How to Enjoy Your Marriage

What if I told you that one of the goals of marriage was to enjoy your spouse? Most of us would think, “Duh, Josh, that makes sense.” We want to be happy and enjoy our relationships.

I’ve read that statistically less than 20% of married couples actually say they are happy and enjoy their marriage. Sadly, of the people I’ve met and watched, that number doesn’t seem that crazy.

You and I know that stat is true. We’ve been married, we watched our parents marriage, we see our friends go in and out of relationships.

What if I told you the choices you make when dating, in engagement and through marriage will determine whether or not you enjoy your spouse? We know this. And yet most people, most couples, make decisions that lead them to a place of misery in marriage, or simply giving up on their marriage but staying together for the kids.

Anyone can stay together. Anyone can stay for the kids and be miserable, but it takes different choices to find enjoyment.

Proverbs 5 says this:

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. -Proverbs 5:15 – 19

So what do couples do to enjoy their marriage that you can do? Here are four things:

1. Decide you’ll enjoy your marriage. This might seem obvious, but couples who enjoy their marriage decide to enjoy their marriage. They decide to last. It isn’t just that they make a commitment to each other, but they really live with the reality that divorce is not an option.

When you decide to enjoy your marriage, you decide that no other relationship is an option. This leads into many other decisions. If divorce or not being happy is an option, that will also determine the actions you will take. If happiness in your marriage is a priority, that impacts your choices. If your needs and selfishness are your priority, that will impact your choices.

If you decide to enjoy your marriage, you will think of your spouse above yourself and look for ways to bless and encourage them. You won’t point out all their wrongs or imperfections. You know they aren’t perfect and neither are you.

This also means you will work hard at your marriage. You’ll read books on marriage, listen to podcasts and find a mentor who has a marriage you want to learn from. Katie and I are constantly talking to couples who are older and enjoy their marriages. What do they know? How do they make it to year 40, year 50, of marriage and still enjoy being together?

The reality is, your marriage will go through highs and lows. It will have incredible moments of joy and unbelievably dark lows. Every couple who enjoys their marriage has learned how to navigate these moments as a couple, and that’s crucial. You learn how to walk together no matter what life holds or throws at you.

This also means you find things to do together that you enjoy. You don’t have to enjoy everything your spouse does, but you enjoy being with them, and, as we’ll see in a minute, you enjoy making them happy.

Verse 15 tells us in order to enjoy your marriage, you must focus on it, take care of it and pour time and energy into it. A great marriage won’t just happen. If you meet a couple with a great marriage, you will see a couple that has worked on their marriage. They have protected their marriage and they have put effort into their marriage.

2. Fight for purity in your marriage (before and after you get married). This one is important. Purity is one of the things that protects your marriage from adultery, yet it also helps move you to enjoyment.

When you are looking at porn, fantasizing about someone you aren’t married to, reading romance novels, getting emotionally attached to a co-worker or a neighbor, you aren’t protecting your marriage. When this happens, you start to think, “This person gets me. This person listens. This person meets a need my spouse doesn’t meet.” In that moment you have not only moved into dangerous territory, but now you don’t enjoy your marriage.

Let’s be honest, porn, whether you are a man or a woman, is easier. It takes less effort, there’s no possibility of rejection or hurt, it takes no work, and it is enjoyable for that moment. But you miss connection and intimacy; it leaves you longing for more because it doesn’t live up to its promises.

Verse 17 says, “Let your bodies be for yourself alone (this is referring to your marriage), not for strangers with you.”

In years past at Revolution, we’ve challenged married couples in our church to do a 30 day sex challenge. To pray together each day, read your Bible together each day and do something sexual together each day. Every time someone will ask me what it means to do something sexual with your spouse each day. My answer? Look at your spouse and say, “What does it mean for us to do something sexual together, with no one else (digital or not) each day for the next 30 days?” Then do that. Here’s what you’ll find: your affection goes up and your pursuit of each other goes up. If you know you’re connecting sexually today, that changes what you do that day. You might not eat that spicy food, you brush your teeth again or get a shower. That expectation goes a long way in a relationship.

3. Rejoice in your spouse. Verse 18 says, “Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth.”

Rejoice carries the idea of fun and enjoyment.

It is to feel joy, enjoyment and happiness from your spouse but also to bring joy, enjoyment and happiness to your spouse.

First, do you strive to bring joy, enjoyment and happiness to your spouse? Do you know what brings them joy and happiness?

