Action Plan for Your Fierce Marriage
Now that you have dug into both the macro and micro seasons of your marriage let us start becoming proactive in making our marriages and lives fierce with the love of Christ!
4 Factors to Fiercely Protect Yourself From
Research has shown that there are four major common factors that will lead to divorce. So no matter if you are single and working on yourself, working at being married, struggling married or happily married you will want to know these factors.
First, you dwell on the negative and interpret everything as a negative. Second, you are so insecure, tired or feed up that your tendency is to avoid conflict. You are not freely sharing your needs, wants, desires or dreams with your spouse.
Thirdly, If you allow a simple or small disagreement and to escalate quickly. But you are allowing your feelings and emotions to dictate to you how you should live and yet they lie to you more than the weather man! You're not using any form of self-control or behaving like the godly man or woman God has created you to be.
Lastly, is when invalidation is used by you or at you to justify not dealing with issues. This can be done even in a passive-aggressive way or harshly to shut someone down. Commitments like…you don’t need to be afraid…you don’t know what you’re talking about…oh well, stuff happens…stop crying, you’re showing you are weak. Just suck it up. This is winning or getting your point on some score card you are keeping. But this not working for reconciliation!
Reflect on Your Marriage and Life
Take a moment and analyze where you feel that you marriage is on a scale of 0 to 10. “0” would be we don’t have a marriage and “10” being we are doing well.
Now, how much is Jesus and the gospel involved in you r marriage? This time “0” would be not at all and “10” being Jesus is the center.
Be honest and explain why you gave your marriage or life the numbers you did. Are your needs not being met? How are your expectations of the marriage, spouse and yourself? Do you feel threatened as a result of your emotional, physical intellectual, spiritual or financial needs are not being met? How much conflict do you honestly see in your marriage? Dr. David Sumlin states that, “Learning how to positively respond to our feelings when our needs are not met is critical to disarming the Cycle of conflict we find ourselves in.”
Fierce Strategies to Help Your Marriage and Life
Expectations Inventory
Take an expectations inventory of how you prefer to: communicate with your spouse, resolve conflict, interact socially, interact spiritually, interact sensually and sexually, interact with your parents, maintenance and cleaning of the house, spend and save money and raise your children. Once you each have done this, discuss which expectations are realistic or unrealistic. Then you move into how to better meet any expectations you both felt were realistic and letting go of those that you both felt were unrealistic.
This was very eye opening for my husband and myself. It really helped us to have even deeper conversations than we had about how we had done, and were we are headed.
Date Nights Conversation
On date nights have questions you would have had with your grandparents on their front porch or need to have to connect again. Some examples:
What is something that we did or place that we visited when we were dating that you would like to do again?
How would you want our children to describe our marital friendship?
What could I do more or less of to make it safe for you to share your thoughts or feelings with me?
What are the most enjoyable things you like doing with me?
What is your most favorite thing I have ever done for you?
When do you find me most attractive?
Recall and describe a time in your marriage when you felt especially alive and joyful.
I feel that our relationship is unique in the following way…
What is one trait you admire about each of your parents?
What would I most like to be remembered for in my life?
Something I wish people would understand about me is_____.
I believe y spouse would describe romance as ___.
And I would describe romance as ___.
The three most romantic things my spouse has done for me are __.
In leading up to love-making, I like for my spouse to ____.
Each of Our Emotional Needs
What are some of the deep emotional needs your spouse has? Well from research they state that the wife needs to hear and feel valuable. She should not be on your priority list because she IS your list. The husband must know that what he has is enough to be successful. Does he feel like a hero around you or do you make him feel like a zero? In other words, do you cherish each other? Are you honoring each other? Below are some examples of how to show honor to your spouse:
Forgive Extend GraceBe AffectionateServe each otherPray with and for each otherInvest in your spouses dreamsBe honest and transparent with kind loving wordUse I statements not you statements.
Treasuring Your Spouse
How are you treasuring your spouse? Do I view them as a special and priceless gift that God has given me? Find ways to see and love your spouse through the same eyes Jesus has for them and yourself. This means with pure unconditional love. This may need to be a prayer that you have to ask God to help you do. But then you will start to see what is true, pure, right, lovely and of good report in them.
Prepare you mind and emotions for each day with your spouse. Think back to when you were dating and it was time to get ready. I typically had on special songs that I sang along with as I dreamed of how our date would be. Do the same now. Create a playlist of some of your love songs you have shared together and sing them again over your marriage.
Journal a list of the positive traits about your spouse and try writing a love letter to your spouse. I have found that by having this positive traits list of my husband, keeps my eyes looking at and loving him the way Christ loves me. It also helps when having a hard grace and truth conversation, to keep my mind on those things that are lovely before, during, and after the conversation.
Theses are just a few of the many wonderful things that we have learned from our books we have read, our purposeful marriage trips and from some great people who have personally spoke into our lives. I would like to say a thank you to the following people who have shared these and many other ideas into our marriage; Jay and Laura Laffoon, Dr. David and Terri Sumlin and Dr. Gary Chapman. Our marriage is better and stronger due to all you have invested in it with us. Please contact them for more information about all of their offerings as well.