Pam and Bill Farrel

Ways We Protect Our Own Marriage

Right now in many states, including our own, we are locked in a battle to protect the institution of marriage. In light of this attack on the institution, it caused us to ponder why people can and should work so hard and tirelessly for the protection of marriage as an ideal, yet the average couple can find they get so busy they forget to do the small things to protect their own love. Below we have spelled out the best ways we have protected our own love, which has now lasted over 28 years:

Pray Together Daily: It is true that couples that pray together, stay together. It is also true that couples that pray experience a greater fulfillment level of what we like to call “Red Hot Monogamy”. Prayer is the super glue of a red hot love life. Prayer gives a window into your spouse’s heart. Prayer is the shield around your love. So pray as kiss as you send each other off in the morning. Pray and kiss over meals. Pray as you drift off to sleep as you hold one another at night. Pray!

Respect the Differences. We just got news that our book, Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti made the best seller list last month. We think this might be because people realize relationships work better when we value the opposite gender and appreciate the differences. When was the last time you thanked your spouse for thinking differently than you? Men and women complete and compliment one another. That was God’s idea way back in Genesis when He created us male and female.

Obey God. This might seem like an obvious one but people destroy their own chances at love every day by flirting with someone else’s spouse, viewing pornography, or gambling or shopping away the family nest egg. If each individual in a marriage gets a right relationship with God, the marriage relationship becomes much easier because the same Holy Spirit is reigning in each heart. Learn to listen to the Spirit’s whisper of “Say this, or do that” or “Don’t say this, don’t do that.” As you do this, moment by moment your marriage can get better and stronger with God’s help.

Tough on me, tender on you. This is a principle we teach in The First Five Years book because we believe it set the strong foundation for the love we are experiencing today. Simply put it means that when I make a mistake, I am tough on myself by owning my issue and setting a path to grow and mature in that area. If my spouse makes a mistake, I give grace, mercy and time for him/her to grow in that area of his or her life.

Encourage my spouse. Healthy marriages cultivate kindness. In contemporary research, we discover that happy couples have five positive statements to every one negative one. In the book of Acts, Paul writes, “the islanders had unusual kindness.” This means you can choose to become abnormally nice, amazingly thoughtful, and increasingly encouraging. Try to be today, just a little nicer to your mate than you were yesterday and watch and see the positive results.

Cultivate humor. When we interviewed couples that had been happily married for over 20 years for our book, 10 Best Decisions a Couple Can Make, we discovered that number two on the list (right after the God factor), was the ability to laugh together. We think we should take our vows seriously but not ourselves so seriously. Cultivate fun, recreation, and humor in your love. Marriage really can be a wonderful, enjoyable friendship for a lifetime.

Treat your love as a light. The book of James says that “God is love.” The gospels relay that we will be known “by our love”. On our wedding gifts to each other we inscribed the verse, “We love because He {God} first loved us (1 John 4:19). Love and God are synonymous so commit to love in a way that says, “I believe in the traditional intrinsic value of the very first institution God created so much that I will work hard at making my marriage work and protecting that very institution in our society.” This commitment to your own marriage is one of the gifts you can give to the protection of the institution of marriage and visa versa. When you work to protect the institution of marriage you grow a love that is more vital, with a mission more important than your own personal happiness, This attitude will give you the motivation to make your marriage work today and every day. By protecting the institution of marriage, you protect your own.