Be willing to adapt.

If something is harmful to your marriage (or has the potential to be) then remove it.

This is not about sacrifice.  It’s about demonstrating that you are willing to do whatever it takes to protect your marriage.

~ from 7 Ways to Build Strength into Your Marriage*

How do you feel about change?

Change can feel good – especially if we’re in control.

Do you enjoy being in control?

Sometimes needing control is benign.

In whose hand does the TV remote end up in?  Who picks the seat first when in a restaurant?  Who drives?  When grocery shopping together, do you both get a cart?  Who decides whether the curtains are open or closed?  Is the fan on at night or the window open?  Who says “we’re leaving now” at a function?  Who adapts?

Between you and your spouse, which one of you likes to be in control?

I must be candid – after almost 28 years of marriage, this is one area Robert and I can stumble over…  We both like control.

Most times we laugh.  Many times we can easily come to a compromise.  Sometimes one of us chooses to adapt because it doesn’t really matter.  At times we have a serious discussion which leads us to both adapt – united.

Early in our marriage we learned an important lesson.

We attended the wedding of two of our friends the same year we married.  We were close friends. Over time this young couple had difficulties – not in their marriage, but from outside.  This disruptive influence was toxic.

The young couple sought advice from a wise, trusted source.  They were advised to remove themselves from this influence.  However, even after counsel, they could not unite on how to adapt against this outside threat.  They didn’t take the advice. Their marriage did not survive.

What did we learn?

Control doesn’t matter if your marriage is threatened.

If anything is a threat to your relationship, then it doesn’t matter who is in control – the threat remains.  No thing – no one – nothing – is worth jeopardizing your marriage. Sometimes an individual’s “control” won’t be strong enough. You need to unite and prove your willingness to adapt together.

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

~ Genesis 2:24 NIV

This is a Biblical tenet.  As husband and wife – “one flesh” –  you leave everything else to be united against an outside threat .  Individual control no longer matters.

Leave control behind – better yet, give it to God.  (He knows everything and only wants good for you.)  Ultimately God is in control, anyway.

Unity matters.  Not control.

Have you ever had difficulty giving up control in your marriage?

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* This is the 3rd of 7 ways to strengthen your marriage first highlighted by Robert, my husband, on his blog.  Actually, this post was written by both of us!  (I almost gave up and scrapped the whole thing.  It just wasn’t flowing.)   One of Rob’s strengths is perseverance… so here’s the post!  Thanks Rob  😉