Second, are you a cheerleader for your spouse, or do you fight against them? Bringing them joy means cheering them on, being excited about what excites them. If something goes well for them, you are excited for them. You don’t get jealous of them or irritated when things go well for them. You rejoice when they rejoice and you weep when they weep.

On the flip side of rejoicing is walking through pain with them. Katie always tells me, “Josh, you hold a crying girl.” This is great advice for dads of daughters and for husbands.

4. Strive to be great servant lovers. Verse 19 says, “Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated by her love.” We’ll talk more about this in two weeks, but let me say this now.

Couples who enjoy their marriage are great servant lovers. They are drunk with love. Yes, old age and gravity affect us all, and you don’t look like you used to, but that doesn’t mean your sexual relationship can’t be great.

If you meet a couple who has been married for more than a decade and are happy, here’s what I bet you’ll find: a couple who are great servant lovers. They have worked hard on their sexual relationship with their spouse. They know what turns their spouse on and what they don’t like. They are affectionate, they gross their kids out with all the kissing and dancing they do in the kitchen.

Let me give you a few ideas on this:

  • Find out what your spouse finds attractive and try to do that. It might be to throw that shirt out. If you stay at home with kids, your husband might say, “Could you shower by the end of the day?” Whatever it is, talk it out instead of being frustrated by it.
  • Clean out your underwear drawer every year. That alone will go a long way.
  • Pursue each other and have a weekly date night (even if it is at home). I don’t care what you call it, but have a night each week that is set aside to build into your relationship. And empty nesters, unless you are intentional, don’t tell me every night is date night. Simply being in the same house doesn’t count.
  • In the bedroom, find out what they like and don’t like. I know guys, you are awesome in the bedroom, in your mind. My guess is, if you asked your wife what turns her on, she will surprise you because it isn’t what you think.

The reality is, to enjoy your marriage it will take work. It will take making decisions other couples don’t make. Why? Not every couple enjoys their marriage, so to enjoy yours, you must make different choices. You must walk a different path.

Can Suffering Bring Any Joy or Happiness?

suffering

Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo…the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the Cross signifies. And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ. -Malcolm Muggeridge

How You Talk about Your Spouse

spouse

Recently I was at a leadership conference and was struck by how the speakers each spoke about their spouse. Some of them spoke highly of their spouse, while others were disparaging, even taking a passive aggressive tone as they told stories about their spouse.

The truth is: How you speak about your spouse dictates what others think about them. 

We don’t often think like this, but it is true. We may vent about our spouse, tell a story that makes them look silly or stupid, or even talk down about them. We think, “I love this person,” and our story stems from there. But the person we’re telling the story to doesn’t love our spouse; they may not even know them.

Consequently, all they know about your spouse is what you say about them.

Two things happen when we talk negatively about our spouse:

  1. We don’t realize the full damage our words are doing.
  2. We know full well the damage our words are creating.

If you have kids, they will look at your spouse and speak to your spouse based on what you say about them. If you put your husband down, talk about how he doesn’t come through, your kids will treat him as such. If you talk about how your wife always nags, is never grateful, your kids will treat her that way and believe that about her.

Where do these words come from?

Often when we speak passive aggressively about anyone, there is truth in it. We are masking our hurt and pain with humor. What this does is keep you from experiencing a truly great relationship with your spouse. When you make fun of your spouse, you miss out on trust, oneness and affection. You will each walk on eggshells around each other, just waiting for the ball to drop on you and to be made fun of, to be cut down.

One of the rules Katie and I have for our marriage is that we will never talk down to each other in public, we won’t make fun of each other in public. I want people who hear a story about Katie to hold her in high regard. I want them to think highly of her like I do. This doesn’t mean that we don’t do things that drive the other person nuts or hurt their feelings. We do. We just deal with them in our marriage.

Whenever I hear a pastor or someone make a snide comment about their spouse in a sermon or a conversation, I think, “Why don’t you just tell your spouse?” It is uncomfortable for everyone else.

Remember: No one will think more highly of your spouse than you do. 

You are the lid for that. If you have a respect level for your spouse at a five, no one else is passing four.

While this might seem like a small thing, and the idea of not picking on each other may seem like a silly rule, the reality of how many arguments stem from snide comments, passive aggressive comments, mean jokes and stories that make people look stupid has an enduring effect on a relationship.

Here’s how I know.

The next time you are with a couple, and one of them tells a story that makes the other look stupid. Now I’m not talking about a silly story like we went camping and got stuck in the rain, and we’ll laugh about this for the next decade; but one that makes everyone think, “This person is an idiot.” Watch the spouse who the story is about while it is being told and everyone is laughing at them. Watch the life go out of their eyes as they are reminded in front of a group of people, “You aren’t good enough. I can’t believe you did this.”

