How to Get Out of a Marriage Rut

Q:

     I would like to know how to recapture that just-married feeling. I’ve been married for 6 years now.  We seem to be in a rut. 

A: 

     A few years ago we had some good friends who said they needed to talk to us.  They explained that they had been married 3 years and while their marriage was not in trouble, the newness and pizazz had worn off.  They asked me if I could help them get it back. I said, “No, but I can help you get something much better.” We took some time and helped them and afterwards, they told us they were going to teach others what we had taught them.

Oneness

      Oneness is what we taught our friends who had lost that new married feeling.  Marriage is the only relationship where two people become one flesh. There is no other like it.  Even living together is not the same as being married. Marriage cements a relationship and more truth comes out in a marriage than a live-in relationship. Marriage is where true love lives and it is the only relationship where we totally show who we are.  Love means talking things through and understanding that we both have wants and needs.

     Love is a moving, evolving thing.  We can’t just assume what we had early in our relationship will continue.  Love evolves and if it is cultivated, it becomes even better over time. Each of us might think we are something solid, like a block of steel.  That’s just not true. We are more like soft clay that gets molded as we experience different things throughout our lives. There are things that mold that clay to make it take a new shape.  Aging, getting married, having kids, financial or job changes, and the death of loved ones all change the shape of who we are. As we each change, so does our relationship. When we don’t talk about these changes in ourselves, our marriages get in a rut because we are out of touch with each other.

Oneness Requires Communication

     Communication is important because you are the only one who knows you… and as we said earlier, you are constantly changing!  Your spouse needs to know how you are changing so they can understand and adapt with you. You need to communicate the ways you’ve changed to your spouse.  When people come for counseling and say, “This is not the person I married,” I want to say, “Yes, I know. You’re not the person they married either.” We grow apart when we don’t share with one another about how we’re changing.

Real love is honest.  Not honest in just criticizing your spouse, but also being honest with yourself.  Real honesty says, “This is who I am. I’m not proud of it. In some ways I’m ashamed of it… but this is what I bring to the table.  Will you still love me?”  

     Most men will probably be surprised to know that this kind of intimacy is what most wives crave.  They want to know who you are inside. They want to know what you are thinking, how you are changing, and what makes you tick.  Most women are more relational than men and if they understand their man and their relationship, they are more content.

How Do We Get Oneness?

• Come to grips with your own selfishness.  We can’t work on our selfishness until we accept it.  You will know you are getting where you need to be when you start realizing you get more joy from seeing your spouse happy than being happy yourself.
• Pray and ask God to give you a supernatural love for your spouse.
• Study your spouse.  Before you were married you studied your spouse.  You catered to their needs and strove to meet their expectations… no matter how crazy!  If it took all that concentration and appreciation to win them, how do we think it will take less to keep them?
• Don’t be lazy or complacent.
• Let them know you still value them.
• Flirt – text them during the day to let them know that you love them, you miss them, or that you can’t wait to spend the evening with them.
• Date them. We’ve been married for 38 years and Kim still loves it when I ask her out on a date!
• Make sure your kids don’t  become your number one priority (see link below).

Why Didn’t God Just Make My Spouse Perfect When We Got Married?

     You might think that it would be so much easier if God just understood and made things easy – but remember, marriage is God’s idea.  Here’s an expectation that will challenge you. God knows you are a selfish person, but He wants to make you more like Him. Here’s what God knows that you don’t:

• What if God knew that working through all the issues of marriage would make you less prideful and selfish and more like Him?  
• What if God knew that you would be happier after working through your marriage issues and more appreciative of your spouse and Him?
• What if God knew that you need to realize your expectations of your spouse aren’t realistic… and in understanding this, maybe your expectations of God need to be adjusted also?
• What if marriage is the perfect tool to help us understand that we’ll never be happy by trying to be happy?  Instead, if we work through our marriage issues with God, we will become more holy… and in being holy, we will be happier than if we tried the shortcut of just being happy?
• Happiness is not a destination, but a journey with God. What if God uses our best friend – our spouse to deliver us to that place?  What if happiness is to be found along the way as we travel?

     Marriage is not a gentle misery to be endured.  Instead, it is the ultimate wake up call for the selfish person – which we all are.  Some will learn the art of oneness. Others will refuse to give in and hold onto their prideful and selfish baggage or just quit this relationship and take their pride and selfishness into the next relationship.  Oneness is a place where we can rest our heads and be content, happy, and in awe of God for delivering us to the place that is so much better than we could have imagined. After many years of marriage, it helps us to realize that love is more than we could have understood when we got married.  Heaven is like that – so much better than we could imagine. What if our marriage is to be like heaven?

So What Is Love?

     Love isn’t needing to get my needs met.  In fact, that is the opposite of love (see the link to the story of Kim’s bell). Love is giving when you don’t expect to get back.  Love is striving to meet the needs of my spouse. Love is studying my spouse like I did before we were married. Love is listening to them pray so you understand their heart and where you might help them.  Love is the anticipation of standing before Jesus and hearing Him thank you that you loved your spouse as He loves them. That’s the mark I’m aiming at.

Here’s a link to an article we did on unrealistic expectations and how they impact our marriages

Here’s an article we did on selfless love.  Kim’s Bell link

Here’s an article we did on how to make sure your kids don’t become your number one priority