Marriage is a journey. There are going to be times of great joy and happiness but there will probably be times of sorrow and difficulty. Either way you cannot ever give up on each other and your marriage. Both parties have to be willing to work on the marriage because marriage will never be a one way street. Sometimes people do terrible things and trust and respect may go out the window. But I believe if both people are willing to work together you can overcome any obstacle. Forgiveness is the key to moving on and going forward.
When you think about it, if you are a Christian you should try to forgive people no matter what they did. The main reason is because Christ forgives us of our daily trespasses. We can never be “good enough” no matter how hard we try we will always fall short. This is why grace is so important. Grace makes up the gap between where we want to be and where we actually are. Sometimes this can be a difficult concept and expectations definitely factor in here too.
One thing I always try to do is communicate expectations. Your spouse is never going to be a mind reader and they can only know your desires if you express them clearly. Communication is the magic. I say this all the time. You have to be in constant communication when things don’t go according to plan; you have to talk things through so you can move forward. Being angry doesn’t help anyone if you can’t communicate the problem, so it is less likely to happen again.
At the very least it can give the spouse the opportunity to apologize. Then we come back to forgiveness. I try to be generous with the forgiveness so when I mess up, he will be more likely to forgive me quickly. I also just try to make my husband happy, doing things to help him out and being part of activities he enjoys. He does the same thing for me.
But marriage may not be easy all the time and you really do have to work on it daily. Be in constant communication because communication is the magic. There also has to be mutual Love & Respect. There is a really good book I read that transformed the way I viewed marriage called “Love and Respect” by Dr. Emerson Eggrichs. If you have not read it, I would definitely recommend it.
