What’s Destroying Your Marriage?
**Based on the response to this post we are keeping it posted as today’s post as well. Please feel free to join the discussion!**
One year ago, Trisha and I launched a series of posts entitled 8 Things that Destroyed Our Marriage. The response to the series has been incredible. What we have realized over the past year is that we as people and we in the Church are really good at discussing symptoms of our problems so we can avoid the problems themselves. The truth is the affair that I had in 2005 was a symptom of much bigger problems that nearly destroyed our marriage.
As we start 2010, our prayer is that God uses RefineUs to restore even more marriages, but we need your help. We’d like to hear from you so we can be even more effective in providing a place that God uses to bring people back to Him and each other. We’d like you to answer two questions and you can answer COMPLETELY ANONYMOUSLY! If you don’t want to use your real name, just make one up and answer these two questions. (no email address is required)
1. What is the one issue that creates the most problems for you in your marriage? (Communication, lust, finances, lack of trust, pornography, resentment, unforgivness, etc…)
2. Do you feel like the Church is effective in helping you find Godly hope and answers to this problem?
If you are NOT married, please feel free to answer based on what you see in the marriages you observe and what you have experienced through the Church.
Our goal with these questions is to provide a place where people, no matter where they are in their relationship with God, no matter where they are in their marital status can find hope, healing and a fresh perspective on God’s redemptive power. Please be brutally honest as you help us create even more of that community in 2010.
120 Comments to “What’s Destroying Your Marriage?”
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2. I feel that the church is failing miserably in the area of marriage. When things reached the initial crisis point (as in the point where I finally realized the depth of our problem), we approached our pastor, separately and together, for help, and were sorely dissappointed in the very little help we got.
What the church really needs to do, IMO, is to develop mentor couples. Couples who are seasoned in marriage and are willing to come alongside other, younger couples (or even older couples) and guide them through the trials of marriage. Sort of like a marriage discipleship.
I do not blame the church for our current situation – the responsibility for that is squarely on my wife and I's shoulders (and as the leader, more on mine than hers). I do however stand by my statement that the church is failing miserably in the marriage department (and it's something that I hope to have a positive impact in some day).
You two are a blessing – I hope you realize that. I found you blog late one lonely night last summer, and have been reading it since. I look forward to seeing where God will take you and RefineUs.
Thank you so much for your encouragement and support!
Jen…was there or is there a reason that you have trust issues and resentment issues? Have you talked about those issues with your husband? I am so glad you have been able to allow God to change you and your marriage. You are in our prayers!
Selfishness destroyed mine. As well as marrying far too young. I would also say that God was not the center, which is imperative. I too strayed from my marriage, it caused paramount damage to not only her, but to myself as well. So many marriage are an "I'' instead of a "we" When the communication goes, that's when the devils workshop sets in. I have finally forgiven myself, as has she. We're no longer together, but I found redemption in His blood.
Fouramdesignes…thank you for sharing from your heart and from your mistakes. God is a God of second chances, even when we feel as though we don't deserve them. I am so thankful that you have found forgiveness and have begun healing!
Still a daily struggle. I believe once you open your heart to such sin, Satan latches on to it, tries to flog you daily. But He has the shield to protect, the love, to let go and move forward.
Fearfulness caused anger and trust issues of past relationships has caused a lot of issues in our marriage. We love each other dearly but but because of that fear, we feel like we are walking on eggshells all the time. We feel like we have to explain everything we do, Iwe say, and where we go to the other spouse just so it doesn't start an argument. Therefore, we don't communicate a lot of things because we are afraid of causing an argument. This is a 2nd marriage for both of us. We have only been married for a short period of time, and we knew there were going to be adjustments but we argue a lot and we are already in counseling. When we argue it gets to the point that one of us is ready to just give up and move on with our lives. It seems hopeless at times. We just want to be happy………..
fearful…thank you so much for sharing….walking on egg shells in marriage is a miserable way to live…I wrote about that in this post http://refineus.org/2009/02/8-things-that-destroy...
Talking about your fears and having some gut wrenching conversations up front will take away the fear in the moment of tension. Let me know if we can serve you in any way.
In general, to be honest, i don't feel we have "problems" in our marriage. We sometimes misunderstand each other. We want to have children, & it is becoming obvious to us that it won't happen. (Please do not write me to tell me all the things we could do – like "just adopt" or be foster parents. We have explored them. There are reasons it won't work for us.)
As far as the church helping? Ah, not much they can do. I do have fairly severe chronic illness & the church wants to be supportive, but that comes out in a weekly, "Are you better yet?" that is kind of discouraging. And one lady has taken me to task for "Not trusting God enough & praying the scripture promises." She rejects the idea that God may be calling me to live with this illness. She keeps telling me "God wants you to be healthy." When reminded that Paul carried a physical ailment & that i may be called to do the same, she rejects it, saying again, "God wants you to be healthy." I avoid her.
The problems we have in our marriage come more from outside, folks who can't understand this, that from our relationship.
Kathryn….I don't feel like it is my place to write and tell you what you should or shouldn't do in the area of becoming a parent. I do know from having several friends that have struggled with that how it can weigh on each spouse and make the marriage tense. I am sorry that people in the church impose more problems on you than they help resolve.
