Fight For Your Marriage!
In this time of social distancing and being quarantined to our houses, I have seen a disheartening movement on social media with jokes about divorces and not liking one’s spouse.
I know some of this is sarcastic joking, and you can tell me to lighten up. I argue that this kind of joking is toxic to our society and your marriage. There are plenty of things you can joke about – your relationships with your family is not one of them.
Marriage is a union blessed by God. Generally, in this country we don’t have arranged marriages, you CHOSE this person. In sickness AND health, richer AND poorer, good times AND bad.
Thirteen years ago, I married a man I promised to love till death. I love him more today than I did on our actual wedding day. I had no idea that was possible. On our wedding day, we had not had any real battles. We had not had the heartbreak of infertility. We didn’t have to navigate cooperation. I hadn’t yet navigated how to be a great step-mom and how to compromise on EVERYTHING.
Our marriage had a lot of loud compromises with lots of lively emotions in it. There are days in our marriage; I acted less than perfect. Like there are days that my loving husband has acted less than ideal.
That’s ok, though. We are both sinners saved by God trying to be better, but we are going to fall on our faces every so often. None of us are perfect. The trick is having the security in a marriage that we can make mistakes and work through it together. We can go through hardship, and I know my husband will be right by my side.
Marriage takes effort. It takes love. Marriage is worth the fight. Your spouse is worth the fight.
I’m not sure when it became “cool” to make fun of our spouse and our marriages, but we have to stop it. In the picture above, my husband is wearing a shirt that says “My Marriage Still Rocks” He loves this shirt. He will tell you he loves it because it’s soft and the words are true. When he wears this shirt while running errands or just hanging out with friends, someone always comments. “Does your wife make you wear that?” or “Did you lose a bet?” His answer is still the same “Nope; it’s soft and true; why wouldn’t I wear it.” Someone even told him wearing a shirt like that takes guts. It’s sad to me that out of all the offensive tee shirts out there that wearing a teeshirt about our Marriage rocking takes guts.
These times are scary and different than anything we have ever experienced. Remember that you and your spouse are co-leading your family. You need to back up each other and lead your little people into hope and light through these scary times. Remember, your spouse is NOT the enemy and should not be the butt of your jokes. Speak words of life and affirmation into your marriage. Love needs to start at home and spill over into our communities.
With Love
Jenny
Co-Founder of Pursuing true North