So, why do we do this to our spouse?

For many, passive aggressive comments and making fun of each other is a love language. A very unhealthy, surefire way to kill a relationship, love language. Many people grew up watching their parents make fun of each other. I know one family that when they get together, all they talk about is stupid things people did in the past and make fun of each other. They do this instead of talking about anything new in their lives, which shows a lot of unhealthiness.

Many couples also don’t know how to have an honest conversation about how they feel, what hurts them, things that drive them nuts that their spouse does. So instead of saying, “I wish you would ask for help, I wish you would say thanks for the things I do,” they nitpick and cut down.

In the end it leaves a lot of couples longing for more and wishing a different way were possible.

There is. Start to think: How do I want people to think about my spouse? And then start talking about your spouse in that light. The irony of this is that people have a way of becoming what we expect them to become. 

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Surviving a Hard Season in Your Marriage

marriage struggles

Let’s be honest for a minute, at some point in your marriage you are going to hit a hard season. It could be caused by a busy schedule, a child is born, difficulty getting pregnant, some kind of sickness, debt or bills, health of in-laws, drama with some kind of family member or friend, loss of job, the list is endless.

But how do you know if it is a hard season and not something else?

Here are some things that are true of a hard season: lack of intimacy and sex, lack of communication, long silences between you and your spouse, constant arguing, a lot of misunderstandings or miscommunications, or just the feeling that you are ships passing through the night.

The reality is, at some point you will feel like this, you may even feel like it right now. So what do you do?

Here are 7 ways to not only survive a hard season, but to come out of it stronger:

  1. Identify why you are in this season. Both spouses know when they are in this season. Men would like to ignore it, bulldoze through it or just fix it to move forward. Sometimes you need to spend more time talking about something to fix it, sometimes it is so obvious that you can quickly fix it and move on.
  2. Talk through what got you to this season. Don’t just identify that life is hard, that your marriage is in a tough spot. Identify how you got there. Is it overscheduling? Do you need to cut back at work? Do you need to pick up the pace on date night? Do you need to communicate more? Do you need to have more sex in your marriage?
  3. Apologize for any sin on your part. Make things right. If you are in a hard season as a couple, both of you sinned. Almost every problem in marriage has sin from both spouses, don’t just point fingers at the other. Own your sin, apologize and make it right.
  4. Figure out the weaknesses in your marriage that need to become strengths. You may have gotten to a hard season because you aren’t organized, don’t have a plan to get out of debt or you aren’t doing well to get everything done at work so you are overworking. Find a couple, find a person who is can help. Someone who is smarter than you at your weakness and ask for help. I think when we look for coaches, we often look for someone who can help us with everything, that is foolish. If it is finances, get with someone who has no debt and is doing great with their finances and say, “help me.”
  5. Get rid of what got you to this place. Recently, Katie and I walked through a hard season that came from adding kids to our family, my job expanding and getting busier and I was saying yes to too many things. We pulled back on some activities as a family, made some changes to how we do our schedule and cut some things out. This is hard, but you have to let go of or change what got you to this season. You may need to not sign up for an activity, back out of the PTA or say no to a promotion at work. Why? Your marriage needs you to.
  6. Outlast the season. If you are in a hard season that simply means you are married. Too many couples look at a hard season and want to throw in the towel, don’t. Your marriage means too much, the ripple affects to how your marriage goes are enormous. Don’t believe me? Talk to a friend who grew up in a broken home and ask them how that has impacted their life. Fight for your marriage.
  7. Plan to not repeat this season. No one plans to have a tough season in marriage, but it happens. It often happens because we lose our bearings, we let sin enter our hearts or we don’t have a plan to protect our marriage. Have a plan to protect your marriage: how will you stay out of debt? How will you protect a weekly date night? How will you keep communication and sex a priority in your marriage? If you don’t talk through this step, you will end up repeating a hard season and they are much harder the second time around because you will feel even more defeated and helpless than you already do.

Questions to ask Yourself about Electronics

electronics

Many in our culture act as if electronics, social media and TV are neutral. They are simply there. That is naive at best. Electronics are not neutral. They dictate our lives, pump us with more desire for approval, and often help us waste time and miss out on relationships with family and friends. They can keep us from work and ultimately, run our lives and ruin our lives.

