Marriage is hard. There is a reason the about 50% of marriage ends in divorce. Great marriages are hard and bad marriages are harder. A great marriage, like anything else, takes a lot of work.
Best way to avoid divorce is for it to never be an option. First year of marriage, went to marriage conference – one of things that stuck with me was the phrase, “never use the D word” – has definitely served us well
Marriage is not 50/50. The other thing I remember about conference is that marriage is 100/100. Anytime one of us is not giving our all to the marriage, it is recipe for trouble
Marriage is not meant to make you happy, but holy. If you are looking to your spouse for the source of your happiness, you are already in trouble – As perfect as they are some of the time, they are human, and will never make you happy all of the time. And it was never the goal – God wants to use our spouse, person closest to us, to smooth out rough edges and move us toward holiness
So go expectations, so goes the marriage. I wish I had learned this a long time ago – if our expectations are out of whack, our marriage will be also – conflict is usually about unmet or unstated expectations – (magnets) – basically, the goal is to come with high expectations of ourselves and low expectations of our spouse – picture of unconditional love and servanthood.