Thanks. When i said, "Please don't write me . . . " i wasn't speaking to you specifically! There are some folks who seem to need to do this. I've also read comments at articles & blogs that are fairly caustic to folks who have said "Adoption is not for us."
God has sincerely blessed us in our marriage relationship.
For us I think the biggest distraction to us in our marriage is when we haven’t been intentional about spending time together. When we get to the end of the week and realize we haven’t said more than a few words to each other everything else is affected: communication,sex, affection. We become selfish, hurried and withdrawn. We find that when we spend time together,intentionally connecting, so much else falls into place well.
Sarah…great insight. So much of our marriage we spend co-existing rather than pursuing intimacy. Thanks so much for your openness and sharing your experience and journey!
1. What is the one issue that creates the most problems for you in your marriage?
My wife and I are very close and committed. We'll celebrate 20 years of marriage this year. However, our problems with MONEY have been a constant stress all these years. We've lived paycheck-to-paycheck through some years where we could've socked away a BUNCH, but blew it. Now, the kids are bigger, the cars are older, the problems are bigger requiring solutions with more zeroes on the end of them. This MONEY problem has led to a LACK OF TRUST in our marriage. She doesn't trust me anymore… at least not much. it's going to take months, probably years, to earn it back. To be honest, we're hurting. Divorce is not an option. But how do we find the energy and hope to press into the problems every DAY? It's tough sledding every day.
2. Do you feel like the Church is effective in helping you find Godly hope and answers to this problem?
We have been GREATLY helped by "FamilyLife Today" and the Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference from FamilyLife out of Little Rock, Arkansas. have we found hope? Yes, but not sustained through EVERYTHING. Hope leaks, I guess. Have we found ANSWERS? Yes, BUT APPLICATION is tough. KNOWING the right thing to do and DOING it are two different things. I long to be courageous enough to do the right thing at the right time. That includes doing the right thing in the heat of the an argument or crisis.
Chris…great thoughts. What you hit on is key…because most people say "We have money issues." But what you are realizing is you have a trust issue. So making more money isn't really going to fix the problem. Earning trust at this point is so much more important than earning money. If you earn trust, then the money problem will get better. If you earn money, but not trust, then nothing will get better. Thank you for your honesty, and putting something out there that so many of us struggle with! You are not alone my friend!
#1…lack of trust. I learned 15 yrs ago that he was addicted to porn – two months after learning he had had an affair within the first four months of our marriage. Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated our 21st anniversary…by GOD'S GRACE! However, he still does one continual thing that whether he is acting out or not, leads me to not trust him.
#2 Well, when my father-in-law tells my dear husband that no young man raised in a Christian home can have this addiction….the church hasn't failed but most Christians don't know what to do with it!
@anon…wow! You have been through so much and hung in there for so long. I hope that your husband's shares the same commitment to you now that you have to him. Let me know if we can serve you in any way!
In a word – me. Selfishness, anger, pride, shame. Sure, my wife isn't perfect and I feel that she shoulders some of the blame, but the bottom line to any relational problem with another person is a relational problem between myself and God. I know all the pat answers and solutions, but as one other commenter pointed out, KNOWING and DOING are two very different things. We've been married a long time, been to many marriage conferences and studied marriage several times in church, but what's getting in the head is missing the heart for both of us.
As far as the church, we haven't involved the church and aren't too inclined to do so. One thing I can point to is that the church hasn't traditionally done a great job in equipping men to be true men of God. The pastor of the church that I attend came to this conclusion over the last year and has made this a priority by working to build the men's ministry up. This is what's slowly opening my eyes and my heart to what changes need to occur IN me to make my marriage work.
I want to snap my fingers and make it all work, but I realize it's going to take a tremendous amount of time as well as trust in Jesus to effect the change that needs to be made. I also realize that in order for anything to change with her, my heart needs to change.
Communication, distrust, disrespect, finances. My marriage has been in a miserable state for the past few years. I have been very bitter and resentful. The final straw was my husbands confession of infidelity. Our marriage is over after 18 years and 5 kids.
I do not think the church was very helpful. We tried counseling through the church, but that didn't work, and there was no accountability. Further, a church leader actually told my husband NOT to tell me of the affair. What kind of marriage/intamacy can you expect when a spouse is hiding something of this signifigance from his spouse?
1) Putting your own wants and desires above all else. When your desire to seek your own pleasure and happiness becomes greater than your desire to please God, greater than your vow to your spouse, and greater than your love for your children, you will chose the wrong path everytime. Marriage is not about what we can get from someone else. Marriage is about becoming more holy not happy. But holyness does not have the immediate gratafication that pursueing your own happiness falsly promises.
2) Churches have failed to stand up for the covenant of marriage. The church is marrying persons to their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc spouse. Where did God ever say you could marry someone else? Only after death of your spouse. I have been dissappointed by the lack of support that I was able to receive from local churches, when I was trying to save my marriage. Most only offered after divorce support groups. Never marriage intervention groups, or marriage support. Sure they have men's bible study, and women's bible study, but what about keeping a family together for bible study? Churches today are afraid of standing for what GOD says about marriage. It is never an option. No today we have a watered down faith, that wants to never step on toes. Instead the church will turn its head from this issue, and focus on tithing, and missions, yes lets save someone else while our church families are being broken as fast as Satan can get to them.
I meant to write ..It is never an option to divorce in God's plan for marriage….