Monday, November 8, 2010

Rewards of Marriage II

Posted by Tracy Wainwright at 1:47 PM
The second reward in marriage is companionship. Our husband is supposed to be our companion. Someone to experience life with. Someone to share life with. Someone to hurt when we hurt and rejoice when we rejoice. Someone to hold our hand. Someone to stand in front of us when we need protecting, beside us when we need a friend, and behind us when we need extra support. They are a unique companion, though. Our husband has never been and is never supposed to be a girlfriend. Although we share our lives with him, it is in a unique way. When we marry our relationships with our girlfriends change, which they should. Our husband becomes our primary human relationship. However, we should not try to replace our girlfriends by treating our husband as one. I sometimes find myself sharing something with my husband that he absolutely could not care less about. It’s not because he’s uncaring or callous. It’s just something that doesn’t interest him. This usually happens when I haven’t been spending time with my girlfriends and I’m starved for adult conversation. (So, as you can see, fostering and maintaining your female friendships is actually a benefit to your relationship with your husband.) There are other ways we treat our husband as a girlfriend: in what we expect him to say, how we expect him to act, and some things we expect him to do. Dr. Laura Schlessinger states that the “major mistake women make in communication with their husbands is to imagine that their husbands are supposed to be their girlfriends.” When we do this, we are not respecting who God made this man - as a man and as an individual.

Our culture has become one which consistently demasculinates men. They aren’t respected for their differences, but instead degraded for their differences. Men and women are different. Most people realize this. What they don’t realize is that this is a good thing! I love being a woman and I love that my man is a man. As I’ve learned to accept my husband as he is (not being able to multi-task, not expressing himself verbally, not feeling things the way I do) and celebrate who he is as a man (being really good at concentrating on what he’s doing, wrapping his arms around me when I need it, being steady in almost any given situation) our relationship has grown closer and closer. Because we not only love each other, but also respect each other for who we are, who God made us, the rewards in our marriage have steadily increased.

Marriage can be, and should be, rewarding. However, those rewards don’t come automatically. You don’t have to look far and wide to see marriages in which the husband and/or wife are not reaping the rewards of marriage (even some of those which last a lifetime.) Just as with other things in life, rewards in marriage increase when we follow the plan and the rules. Many of us don’t like rules because we see them as restrictive. But rules, regulations, and laws are put in place for our protection and our benefit. The “rules” of marriage below aren’t meant to be viewed as strict “have to’s” for you to add to any list. On the contrary, they are meant to be keys that will unlock doors to a more rewarding, joyful marriage.

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Monday, November 8, 2010

Rewards of Marriage II

The second reward in marriage is companionship. Our husband is supposed to be our companion. Someone to experience life with. Someone to share life with. Someone to hurt when we hurt and rejoice when we rejoice. Someone to hold our hand. Someone to stand in front of us when we need protecting, beside us when we need a friend, and behind us when we need extra support. They are a unique companion, though. Our husband has never been and is never supposed to be a girlfriend. Although we share our lives with him, it is in a unique way. When we marry our relationships with our girlfriends change, which they should. Our husband becomes our primary human relationship. However, we should not try to replace our girlfriends by treating our husband as one. I sometimes find myself sharing something with my husband that he absolutely could not care less about. It’s not because he’s uncaring or callous. It’s just something that doesn’t interest him. This usually happens when I haven’t been spending time with my girlfriends and I’m starved for adult conversation. (So, as you can see, fostering and maintaining your female friendships is actually a benefit to your relationship with your husband.) There are other ways we treat our husband as a girlfriend: in what we expect him to say, how we expect him to act, and some things we expect him to do. Dr. Laura Schlessinger states that the “major mistake women make in communication with their husbands is to imagine that their husbands are supposed to be their girlfriends.” When we do this, we are not respecting who God made this man - as a man and as an individual.

Our culture has become one which consistently demasculinates men. They aren’t respected for their differences, but instead degraded for their differences. Men and women are different. Most people realize this. What they don’t realize is that this is a good thing! I love being a woman and I love that my man is a man. As I’ve learned to accept my husband as he is (not being able to multi-task, not expressing himself verbally, not feeling things the way I do) and celebrate who he is as a man (being really good at concentrating on what he’s doing, wrapping his arms around me when I need it, being steady in almost any given situation) our relationship has grown closer and closer. Because we not only love each other, but also respect each other for who we are, who God made us, the rewards in our marriage have steadily increased.

Marriage can be, and should be, rewarding. However, those rewards don’t come automatically. You don’t have to look far and wide to see marriages in which the husband and/or wife are not reaping the rewards of marriage (even some of those which last a lifetime.) Just as with other things in life, rewards in marriage increase when we follow the plan and the rules. Many of us don’t like rules because we see them as restrictive. But rules, regulations, and laws are put in place for our protection and our benefit. The “rules” of marriage below aren’t meant to be viewed as strict “have to’s” for you to add to any list. On the contrary, they are meant to be keys that will unlock doors to a more rewarding, joyful marriage.

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