When We Ask The Wrong Marriage Question
When times get tough in your marriage, you may secretly ask a question. Not to anyone else, and not out loud. But perhaps you are asking yourself, “Did I marry the wrong person?”
I have asked God this question during difficult seasons in my marriage. It’s embarrassing to admit that to you, but I’m guessing I’m not alone.
This question may come and go, or it may be hanging over your head, all the time.
About ten years ago, I was feeling the seven-year-itch and would often repeat this question in my mind. I tuned into Dr. Randy Carlson’s radio show every afternoon and listen to his wise advice. One day I was shocked when a caller asked him this very question. I thought she had somehow read my mind.
Dr. Carlson, a Christian psychologist and author, began a gentle but firm answer. I was all ears.
He said, “I think you’re asking the wrong question.” He explained that once you get married, it is God’s will that you stay married (in situations other than ongoing abuse or infidelity). You are essentially wasting your time, and even being disobedient to God, by asking this question.
Dr. Carlson encouraged us to be honest with God and even with our hard questions. And then he turned the conversation and said, “A better question to ask is, ‘How can I be the best wife possible to my husband?’”
This is not what I wanted to hear when times were especially difficult in my marriage. But it is the question I needed to hear and need to ask, since the only person I can change in my marriage is me.
God used this new, healthy question like a roadmap in my life. Every time I considered whether I was being the best wife for my husband, God led me down a new path that helped me remove a rough edge of my personality. On those new paths, he softened my responses. He showed me how to be compassionate. Through the Holy Spirit’s power, he gave me patience, kindness, goodness and forgiveness.
Over time, God worked major changes in our marriage. More through my attitude shifts than through my husband’s behavior changes. Once I stopped asking the wrong question in my marriage, I was able to answer the healthy question with confidence and hope.
Friend, if you have been asking the wrong question, don’t be ashamed. God will help you answer a new, healthy question to improve your marriage. Take your marriage problems to him, and he will help you find a new attitude and fresh start.
Wife Step: Ask God to show you practical ways you can be the best wife possible to your husband this week.
Sarah Geringer writes about Finding Peace in God’s Word at sarahgeringer.com and is the author of three self-published books. Her book on Christian meditation will be published by Leafwood in late 2019. When she’s not reading or writing, Sarah enjoys painting, baking, gardening and playing the flute. She lives in her beloved home state of Missouri with her husband and three children, right in the heart of prime viewing for the Great Eclipses of 2017 and 2024.
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