Below are some helpful questions from Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions by Arthur Boers to ask yourself about your relationship with electronics:

Attention: What is the primary and ongoing focus of our awareness? Screens and virtual relationships? Family and neighbors? Voyeuristic television “reality shows”? Nature and our surrounding environment? Is our capacity to pay attention, dwell, and be aware diminishing? Are we so overwhelmed with information and stimulation that our ability to respond is affected? Are we moving from receptivity to expecting to control what we perceive?

Limits: What guides our sense of what is appropriate? Do we have the moral strength to recognize when something is beyond the pale and that we need to say no? Or does technology, which makes more and more things possible, including voyeurism, pornography, and gambling, also make all things permissible? Which taboos are worth guarding? How does technology free us from moral constraints and accountability? What is the relationship of technology to addictions? How does technology reinforce addictions? How is technology itself addictive?

Engagement: How are we coping with life and its challenges? Do we approach our day and those we love with calm anticipation, eager to be and work together? Or do such rushed and harried attention spans lead us into being demanding and curt? How does technology speed encounters, making conflicts and misunderstandings more likely? Does planned and perceived obsolescence contribute to eroding commitments?

Relationships: Do our lives include rich networks of loved ones, supportive friends, caring confidants, and casual acquaintances? Are there people who know us in our fullness, care about our hardships, and challenge us to grow in virtue? Or are our lives characterized by growing isolation and loneliness, our relationships dispersed and fragmented? What are the implications of having relationships increasingly mediated by technology while opportunities for face-to-face conversations decline and in-the-flesh friendships decrease? How does technology reinforce casual approaches to relationships, ones that are easy to enter or exit but do not necessarily sustain? What kinds of communities are created by our technology use?

Time: Do we have a sense that there is enough room in our lifestyles for the things that truly matter—work and play, rigor and rest, love and laughter? Or are we too busy to live according to our deepest and highest priorities? Do distracting demands and pressures lure us away from our highest values? How does engagement with technology make us busier? And how does technology erode and displace opportunities to pause and determine, reflect on, and honor ultimate priorities? Space: How well connected are we with the geography and places where we are located? Are we rooted in neighborhoods, connected to the earth and our environment? Or is much of our life lived abstractly in “virtual” reality?

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Being a Leader People Want to Follow

book

I love the way Mark Miller writes. He is very similar to Patrick Lencioni in writing business/leadership fables. His latest book The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People want to Follow (kindle version) is no different.

Here are a few things I highlighted:

  • If your heart is not right, no one cares about your leadership skills.
  • I’ll let you in on a little discussed fact about leadership: As important as the skills are, lack of skills is not what derails most leaders; skills are too easy to learn. If you want to predict people’s ultimate success as leaders, evaluate not their skills but their leadership character.
  • There is a lot more to leadership than great individual work
  • You can lead, with or without, a title. If you wait until you get a title, you could wait forever.
  • Ninety percent of our success as leaders will be determined by what’s below the waterline. It’s our leadership character that ultimately drives what we do, and why. It is a true reflection of who we really are as human beings.
  • Leadership character is the primary driver of your success as a leader.
  • The lack of skills is not what derails most leaders—skills are too easy to learn. It is ultimately leadership character that determines our opportunity for influence and impact.
  • When leaders fail to thrive, the culprit is often their leadership character, not their lack of skills.
  • The servant leader constantly works to help others win.
  • Don’t confuse opportunity with leadership.
  • Get ready to lead and opportunities to lead will not be your problem.
  • Many people in the world see events as they are; leaders are different in that they see things that could be. And the future they see is always a better version of the present. We believe we can make a difference; we think we can make the world, or at least our part of it, better. Leaders are generally more optimistic than nonreaders.
  • People generally rise to the level of expectations placed on them.
  • When faced with a challenging or difficult situation, the best leaders most often respond with courage; less mature leaders, or nonleaders often choose another path—a path with less risk, less conflict, and less personal discomfort.
  • Leaders usually don’t wait—they initiate.
  • Leaders get what they create and what they allow.
  • Leaders respond with courage when they: Articulate the vision for the future. Build relationships with challenging people. Challenge people to grow and change. Mend broken relationships. Confront difficult problems. Make hard or unpopular decisions.
  • When leaders lead well, not everyone is going to be happy.
  • If there were no challenge, there would be no need for courage—or leadership.
  • To blame others is not the path leaders take. Leaders accept responsibility, in part, because they are sold out to the vision.
  • Leaders are different. They see the world differently and they cultivate different character traits.

If you are a leader and you are looking for a quick, insightful leadership book to read, this is it.

If you want to see some of the past books I’ve reviewed, go here.