Episode Notes: Here are ten lessons I learned in marriage after 39 years. I’m sure this will be updated as we continue to learn to love better and more completely!

Background

• Here are ten lessons I have learned in my marriage.  Some of these lessons you may already struggling with or you have already learned. 

Friendship is Critical

• Intimacy in a marriage is important, but physical intimacy is not the only type of intimacy that needs to be nurtured in a marriage or the only one that defines the health of a marriage.
• Emotional, mental, and spiritual intimacy with our spouse is absolutely critical and can often fuel physical intimacy.
• Do not forget about nurturing your friendship with your spouse.  Have a discussion with your husband and make the commitment to work on your friendship.
• I guarantee, physical intimacy will come when you are really intimate friends.

Build Up Your Husband

• Your husband relies on your encouragement, tenderness, and your confidence in him to be strong in the world.
• Men are constantly assaulted with insecurities and inadequacies that they are not doing enough.  Coming home to a wife who brings all that up for them is absolutely crushing.  It only affirms all those insecurities they already feel.
• Encourage your husband, greet him with tenderness and love, and have confidence in him.

How You Say Things

• How you say what you say and why you say it is critical to the respect your husband feels from you.
• Are you trying to encourage him or are you just cutting him down?
• Do you point out your husband’s faults or are you supportive of him?

Spouses Must Be Unified in Parenting

• You must be unified in your parenting ideas, values, and goals for your family.
• Come together as a couple to choose what will work best for your family.  Sometimes this means compromise, but it is more important that you compromise in order to present to your children a unified front.
  • If children do not have clear direction from both parents, they are lost.
  • Children need to feel safe and secure because their parents, together, are leaders.

Sacrifice for Each Other

• Self-sacrifice is the glue that holds a marriage together.
• Stop thinking about what your spouse needs to do to make you happy and begin to think about what you can do to make him happy.
• How can you live a sacrificial love?
• When you stop making your spouse responsible for your happiness, you both start to really live sacrificial love.

You Spouse is #1

• It is imperative that you show your children that your spouse is your number one priority.
• Treat your husband with all the love and tenderness that you show your children.

Pray for Your Husband

• Pray all day, every day for your husband.
• Pray that that he will be the man, husband, and father that God created him to be, and ask Jesus to take care of all his needs.

Give the Benefit of the Doubt

• Always be empathetic with your husband and never keep score.
• Instead of focusing on what irritates you or what his weaknesses are, give him the benefit of the doubt, and do not assume he is doing something just to annoy you.
• Do not assume his actions mean something they do not.

Be Patient with His Temperament

• The beauty of a long marriage is that you become like each other, and you begin to appreciate the differences in temperament and how they add depth to your relationship.

Letting the Sun Go Down Before You Resolve Conflict

• Sometimes it is better to let the sun go down on your anger and resolve an argument the next day.
• When it is late in the evening/night, and the two of you are exhausted, it is more likely that you will get angrier with each other.  Go to bed, get some rest, and when the morning comes, you will likely be in a better head space with less emotions and can resolve the situation much more quickly.

Bonus – Be Committed for the Long Haul

• There will be days or years when you are struggling but challenge yourself to love unconditionally.  From that space, challenge them lovingly.

Final Thoughts

• When your spouse feels love, acceptance, compassion, respect, and, sometimes, heroic sacrifice, he will be inspired to make the changes that may otherwise be extremely difficult to make.