The following is a guest blog from Daphne DeMaris, MA, LPCC, of Radiant Health Resources. We asked Daphne to share some thoughts and ideas about maintaining a healthy marriage during the “lockdown,” while tensions are high and people are living in close quarters without as much ‘me time.’ Here are here answers.
Daphne can be reached via her website.
Three Communication Tips
1. More Communication, Not Less – don’t hold on to things. Deal with them upfront so you don’t give bitterness or resentment to take root.
2. Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Your Anger – Not that you have to resolve everything before you go to bed. That is not always possible. But purpose to forgive each other and to come back to the conversation when cooler heads prevail and finish resolving the issue. Pray with each other before you go to bed to be united together in Christ so that the enemy cannot get a toehold. Because a toehold turns into a foot hold and a foot hold into a stronghold and that is how bitterness and resentment turn to mistrust and disrespect.
3. Keep in mind your partner’s personality style – External Processor/Extrovert vs. Internal Processer/ Introvert. If they are an extrovert, and you are in introvert, listen to what they say and then say, “I heard you and now I need some time to think about how I want to respond”. If you are the extrovert, you will need to give the introvert time to think. Don’t give in to the temptation of your fleshly tension pressing you to finish things now.
One Individual Spiritual Discipline
Pray through the Love Passage – This passage, although read at just about every Christian wedding, is not, in fact, about Marriage, but about how God loves us and how we are to love each other, no matter what kind of relationship it is.
1 Corinthians 13 The Passion Translation (TPT). – Love, the Motivation of Our Lives
13 If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels,[a] yet I didn’t express myself with love,[b] my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I were to have the gift of prophecy[c] with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains,[d] but have never learned to love, then I am nothing.
3 And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr,[e] without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.
4 Love is large and incredibly patient.[f] Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous[g] when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance 5 Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated[h] or quick to take offense.[i] 6 Love joyfully celebrates honesty[j] and finds no delight in what is wrong.[k] 7 Love is a safe place of shelter,[l] for it never stops believing the best for others.[m] Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.
HOW TO PRAY THROUGH THIS PASSAGE (for example) WRITE OUT YOUR OWN PRAYER FOR EACH PHRASE.
Lord, do I express myself with love or do I sound like a clanging cymbal, sharp and dissonant?
Lord, have I learned to love, REALLY LOVE? Is that how I treat my spouse?
Lord, am I motivated to act and speak by pure love, or something else? Show me the ‘something else’. Show me what is really, motivating my words and deeds. Show me, Lord. Transform my thoughts into your thoughts and my ways into your ways . . .
So on and so forth. . . But you will also have to listen for the Lord’s answer and this takes patience and silence. Write down what you hear; check it against scripture for truth.
One Couple Spiritual Discipline #1 TIP!!!
Pray for and with each other. This is your number one way to create spiritual, emotional and yes, physical intimacy, because nothing connects you to God and each other like praying.
I hear all the time, “I don’t know what to pray, so I recommend two books . . . Power of Praying Wife, Power of a Praying Husband. Each one takes you through 30 areas to pray for your spouse: Work, Finances, Sexuality, Health, Attitude, Integrity . . . for example.
Resources
- Join me in reading Craig & Amy Groeschel’s From This Day Forward
- Join me in reading Fighting For My Marriage
- Dr. Henry Cloud’s YouTube Channel
