointing my husband. Lighten your load. Do you believe God is daunted by hardship in your marriage? God actually delights in your need for Him. If human perfection and mere human effort at divorce prevention worked, we wouldn’t need God.

So, how can we make our marriages and remarriages work? As I cried in front of the painting, I realized for the first time that there were three dark figures, and God was teaching me something through them! I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t just me and my husband. Jesus always had been and always will be in our boat. We don’t have to fear divorce or overspend ourselves trying to singlehandedly prevent it. We can grow together as we face our inadequacy with Jesus in our boat.

1. Give yourself permission to be broken. This one feels awkward at first. Who wants to mess up? When you make a mistake or you feel distant from your spouse, ask God how He sees you and your marriage. Forgive yourself and ask God for His forgiveness.

2. Say a prayer of forgiveness for your parents whenever you start to blame or belittle their marriage. When you forgive your parents for their marriage failures, your marriage can have freedom to grow through difficulty.

3. Take one brave step. Whether it’s starting another Bible Plan after this one, saying yes to marriage counseling together, praying together, or writing out a vision statement as a couple, take the next brave step toward facing your fears knowing Jesus is in the boat. 

Scriptures: Proverbs 4:13, Proverbs 19:20, Colossians 2:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 10:24

Three People to Find When You Face a Marriage Crisis

I’ve never met an engaged couple who expected to go through any type of marital trauma in their marriage. Their new, untested love tells them they won’t be like other couples and that, somehow, their love will be one that lasts. But the truth is, all couples will at some point face marriage problems.

So, what do you do when your life comes to a screeching halt because your most important earthly relationship is in jeopardy? As Christ-following married couples, we are to seek God, spend time in His Word, and pray for healing in our marriages. Thankfully, God also uses people to help show us the way. When you’re facing a marriage crisis, here are three types of people to seek out:

1. People who are biblically grounded. This means counselors and friends. When a crisis arises in our marriage, culture screams its own set of ideals and “truths.” In times of dilemma, we need to surround ourselves with people who love and know the Bible well. LifeGroups and small groups are a great place to start.

2. People who are for your marriage. It’s so easy to listen to well-meaning friends who love you, take your side, and want you to be happy. But you need friends who want to see your marriage succeed. Friends who are willing to speak the truth even if it’s not what we want to hear.

3. A godly couple who has walked through difficulty in their marriage. One of the best things we can do in a time like this is to find a couple who has beaten the odds and stayed together despite a crisis. They offer hope by their mere presence in our lives.

Our God is in the business of bringing life back to lifeless things—and that includes your marriage. Trust Him. He is the only one who will never let you down.

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 10:13, James 4:7, Galatians 5:16, 2 Timothy 2:13

4 Ways to Protect Your Marriage from Adultery

Whether you’re married or not, whether your marriage is good or not, imagine this. You’re looking at the person who decided to give up their heart, some dreams, their body, their years, and their singleness because they committed to enter a lifelong, exclusive partnership of selfless love with you. You’re about to tell them you’ve put all of that and so much more on the line because someone kept flirting with you at work, or because you didn’t think they listened, or because you felt like they lost their passion in the bedroom. Now is the best time to do whatever it takes to protect your marriage.

No one wants to end up part of that conversation, but too many of us will. Maybe we’ll neglect our spouse’s desires. Maybe we’ll enjoy time alone with someone else. Maybe we’ll let porn, work, or ministry get in the way of our marriage. But let’s kick adulterously bad advice to the curb and replace it with the good stuff! Here are four ways to protect your marriage from adultery today.

1. Radically reduce risks. Risk is for extreme sports, retirement funds, and business ventures—not marriage fidelity. It’s great to take risks together like moving to a new place or going on adventures. But don’t risk your relationship. Instead, stoke the fire of your faith. Never talk badly about your spouse to other people. Ever. Surround yourself with strong marriages. Avoid risky situations with the opposite sex. Is it really that important to go somewhere alone with the opposite sex? Don’t ever be alone with the wrong people.

2. Water your lawn. If the grass is greener on the other side, then water your own lawn. Discover your spouse’s love languages and pour into them with passionate service. Do dishes. Go to counseling. Work out. Listen. Part with that pair of sweatpants. Get alone together, spiritual together, and naked together. Make your spouse the most important human being in your life. Put your spouse in front of kids, work, money, things, hobbies, and yes, your own mother! Love your spouse like Christ loves the Church.

3. Understand the devastation of adultery. No matter what romance novels and television love-triangles say about it, adultery devastates lives. It hurts the two people involved as well as their kids, their families, their friends, their co-workers, the people who look up to them, their businesses, their ministries, and the future of their marriages. That’s the short list. It’s ugly and never worth it. Google this: How many affairs turn into marriage?

4. Know God’s Good News. Even when we are unfaithful, God is faithful. Like Pastor Craig says, adultery may be grounds for divorce, but it’s also grounds for forgiveness. Christ died for all sin. If you have experienced adultery, healing is possible. Look to Christ, find strength to forgive, seek counseling, regain trust, and do the hard—but unbelievably powerful—work of restoration.