Making a Marriage Last

I was reminiscing with myself today about my life and the many years of marriage to the love of my life. I related my life with my wife to that of a car. Whenever you buy a new car, and it doesn’t matter if it is a luxury automobile, a sports car or an economy car it seems as if though the car was made for speed. It had a lot of pep and could accelerate quickly when you need to pass those slower cars. When you buy a new car you make special effort to take care of the car. Perhaps you wash it every week, wax it once a month, park away from other cars in the parking lot and take special care of it. Isn’t that how we treat our spouses when we first get married?

One thing for sure, new cars don’t stay new. As time goes by you are sure to encounter a few speed bumps along the way. It seems as if though every time you go across one of those bumps nothing good happens to your car. The next thing you know is you have a noise or a squeak or perhaps a rattle in the front end. If you don’t take the time to fix whatever the noise, squeak or rattle is, one thing is for certain, they won’t fix themselves. In marriage we will often encounter speed bumps and like our automobile, if we don’t take the time to fix it, it will not fix itself. There are many things that get broke in a marriage. Things that cause marital problems; money, trust, lying, working to much, not working enough, not trying to keep yourself attractive to your spouse, to name a few. Sometimes the fix may be the two of you sitting down together and talking things through, sometimes it may be receiving professional counseling. For sure, if you are to get back on the road you need to fix what is broken.

Have you ever traveled down a country road and found your car driving in a rut in the road? Maybe the rut is in the winter and you are in the tracks of other cars. Have you ever tried to steer your car out of the ruts in the road? It can be done, you can do it but it is not easy. Sometimes when we get out of the rut we slip and find ourselves right back in the rut trying to fight our way out again. Yes, couples have a tendency of getting in the ruts. We take our spouses for granite expecting them to do everything for us and never doing for them. It may be that as a couple you do the same thing everyday, week month and year. You are very predictable. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that but you must be cautious, especially is one and not the other feels as it though they are in a rut. When one is in the rut and the other is not, eyes start to wonder, thoughts start to form. Like the speed bump that creates noises, squeaks and rattles and not being tended to, so too if you don’t make any efforts to get out of the ruts problems are sure to develop. The tires wear on the car, the muffler gets pulled off, the excitement is taken out of the marriage.

How long after you purchased your new car was it before you had a scratch or dent put on it? No matter how far away you park from other cars you always end up with a dent or two, a scratch or two. A lot of the scratches and dents can be covered up of fixed by simply buffing it out. Other times you have to take your car to a body shop for repair. You can drive the car with dents and scratches but the car just doesn’t have the look that is use to. Eventually, if you don’t have the dents and scratches taken care of, the car will rust. Sometimes marriages get a few dents and scratches. Sometimes it takes only a little bit of buffing, other times it takes going to the body shop. You can be certain, if you don’t take care of the dents and scratches, your marriage will rust.

We don’t always buy a car right off the showroom floor. Sometimes we buy cars that are used. Sometimes we buy cars that have been wrecked or have been damaged. We still take pride in them and do our very best to make them the best car possible. People who marry may also be used. The person may have been wrecked or damaged. Are you going to treat your spouse as if they are wrecked or damaged or are you going to treat them with special honor?

Getting married is easy. Maintaining your marriage is not. Marriages will go through many trials, tribulations and yes, even temptations. Making your marriage work takes a lot of work and a setting of your priorities, making your marriage priority one. When I say priority one I say this in light of your faith in God. I read a book written by Gayle Sayers many years ago entitled “I am Third.” In it he said that God is number 1, family and friends are number 2. That is how it should be, is it that way for you?

Gary Chapman wrote in his book The Five Love Languages the five languages of love. There is no one love language that works for everyone, we are all different. In his book he listed the following love languages; words of affirmation, gifts, act of service, quality time and physical touch. Do you know what your spouses love language is? If not, may I encourage you to find out what it is and then use it. The book can be purchased at Emmaus Road Christian Store for only $13.49