By Julie Clinton
I remember the e-mail Tim and I got from a friend of ours shortly after his wedding. It told of a crystal vase he and his wife had received as a special wedding present, a vase that was very special to her. The e-mail also told about their first real fight they had as newlyweds. He wrote that in the heat of an argument, "I got stupid and so angry that I grabbed that vase, threw it across the room, and it split into a million pieces. It was awful. Since then it's gone downhill." In a Charlie Brown-style postscript at the end of the email he wrote, "Marriage…uggggghhhhh."
By Dr. James Dobson
Shirley and I have taken our prayer life a bit more seriously. In fact, this communication between man and God has been the stabilizing factor throughout our years of married life. In good times, in hard times, in moments of anxiety and in periods of praise, we have shared this wonderful privilege of talking directly to our Heavenly Father. What a concept.
Question: Dr. Dobson, you've been happily married for more than fifty years now. Have you ever been tempted to be unfaithful to your wife? What are the danger points that those of us who are younger should watch for?
How, then, can we keep cracks from developing in the sidewalks of our marriages? Well, the surest way to avoid an affair is to flee temptation as soon as it confronts you. Author Jerry Jenkins has referred to this determination to preserve moral purity as "building hedges" around marriage so that temptation is never given a foothold. You take steps to protect yourself and enhance the level of trust in your marriage at the same time.
Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. —Ephesians 5:33 In Men are Like Waffles—Women are Like Spaghetti, Bill and Pam Farrell describe the mind of men and women.
Would you identify some of the major "marriage killers" that are most responsible for the high divorce rate that plagues today's families?
Each of us has a heartfelt need to be honored and respected. All too often, however, we take our spouses for granted at home. Is it any wonder that so many mothers hold down jobs in the workplace today? Many work for financial reasons, but some do so to find the recognition and praise they don’t get from their mates. Could this also be why many men spend excessive hours at work—to receive from colleagues the accolades that they don’t get at home?
Whether a few days, weeks, or months after the wedding, something begins to happen to “that lovin’ feeling.” A man and woman just seem to lose the wind in their romantic sails. It does not always occur, but too often it does.
Question: Dr. Dobson, do you think happily married husbands and wives should be able to live together without fighting?
Almost all husbands and wives experience conflict from time to time, which is not necessarily unhealthy to their relationships. A verbal spat that stays within reasonable limits can open the windows and give the couple a chance to vent frustrations and release some steam.
My wife and I sometimes get into fights when neither of us really wants to argue. I'm not even sure how it happens. We just find ourselves locking horns and then feeling bad about it later. Why can't we get along even when we want to?
If I had one evening I could spend with any person, no one in the world would outrank my wife. We have grown in mutual understanding so that it is rarely necessary to quarrel and argue. Nevertheless, Shirley and I once had a dandy fight and three distinct concepts emerged which may assist you in your marriage.
I will not soon forget a television program aired in Los Angeles which was devoted to the topic of aging. It was one of those unusual documentaries which burns its way into the viewer's memory forever. The subject for the half-hour program was an eighty-eight-year-old woman named Elizabeth Holt Hartford. She lived in a tiny room of a decrepit hotel in the slum section of Los Angeles. The film crew for the station selected Miss Hartford to dramatize the plight of the poverty-stricken, sick old people who populate the central part of the city.
Robertson McQuilkin, as reported in his book A Promise Kept, served as president of a thriving seminary and Bible college in South Carolina for more than twenty years. His wife, Muriel, supported him in many ways, including as an excellent cook and hostess when they entertained guests of the college in their home. They were an effective ministry team.
Life will test each of us severely, if not during younger days, then through the events surrounding our final days. Jesus spoke of this inevitability when He said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
Love can be defined in myriad ways, but in marriage “I love you” really means “I promise to be there for you all of my days.” It is a promise that says, “I’ll be there when you lose your job, your health, your parents, your looks, your confidence, your friends.” It’s a promise that tells your partner, “I’ll build you up; I’ll overlook your weaknesses; I’ll forgive your mistakes; I’ll put your needs above my own; I’ll stick by you even when the going gets tough.”
It’s tempting for some of us to view our Lord as a heavenly “Mr. Fix‐It”—a supernatural problem solver who can be manipulated according to our whims. We might make a little wager on our favorite football team and then pray for God to intervene so our team will win. Or on the day of the church picnic, we might pray for a rainstorm so we don’t have to fix that potato salad we promised to bring.
Flip Wilson once said, "If I had my entire life to live over, I doubt if I'd have the strength." There must be many women who agree with him, for Fatigue and Time Pressure rank as the second most frequent cause for depression among those completing my questionnaire. As I have journeyed across the United States, from the metropolitan centers to the farms of Iowa, I have found extremely busy people running faster and faster down the road to exhaustion. We have become a nation of huffers and puffers, racing through the day and moonlighting into the night. Even our recreation is marked by this breakneck pace.
The surest way to avoid an affair is to flee temptation as soon as it confronts you. Author Jerry Jenkins has referred to this determination to preserve moral purity as building hedges around marriage so that temptation is never given a foothold. You take steps to protect yourself and enhance the level of trust in your marriage at the same time.
Suppose that one partner, the husband, begins to show signs of disinterest in his wife. Let's say that their sex life has been rather dull lately, and the sense of emotional togetherness is more of a memory than a reality. (The decline of a marriage is rarely brought by a blowout; it's usually a slow leak.) Then the relationship reaches a low point and the husband consistently treats his wife rudely and disrespectfully in public, pulling behind a wall of silence when they are home. These are symptoms of a condition which I call "the trapped syndrome".
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