God has given you the ability to choose. Next to the gift of His Son Jesus, this is the most precious gift you possess. It’s what separates you from all other forms of life on this planet. Making choices allows you to tap into strengths you never thought you had and exercise the power to change whatever needs changing in your life. Whatever grief or anger or pain you may feel about your marriage, you have the power within you to do something about it. You are not a victim. You are free to choose to act, to change. God has given you a huge reservoir of talent, creativity, knowledge, self-worth, energy, and love. You have the freedom to change your negative responses to your mate’s behavior and draw on these God-given assets to do the right and helpful thing. Making this choice can introduce a redemptive force for positive change in your marriage.

For marriage choices it narrows down to two critical things every married individual must exercise: unconditional love and personal responsibility. Unconditional love means you accept and cherish your mate as he or she is. Personal responsibility means you take charge of correcting your own faults instead of your mate’s. That, in a nutshell, is it. Intimacy, happiness, growth, communication and all the other vital aspects of a good marriage grow out of these two choices. If both partners recognize this fact, there will be no victims in the marriage. Each person’s happiness will rest entirely in his or her own hands. And the end result is the safety and security that every marriage must have in order to thrive.

Do you believe this? Really believe this? Since it’s my contention that all behavior is a result of what we believe, this is a crucial question. Do you believe that you can take personal responsibility for the success of your marriage? If you don’t, then you must believe the opposite—that your spouse or circumstances are in control of what happens to you. You must believe that you are a victim. Therefore you must react and put the blame on your mate when the marriage does not meet your expectations. This is a tragedy, because when you blame your mate you not only divest yourself of your responsibility, you also reduce the choices you have to change the relationship. You forfeit the ability to control your own destiny.

So if you want your marriage to be the most exciting and rewarding journey of your life, the question to ask is not whether your mate is doing enough to make the marriage work, but rather: Are you loving your mate unconditionally by taking responsibility for your role in the relationship? A good way to turn this intention into a commitment is to make a promise of it. Promise to look at yourself first, to take responsibility for your own part of the marriage, and to stop trying to change your mate. Such a promise puts legs on unconditional love. It says you are willing to put your personal dreams and needs on hold for a while and make what’s best for the relationship a priority.

Most couples enter marriage hoping to achieve happiness. And for each of us, that vision of happiness takes a different form. Maybe you longed to be whole or competed; to have perfect kids, and a family that everyone looks up to; to live securely and comfortably; to have someone always there so you wouldn’t feel lonely, abandoned, rejected, or sad. Your goal may have been to satisfy your sexual desires; for your mate to be the lover who would love you the way you always wanted to be loved. In other words, you expected to find your “soul mate” in your husband or wife
It may surprise you to hear me say that your marriage is in big trouble when you pursue these goals. If happiness or finding your soul mate is the objective, you are more than likely setting yourself up for failure and possibly facing years of hurt and frustration. When the marriage does not fulfill your expectations you’ll wonder if there is something wrong with you or with your mate. Sadly, a person may often ask, “Did I marry the wrong person?”
Disappointment hits most couples shortly after the wedding because each partner begins to see faults and chinks in the armor of the other. That new husband or wife really needs some work. It appears that she is far from ready to meet all his needs and expectations. Instead of being sold out to her ideas of marriage, he came with his own goals—expecting her to be sold out to his. So your goal of finding happiness in your soul mate must be put aside until you change your spouse into the person you want him or her to be. You buy into the myth that will not die—that if your mate would change just a few key things, your marriage would be great.
And it’s happening all around us. Marriages in America are in a horrendous mess. Although 93% of Americans rate having a happy marriage as one of their most important objectives in life, and more than 70% believe that marriage involves a lifelong commitment that should be ended only under extreme circumstances, couples marrying for the first time in the US continue to face a 40 to 50 percent chance of divorcing, with approximately two-thirds of these divorces occurring within five to seven years of marriage. Equally disturbing is that many distressed couples never divorce, remaining in unsatisfying and/or conflicted relationships. At least one researcher suggests that fewer than half of the marriages that avoid divorce can be described as truly happy.
• Rutgers sociologists Dr. David Popenoe and Dr. Barbara Defoe Whitehead confirm these grim facts in their report on marriage titled, The State of Our Unions—The Social Health of Marriage in America, showing that key social indicators suggest a substantial weakening of the institution of marriage.
Thanks to Hollywood characters and celebrities who promote the benefits of single parenthood, being a married parent is no longer viewed as the ideal for raising a family.
Could it be that marriage has diminished to a relationship entered for the sole purpose of meeting the sexual and emotional needs of each partner? I believe that is at the heart of the problem. Today the goal in marriage is personal satisfaction. “Will my needs get met? What’s in it for me?” And the biggest question of all: “Will it be pleasurable for me?” If the marriage no longer meets the personal needs of partners, they move on to the next relationship. So what’s the solution? I’m convinced that once we understand and commit to God’s purpose in marriage instead using it for self-satisfaction, serious marriage problems will diminish greatly.
Though it seems paradoxical, this means if you want a satisfying marriage you’ve got to forget about happiness. I don’t mean that you should want to be unhappy. In fact, I don’t think that’s possible. Everyone wants to be happy. And because we want so much to be happy, we naturally make happiness our goal and set out to find the things we think will make us happy. The problem is that happiness never comes when you make it the goal. It’s like a desert mirage. It shimmers invitingly in the sunlight until you reach it, and then poof!—it vanishes. You can’t go to happiness; happiness must come to you. And it only comes as a by-product of achieving a higher goal.
Happiness doesn’t work as a goal, because meeting our terms for happiness depends on what happens around us. It requires just the right circumstances and the cooperation of other people. Unfortunately, those circumstances seldom align. That cooperation rarely happens. Furthermore, when a marriage is all about finding happiness, it creates dependency as we turn to our mate or require ideal circumstances to meet our expectations. And that dependency puts a heavy burden on the mate. It’s true that we do have something inside that is seeking completeness and fulfillment. We all yearn to connect to a source that can fulfill all our needs. But the problem comes when we misdirect that search toward the wrong object. Your mate is not that source. God, through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, can be the only source of happiness.

