We make decisions on a daily basis according to our personal life values. Our values are the key to our priorities and will greatly affect our lives and our marriage. Identifying those values can help you and your spouse bring your most important beliefs to the table for discussion. Many of our differences are actually rooted in our life values. For example, one of us might highly value being out of debt while the other sees certain types of debt as acceptable. What’s the difference? The difference is often found in our financial values.

Here’s a key: When we discover such differences it is actually an opportunity to find “us,” our value, rather than just his or her value. Finding us is crucial to growth and maturity as a couple. Finding our deeply rooted beliefs and how we will walk them out is a portion of the glue that holds us together. My wife and I struggled with the values of saving money versus spending money early on in our marriage. While that looks like polar opposites at first, it actually forced us to find our value. As we looked closer at the differences, what we discovered was that I was saving for a future need and she was giving to others for a present need. Combining those two values and keeping them in balance has been life changing to our relationship and to our finances.

Take some time as a couple to look at your “opposing” values and you might just find a new normal that wisely incorporates the best of both for “us.”

I lied.  Not exactly, but here are five more ways we realized that we missed in the first ten. Adding one more blog on the same subject is risky, but it all keeps adding up. It seems marriage is threatened in so many ways today, that to read anything which offers help and hope is encouraging. So, we submit to you our final five marriage priorities that Mary and I realize were so important to us plus a bonus.

1. What we experience today is a direct result of how well we walked out our marriage in earlier years. We are now in our 60’s and realize that how we prioritized our relationship in our 20’s, our 30’s and our 40’s directly reflects upon where we are today. What seeds we sowed then are being reaped in our relationship today. Sow good seeds.
2. Procrastination will kill a relationship. Taking care of issues as soon as is possible is best. Don’t wait until they become worse or compound through procrastination. At the same time, I had to honor Mary as she processed the issues before she could confront them. Meanwhile, I needed to deal with myself.
3. Make your marriage a higher priority than the issue. Issues will come and go in a marriage, sometimes daily. Make sure you keep your relationship ahead of the problems. In other words, do not make the problems more important than the fact that you are married for a lifetime. Even in disagreement, Mary and I would strive for alignment.
4. Never stop investing in your marriage. We went to seminars, read books, listened to teaching series and sought out help from those we respected to speak into our marriage. We were open with others about our mistakes.
5. There are seasons that are dull, boring and gasping for air. Persevere through those; accept them as a bit normal, but work toward providing freshness in as many ways as you can. Admitting that we are in one of those seasons is the best place to start.

Bonus: Find a challenging mission outside yourselves and your family. We lead a small group, do premarital counseling, share in seminars together, have served on mission teams and did outreach to the homeless in Philadelphia. Marriages need a mission focus outside themselves; it keeps our passion and our compassion alive.

I was listening to a wife complain about her husband’s lack of attention toward her with him sitting right there in front of us. It was a bit awkward, but not nearly as awkward as the next emotionally charged sentence she blurted out, which went something like this: “Why can’t you be more like Steve in this area?” Her husband’s response was to then give me this forlorn look, while his eyes searched for the correct answer from his memory bank. He sheepishly spoke, “Yea, she often says to me, ‘what would Steve do in this situation?”’ I was floored, embarrassed and wanted to be anywhere but there. While I know it was in some weird way a compliment, it felt so… I don’t know…comparing, negative and unhealthy? I sat there speechless at first, feeling his pain. He was being compared with someone who he is not, is never going to be and is not created to be.

Finally gathering myself, I turned and looked at her and spoke forthrightly. I began, “Your husband is not me and should never be expected to be me. While we each have traits that reveal Jesus in us, it is Him that we are to emulate. Your husband will not change by you comparing him to another man, in fact, it only serves to humiliate him and that is not a godly trait. Please do not use my name in that way as I am a very imperfect man and I will fail you.”

The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives. (Proverbs 27: 21)