Answering Marriages Ultimate

Question

 

Yesterday was my seven-year anniversary. Once you get past the five-year mark, someone will ask you that one question. The one you know is coming, but you still seem to stumble through. We’ve all asked it and if you’re married for any amount of time, you’ll have to answer it. “What does it take to be married for ______ years?” My wife and I were out to dinner for our anniversary and were asked this very question. Here are three great answers to that question.

1. Communication.

There’s something to be said about the difference between talking and communicating. Talking is just speaking for the sake of speaking. Communication has more to do with trying to hear the person’s heart. You want to know where their perspective is coming from. Why they think the way that they do. To know which one you’re operating in do this test. If while your spouse is talking, you are focused on your response before they finish what they are saying, then you are talking and not communicating. Don’t aim to get your point across before fully giving yourself to hear and understand what is being said.

2. Prayer.

Not in the sense in that you pray something like “Lord, get this man/woman away from me.” Prayer in the sense that God will give you understanding about your spouse. God will help you to be a better person and can show you how to support your spouse. We should be praying for our spouse. There’s nothing that will soften your heart more towards someone than to pray for them. In marriage, our feelings are going to get hurt sometimes. Intentionally or not, it’s going to happen. To overcome those feelings of hurt or frustration the response is prayer. It may be hard, but you can do it! Prayer does change things. It changes us.

3. Growth.

Pick up a new hobby or an old one that you let you go by the wayside. Read a book, take dance lessons, music lessons, anything that’s new for the both of you. The point is that new is necessary when it comes to building experiences that develop a covenant relationship. We tend to get in life routines where we do the same thing day in and day out. We go dinner at the same restaurants, go do the same things repeatedly for date night without any creativity. Our marriages become stale and that happens because we become stale in our approach to pursuing a deeper relationship. We don’t grow as a person. Better yet we stop growing and get relaxed and comfortable in every area of our lives.

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Men, we stop pursuing our wives. It’s hard to remember the last time we got her flowers just because. We go to the local grocery store to get gifts. We stop putting effort into dressing nice or taking care of ourselves.
Ladies, at a certain point the old pajamas come out from the back of the closet. Not the cute and comfortable ones, but the pair that you had before you got married. You can’t remember the last time you did something nice for your man just because or encouraged him to pursue his dreams.

How would you answer the infamous question? Leave a comment below and tell me what you think it takes to be married and how long have you been married.