Do you believe it is possible for you to have a lifelong marriage without divorce? Why or why not? One of the most important things to remember is that just because your parents separated/divorced, it doesn’t mean that your are destined to the same failure. However, maybe you have already been unsuccessful at relationships or marriage.
Your ideas about love and marriage have no doubt been influenced mostly by your parents’ relationship. You have probably seen good times and you have seen the failure of their marriage or their breakup. Maybe the vast amount of marriages you know have been failures and you are now assuming that it isn’t possible for you to have a long-term, healthy marriage in the world today.
This may have left you with a fear of commitment or any hope that your marriage will be successful. You might find it difficult to trust or are afraid your spouse will abandon you, so why set yourself up for more hurt and failure?
God invented love and marriage. The love He wanted for His children to enjoy is unconditional love; a love that is not selfish, competitive, hurtful, jealous, abusive, controlling or arrogant.
“Love is patient. Love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endure all things. Love never fails!” I Corinthians 13:4
This is the love that the Lord had in mind when He invented love and marriage. He didn’t invent the flawed and failed love and marriage that so many of us have experienced. What happened and how did we stray so far from God’s ideal for what should be a source of joy and contentment in our lives?
We have become a self-centered society of wanting what we want when we want it and how we want it. We deserve this and we don’t deserve that. If we don’t get what we want or need right away, then we are going to move on. We will leave before we are left. We allow ourselves to be tempted into an extra-marital affair, and sometimes get so involved in outside activities that we leave our spouse in the dust and then are surprised when they walk away.
If you have been married more than once, there are other issues to explore. We take our baggage from one relationship to another if we don’t resolve our issues and are healed from them. We come into the next relationship with deep wounds and many times the new relationship pays for the one we had before. This doesn’t set anyone or any relationship up for success.
Each person comes into a new relationship with their own experiences, good or bad and their own expectations as well. Many times, couples don’t know enough about each other’s journey up to the present and so they don’t have a chance to work through issues and see how they are going to build a healthy relationship. It is highly recommended that both you and your partner get strong Christian counseling to work through your issues and figure out how you are going to bring two lives together so your future as a couple can be strong, vibrant and long-lasting. If your partner does not agree to go to pre-marital counseling, please take a step back and see why they don’t feel a relationship with you is worth a few hours of preventative action toward a healthy marriage. It is worth the pause.
Marriage, in God’s design, was meant to be “until death do us part”. When you say those vows on your wedding day, you are saying them to God first and your spouse second. it is something to be sure of and then commit yourself completed to “for better or worse”.