Do you see yourself as different or opposite from your spouse? Welcome to everyone’s world!
Let me provide for you a window into our early marriage.
Steve, loved to go to bed late. Mary, loved to go to bed early.
Steve, loved to have a devotional time in the evening. Mary, loved to have a devotional time in the morning.
Steve’s into trying new things. Mary, sticking with what works.
Mary, no debt is good debt. Steve, good debt is investment.
Mary, loves to give. Steve, loves to save.
Steve, embracing change. Mary, change comes more slowly, purposefully.
Steve, face the conflict. Mary, conflict is to be avoided.
Mary, everyone is a friend. Steve, friends are selected through trust over time.
You get the picture; we’re different. But here’s the thing about that difference, neither way is necessarily wrong. What is wrong is when we attempt to change our spouse to be more like ourselves because we’re “right.”
Social scientists tell us it takes five to seven years for a marriage to “settle.” I would define settling as becoming mature enough to no longer try to change my spouse but rather to embrace them for who they are and for how God created them.
You see, maturity helps us to understand we need that difference in our lives. Yes, we fight and argue about it initially (immaturity), but when the revelation hits us, we soon discover that we are far more powerful, far more rounded, far more complete together than separate, embracing our differences.
Too often the thought is, “We’re just too different to continue this marriage.” The fact is, God brings to you the person who is not like you so that you can grow and change and then discover how you are to love, respect and accept this person.
Unfortunately, too many persons, husbands and wives, think that power and control can force change for the better. Power and control will never provoke change for the right reasons because a spirit of power and control will also need the threat of negative consequences. The spouse who threatens causes more anger in the relationship.
Love and acceptance sees the difference as a good challenge. Then it sounds something like this: Mary is Steve and Steve is Mary because Steve and Mary need the differences the other brings to the relationship.
This perspective will cause us to focus on the strengths in our spouse’s life rather than the weaknesses. This perspective will help us to walk in humility knowing we need what our spouse brings to the marriage. This perspective also helps us to not see our spouse as the one who holds us back but rather the one who provides the appropriate caution or pause. And this perspective is going to bring a healthy balance and sometimes compromise to who we are and to who we are becoming.
Today, almost 48 years later, things look a little different.
Steve likes to go to bed early and so does Mary.
Mary loves early morning devotions and so does Steve.
Steve and Mary embrace change together.
Mary’s love of giving has won over Steve.
Mary embraces investment even with some risk and Steve smiles.
Everyone loves Mary more than Steve because Mary is still everyone’s friend.
Steve is more selective about addressing conflict and Mary still dislikes it.
I read this scripture early one morning this week, “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.” (Proverbs 16:32)
We have come face-to-face with so many different life problems while involved in pre- and postmarital counseling with engaged couples. For example, a young woman’s sexual abuse as a child; a young man’s addiction to pornography; pregnancy; extreme debt; the recent loss of a parent and more. These couples found themselves facing huge life challenges before saying “I do.”
couples to do exactly this.
Marriage minefields are fields where we have buried or hidden devices (memories) just below the surface. We actually move forward in life by frequently looking backward. Most day-to-day life is not filled with new revelation but memory. Memory helps us to find our way home after work. Memory is used daily in order to live life. Life without the ability to recall even the slightest, most mundane details or important ones would be disastrous.
Some of our memories contain lies or misbeliefs and still others are inaccurate. It was not uncommon for John and Elizabeth (not their real names) to experience knock-down, drag-out arguments. In sheer frustration late one evening, John looked at Elizabeth and said, “That’s it; I’m out of here!” Immediately, Elizabeth went silent and fell to the floor in a fetal position, where she sobbed uncontrollably. Even though John ran immediately to his wife, knelt beside her, and desperately tried to console her, it was as if he had left. Elizabeth didn’t or couldn’t hear his voice or acknowledge his presence. John later discovered that when his wife was six years old, she overheard her parents fighting. Her father’s words rang out as he screamed, “That’s it; I’m out of here!” Elizabeth never saw her father again
Elizabeth was no longer fighting with John; she was wrestling with pain-filled memories planted in a minefield just below the surface. Was it the argument they needed to resolve, or was it Elizabeth’s past hurts that needed to be healed? From many stories like this one, I have come to believe that most relationship issues in the present have a connection to the past; therefore, what seem like marital issues are often individual issues. I am convinced that when Jesus heals our individual issues, sins, hurts, and disappointments, marriage relationship issues can also be healed. *
I have a theory and I believe the testimony of hundreds of married couples backs up this theory. The theory is the more sex you have outside of marriage, the less sex you have within marriage.
Dating is not a centuries old concept. Dating is a far more recent notion than that, but unlike what Hollywood presents, dating is NOT about how good someone is in the bedroom. The following are ten distinctive thoughts to consider if you or someone you know is involved in a dating relationship.
We are settled. We do not have to always agree, but rarely do we disagree. Steve is Mary and Mary is Steve and we desire the very best and the highest goodwill for each other. We are not competing with one another and we are not jealous of each other. We will not settle for mediocre in our relationship and we will not allow a spirit of discontentment to show its ugly head. We both know that through the grace of God and His goodness to us, we gained something…or someone in marriage. When we said “yes” to one another, we said “no” to every other possible partner out there. We have no regrets.
You’ll find those six words, maybe nine, in chapter thirteen, the final chapter of 
When we buy a new car, we enjoy the new-car smell. We appreciate the fact that it doesn’t break down from age and worn parts. We love that it’s clean and shiny, without a single stain on the carpet or scratch in the paint. However, unless we provide the proper maintenance in the months and years that follow, our car will eventually break down.
Growing up with an angry and physically abusive father, Greg (a real person in our lives) adopted mechanisms of self-protection. Those mechanisms kept him out of harm’s way with his dad. He learned when to talk and when not to talk; he also learned that silence kept him from revealing his true self and his true emotions. Introversion protected an already fragile esteem and, in his environment, helped to prevent the experience of further pain.
Steve Prokopchak 