Advice
At my age, I finally feel comfortable providing unsolicited advice on just about anything (just ask me). Today, I’m going to give unsolicited advice on relationships. Full disclosure, we’ve only been married 39 years so I’m not an expert yet. But I’m working on it.
I’m going to do this in bullet form so hang on to my 5 advice items:
• Relationships are a lot of work - We are, by nature, sinful and selfish beings. I can’t tell you how many of our first years of marriage were in competition against each other. If you are focused on keeping a scorecard or only doing your job in the marriage, it makes it more difficult. I’m not suggesting one partner bend over backwards and lets the other take advantage of him or her but if you have to keep score, it’s a competition. The complementary aspect of this is true that marriages require work. If you think that marriage is some fairy tale experience of rainbows and unicorns, you are wrong.
• Commitment is crucial - I went out to lunch with a couple of my coworkers who happened to be female. One of them, my work spouse, was telling me about work indiscretions that had happened in the years before I started. When she got to that point in her story, she made a point of telling me that she wouldn’t be involved in an affair. She explained that it wasn’t because she’d go to hell or that it was immoral but she had made a commitment to her husband 20 or so years (at that time) before and she wasn’t going to break it. I admired her conviction and realized that commitment was very crucial to a relationship.
• Marriage is important - This dove tails the commitment bullet point above. A huge outward expression of that commitment, to me, is by standing in front of a minister and committing to love, honor and obey their soon to be spouse. Like baptism, that public expression helps cement the commitment.
• Don’t wait too long - I asked my wife about advice and her suggestion was to not wait too long. In other words, if you bury the problem, it doesn’t go away but it can build. I’ll embellish this situation with our experience. When we were first married, we lived less than a mile from my parents and only 15 minutes from hers. The problem was that it was way too easy to get mad and storm off to the comfort of our parents instead of addressing the situation with each other. Luckily, I took a job 12 hours away and we were forced to deal with each other when problems arose.
• Kids - Having children is a blessing on so many levels but it adds work and strain to the marriage. The advantage is that it gives the parents a reason to support each other (if they are smart enough to take advantage of the us versus them situation). The disadvantage is that you spend so much effort and energy on your kids, it can seem like there is nothing left for your spouse. This is a huge mistake. Eventually, kids grow up and move out. You suddenly find a huge block of time to fill with your focus off to college. We spent precious time trying to figure out our marriage without our son being the center focal point. Not to belabor this point but God should be your highest priority.
Well, I feel like I should add volumes 2-50 but I think I’ll stop with my preliminary suggestions.
“And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” - Genesis 2:22-24 ESV
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” - Ephesians 5:22-31
My final piece of advice (or maybe it is just my opportunity to state a pet peeve of mine) is that advice is something you give and you advise the person on something. Know the difference.
