Don’t Give Up Too Soon!

I receive a lot of email from couples who are ready for divorce. Often they ask, “Is it too late for us? My spouse isn’t interested, and I feel I can’t go on. We are headed for divorce.” Of course, such a plea is usually accompanied by several horrifying and depressing details of what went wrong. It’s no wonder they think their situation is hopeless!

But one thing I tell such couples is this. Don’t give up! Just because your marriage feels hopeless to you does not mean it is hopeless to God. Are you ready to try a new approach?

Allow me to share a testimony of a couple who had every reason to give up in despair, given their circumstances. Here is their story, shared with their permission:

My wife and I were so out of control, that we were verbally attacking each other, and even worse, we had gotten to the point of physically attacking each other. We were in a constant cycle of forgiveness, anger, and attack. Although we knew that we loved each other, we felt that our marriage was a mistake. God certainly did not want us to be miserable. So we attempted to end our marriage by looking for comfort in another person’s arms. We separated, and I was left with two small children, 2 and 4 years old. It was heartbreaking. I wanted to have my wife back, even though we both seemed to have totally destroyed our marriage.

Several months later, we were in divorce court, finalizing the visitation schedule, when we decided to try and work things out. Well, after a week, we were back on the “crazy cycle” again. It appeared as though our marriage would not survive, until I purchased the Love and Respect book. I read it to my wife, and waited for her reaction. We laughed, we cried, and we found hope! Hope that there was a chance to keep our marriage. No one taught us to be married, we needed some help, and marriage counseling was not working for us. Pastors meetings were not helping us. Our parents and friends were not able to help us either. God was there in our time of trouble, working on our hearts, but we needed some guidance, some training on how to get along with each other. Love and Respect did that for us.

Although things in our relationship are not perfect, I love my wife even more than the first day that I met her, and she respects me for the man that I am, and together we are joyful and at peace. I never could have imagined marriage could be this wonderful! (Michael A.)

Testimonies like this are a great encouragement to me, and I trust to you too, no matter what your circumstances are. But is Love and Respect a magic bullet? No. Are there couples who write us and have failed? Yes. But one thing I’ve noticed is that people tend to give up too soon. Things don’t change overnight! If a marriage has been out of control on the Crazy Cycle for 15 years, it may take a good 15 months of applying new principles to get it running on the Energizing Cycle. A good rule of thumb, when it comes to relationships, is one month of hard work for every year of craziness. That’s not too bad, is it? Yet spouses want to give up after unconditionally loving or unconditionally respecting for one month or even one week, although they have been unloving and disrespectful for 20 years!

The question on the table is: Will you give up too soon? Could your breakthrough be just around the corner? Can you trust God to give you the strength to act in obedience no matter how your spouse responds? We’ll look at this last question next time, but for today let me encourage you to NOT GIVE UP.

Dr. Emerson

OPPORTUNITIES TO BE THANKFUL ARE ALWAYS THERE

I hope you are all practicing using Thankful Words towards your spouse as we approach Thanksgiving Day! But no doubt some of you feel as though you have nothing to be thankful about regarding your spouse. I understand this…truly, I do. I receive countless emails from husbands and wives whose spouse is committing adultery, taking drugs, drowning in alcohol, taking no interest in the family, etc. If it weren’t for the promises in God’s Word and the hope I find there, I too would get discouraged by all of these negative reports.

But the scriptures are filled with references to giving thanks “whatever happens” and in spite of our circumstances! In fact, giving thanks and praise is referred to as a SACRIFICE (Psalm 50:23, Hebrews 13:15). Have you ever thought about what that really means?

Well, for one thing, it means we must look for the positive in the midst of the negative. And when we can’t find anything positive, we can at least express thanks for the trials God is allowing in marriage because they can deepen your faith in Him. Thankful people find things for which they give God thanks. They are not thankful only for the good; they can be thankful in the midst of the bad as well.

The way you think is all-important when you are being thankful for whatever God sends. What I admire in my wife Sarah is that she is thankful for me and the rest of the family because she can look beyond us and thank God. In fact, one of Sarah’s favorite verses is Psalm 50:23 – “He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me.” She writes in her journal:

I remember when our son David had broken his leg quite severely, while playing baseball in the eighth grade. As I saw his heart breaking over the loss of a dream to play in the major league someday, I realized I could not fix his leg or his dream. Now my heart was breaking also. How would I get through this? Then God showed me this wasn’t a crisis with my son, but a crisis of faith for me. I knew it was God’s will that I give thanks in all things, but this didn’t feel like something for which to be thankful. And that is when I learned about a “sacrifice of thanksgiving” in Psalm 50:23.

