By Dr. James Dobson
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.
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.
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?
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".
Laughter is the key to survival during the special stresses of the child-rearing years. If you can see the delightful side of your assignment, you can also deal with the difficult. Almost every day I hear from mothers who would agree. They use the ballast of humor to keep their boats in an upright position. They also share wonderful stories with me.
I will never forget the first Valentine’s Day of my marriage, six months after Shirley and I walked down the aisle. It was something of a disaster. I had gone to the USC library that morning and spent eight or ten hours poring over dusty books and journals. It had slipped my mind completely that it was February 14.
By JT Waresak
Wives, don’t let your husbands kid you. Even if a man doesn’t deserve respect or act like he wants it from his wife, it is something he desperately desires. Every man wants to be his wife’s knight in shining armor and needs to know that you value him as a man.
Having been involved in family ministry for over 10 years, I have walked alongside many men struggling with some form of pornography. I can count on one hand the men that I’ve known that truly are not tempted and don’t struggle with the unabashed access we now have to online nudity. In this sense, it is true that most men, and this includes Christian men, are tempted to look at pornography when it is literally one click away.
Fatherhood in America is on a pathway toward destruction. Yet, if we know the why we can resolve to do something about it. We can be the generation that turns this thing around.
By Dr. Tim Clinton
Mother. Every time a child is born—so is a mother. It has often been said that in that one moment when a mother sees her newborn child for the first time, nine months of discomfort and the hours of pain and delivery are completely forgotten. An innate eternal bond is instantly formed that transcends and eclipses all other relationships.
There is still no substitute for the biblical prescription for marriage, nor will its wisdom ever be replaced. A successful husband and wife relationship begins with the attitude of the man; he has been ordained by God as the head of the family, and the responsibility for its welfare rests upon his shoulders. This charge can be found in the early writings of Moses in the Old Testament, returning at least 5000 years into Jewish history.
Question: Dr. Dobson, would you be more specific about the relationship between the sexes? Am I to assume you do not favor a fifty-fifty arrangement in the husband-wife interaction?
There are a number of things our wives consistently need from us as husbands to make a great and lasting marriage. You would think that after 25 years of marriage I would have these principles embedded within my brain and heart. I don't know if it's a "me-thing" or a "guy-thing," but I still need to be reminded to refocus on these things on a regular basis.
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