By Tina Kanu
Married couples, including Christians, have told me over the years that a strong and blissful marriage is impossible because conflict is inevitable between husband and wife.
I disagree. I have witnessed some very romantic and sweet marriages.
Each couple may operate at different levels on how best to deal with changes in marriage, as long as they have in mind the vision of preparing for changes or transitions and are working towards it.
Being focused they can perceive progress in their marriage that one would describe as a healthy union.
As Christians we are called to be people of hope and not people of fear or faithlessness. God created us to confront obstacles and find a way to overcome them rather than resign ourselves to a sense of lost and futility.
We must work at the positive side of our marriage rather than concentrate on the negative.
There is an eye of the storm in every person that can make or break any marriage.
In a hurricane, the eye of the storm is the place of intense violent winds. And this eye of the storm in a person is there through life as far as marriage is concerned.
You can choose to react to what your spouse does with a positive or negative approach.
You can choose to give every action or reaction a negative interpretation, assumption, or suspicion. You can also respond with a positive attitude and give it the benefit of the doubt.
Choose to live by God’s Word in 1 Corinthians 1:7 which says that love is ever ready to believe the best of every person. Your negative behaviour or thought can generate anger but if corrected the anger will subside.
One of the ways to keep going in a positive direction is to be fully aware of your thoughts about your relationship.
For your marital communication to be better and smooth, your thought life must be good and positive, and the way you behave and treat each other must improve.
Your thought life must be carefully examined. God knows all our thoughts as well as everything else about us.
Many people slander their spouse in their mind. Some of it amounts to character assassination rather than character adoration, and this creates conflict and distance in marriage.
So for you to have a growing and fulfilling marriage, you must develop a thought process that is positive and healthy.
The inner workings of our mind and heart reflect in us.
There are so many thought pattern that can destroy our marriage relationships, such as negative assumption. Avoid making unfavorable judgment about your spouse.
Be careful not to use libelous comments on your spouse, such as he/she is crazy, or has character disorder, or is impossible to please, or is a stubborn person.
That your partner has a character disorder is not enough reason not to want to work on your relationship.
You must also avoid playing the victim. Saying “I don’t care” means you have no control over your life or marriage.
Saying things like “I will never be able to do anything about my marriage situation”, indicate an unconditional surrender to whatever is happening to your life and marriage.
Thoughts like these create problem in marriage rather than solve them. When such thoughts come to your mind, confront them, challenge them, and change them.
Philippians 4:8 admonishes us to think on things that are good and lovely which are able to move us forward in our relationship.
We must at all time choose hope rather than futility. Life is full of choices, some are difficult others are easy.
You can choose to love or not to love. You can choose to be committed or not to be committed. You can choose to look for the best or the worst. Whichever choice you make you live with it.
Negative thoughts and attitude interfere with one of the most essential ingredients required for a marriage to flourish, make progress and move forward. That ingredient is called forgiveness.
See your spouse in a new light so as to be able to forgive him/her.
Asking for forgiveness from your spouse or forgiving him/her for the part he/she played in a marital conflict is a humbling thing for a Christian to do.
Sometimes after a conflict is resolved, couples still find it very difficult to forgive each other. Some people say they are not willing yet or they don’t feel like it.
You don’t have to feel like it because forgiveness is not a feeling, it is a commandment from God to forgive those who hurt us.
One woman said to me, “even if I forgive, I cannot forget what he did to me.”
Forgiveness is not forgetting. Most things that happen to us are not easily forgotten, but when we forgive, details of the offence stay in our memory but the feelings of bitterness and resentment are cleared off.
We can still remember the offence but it will no longer affect us emotionally.
Forgiveness is not pretending. Some pretend that the offence never happened meanwhile the pain is still there.
Forgiveness is not bringing up the past. It is not also demanding that a person must change before we forgive because this means we are not really willing to forgive.
Forgiveness has cost and it also hurts. It does not always come easily, it only comes out of love and compassion of God in the heart. It is a decision to accept what you never thought you would accept.
Christian forgiveness is self-giving without self-seeking. Forgiveness provides a new context with which we can nurture our relationship.
Forgiveness is a decision to wish another person well, it is to call upon God to bless him/her and to show His grace to the person.
Time never heals wounds, only forgiveness can.
Conflicts are serious issues, but as Christian couples we must not allow inevitable conflicts in marriage to push us apart.
One more way of dealing with conflict as Christians is to constantly talk to God about the issue. Ask God to refashion your thoughts. Consecrate your imagination and thought life to God.
Ask Him to cleanse your thought of anything that would hinder your marital fulfilment. With God’s assistance we can develop a much greater sensitive mindset.
If you are in a physically abusive marriage, please pray for God to tell you what to do. God may resolve the problem directly, or counsel you to separate for some time and get His help through the right human channels.
However, the option of separation is for couples who are yet to pattern their lives and by extension their marriage to God’s prescription.
If you are really broken with the Word of God you will know that the best thing is not to separate but to stay on and fight by seeking God’s intervention. And God will definitely come through for you.
Christian couples must work together as one body to defeat their marital enemy, the devil, whom 1 Peter 5:8 warns us to be wary of and be very alert about.
Satan wants to destroy marriage because it is the picture of Jesus Christ and the Church. Marriage is God’s design and institution, that is why the devil wants to destroy marital bonds.
But for us to succeed in this fight we must heed Paul’s advice in Ephesians 6:10-12.
We must put on the whole armour of God so as to take a stand against the devil’s schemes.
Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.
View issues between you and your spouse with spiritual eyes. Your spouse is not the enemy, satan is. Unite to find solution to the challenges threatening your marriage.
Working together as a couple makes us stronger, standing together in God’s strength helps take us through tough periods in marriage.
A blissful marriage is not something you discover but something you create through hard work and dedication. It means then that you need to work with your spouse and not against each other.
Be devoted enough to grow through obstacles in marriage, loving not only the lovable things about your spouse but the unlovable things too.
Pray for your spouse, encourage him/her, help him/her, and don’t battle against yourselves.
Fight spiritually as a couple against anything or anyone that would destroy the unity of your marriage.