When I came upon this verse while David was recuperating, at first it didn’t sound like a natural thing to do. But then I thought of Abraham, who was asked to sacrifice his only son on the altar. That wasn’t a very natural thing to do either. I realized that sometimes we have to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving even when things are not going well.

That was the first of many more times in my life when I would offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. It was like a pre-game warm-up with many practices in between. Little did I know I was practicing for the big game yet to come – the day I would hear the words “breast cancer.” Throughout the ten years between my son’s disappointment and then cancer for me, I had been finding joy in giving thanks. Each time I offered thanksgiving as a sacrifice, I knew I was honoring God. Even though my circumstances did not always change, something was happening in the heavens and something was happening in my soul!

Sarah went on to have a double mastectomy and today is cancer free. Whatever your relationship to your spouse may be right now, I urge you to use Sarah’s approach to your circumstances. To avoid or climb out of the pit of unthankfulness, make a commitment like the following:

With God’s help I will counter negative thoughts about my spouse by giving thanks for all his or her good qualities. I know Jesus does not let my weaknesses or faults control His view of me. I will treat my spouse as Jesus treats me.

Excerpts taken from The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.

This Thanksgiving – Use THANKFUL WORDS Around Your Spouse

How often do you thank your spouse for what he or she does for you every day? Do you sometimes withhold words of thanks because you feel your spouse doesn’t deserve them or won’t receive them?

Jesus Himself put a high priority on thankfulness, and He gave thanks whenever the occasion warranted it (for example, before He fed the five thousand in John 6:11). The way of Jesus is to give thanks, and He expects His followers to give thanks to God and to others. When He healed ten lepers, He noted that only one of them – and a Samaritan at that! – returned to thank Him (Luke 17:11-19).

I’m guessing that husbands or wives reading this will have different answers to the question “How thankful are you for your spouse?” You may be one of those who has to admit that you have fixated on the negative and are overlooking the positive and the good. You may have a problem with the way God designed your spouse. You didn’t bargain on getting someone who is so different from you. To remain unthankful for your spouse because you two are “so different” is a sure way to get on the Crazy Cycle, and this lack of gratitude for your spouse will not be any help in getting off.

Or you may be one of those husbands or wives who believes you have good reason to not be thankful for your spouse – at least right now – because your spouse is doing or saying extremely unlovable or disrespectful things. I can fill a book with letters from husbands or wives whose spouse is investing nothing in the marriage, and we’ll address that in part 2 of this blog on thankfulness.

So how does being thankful connect with Love and Respect? Obviously, a husband who wants to speak lovingly to his wife cannot also be ungrateful for her. And a wife who wants to speak respectfully cannot also be complaining about her husband. If you attempt to use Thankful Words but have not made a conscious commitment to be loving or respectful, your words will sound phony, gruff, or sarcastic. To be respectful toward your husband, you must speak Thankful Words respectfully. You do not want to sound like this: “Thank you for putting gas in my car – after the third time I asked you.” And to be loving toward your wife, you must speak thankful words lovingly and sincerely instead of getting in a sly dig: “Thanks for cleaning the house – for the first time this month!”

Also keep in mind that thankfulness in marriage is to be a very reciprocal kind of thing. If you want your husband to express appreciation for your attempts to be respectful, you must speak thankfully when he tries to be loving. And if you want your wife to express appreciation for your attempts to be loving, you must use Thankful Words when she tries to speak or act respectfully.

But is giving thanks really about your spouse? Of course you know you should be thankful to God for your spouse and for a lot of other things as well. But don’t try to be thankful in your own power. In marriage, we soon realize that being thankful really isn’t about our spouse and how well he or she is performing. Instead we pray, “Lord, because I love You, I am asking You to make me a thankful person because my ultimate goal is to please You and to hear Your ‘Well done’ and maybe Your ‘Well said.’”

Will you try using THANKFUL WORDS around your spouse this Thanksgiving? Since it is easy to be negative, focus on your mate’s good qualities and express thanks with positive words of Love or Respect.

Excerpts taken from The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.