Most of us come into adulthood with a distorted vision of a healthy love relationship. Our models of love often come from family, songs, books, friends, and media, which depict love as fast blooming, overwhelming, intense, romantic, and requited. But these models display only one aspect of love, the beginning, which is heavily influenced by infatuation caused by chemistry. Good marriages contain many more elements than just chemistry, yet the lovers in these examples may never get us far enough into the story to see them. We don’t know whether the lovers stayed together long enough to determine if they were compatible or committed enough to stay the long term. We see an hour and a half of two people enduring misunderstanding and frustration, and then going romantically off into the sunset. We never get to see what happens next. We fail to see the hard work, commitment, patience and forgiveness that any quality relationship takes.

These images of love leave us with serious myths, such as:

• Passion equals love. Most people love something that is new.
• My lover should meet all my needs. This is impossible and the reverse is true. No human can meet your needs. Only God can do that.
• Once love dies, you can’t get it back. The emotion of love may get blasted by words and hurt but the commitment of love should be rock solid.
• Chemistry is all that matters. Chemistry should be the last thing you trust.
• Love conquers all. God love conquers all but our love is not consistent.
• When things get tough, it means you have the wrong partner. This is the most selfish kind of love. Giving love is not dependent on your partner’s response. Certainly people would have been the wrong partner for God but He loved us in spite of our flaws.
• My lover should make me happy. True happiness can only come from God. People are not capable of providing happiness.
• Once in love, you stay on a high forever. This myth puts incredible pressure on the other person. This is not genuine love.
• Love is a feeling, and you either have it, or you don’t. Love is a decision and you commit to honor and care for someone no matter what their response is to you.

These are all lies, or at best, gross misunderstandings of the true nature of love. The chemistry plays out. You eventually come off the high of infatuation. But that does not mean that love is dead. Not at all. In fact, it may be just beginning. It looks dead only because our expectations lead us to misunderstand the way love grows. It grows over time and through our commitment. The better we understand what love really is, the better we adapt to lives changes and keep that love alive.

In Marriage: Actions Speak Louder Than Words
By Gary Smalley

Most married couples begin their marriage with lots of loving words and actions. Over time life gets busy and there may be words of affirmation but the actions don’t match the words. It’s important to remember that you thoughts generate your emotions. You get excited about the things you think about the most. Our emotions go on to motivate our behavior. So we should not only must you pledge to honor your mate by thinking positively of him or her in our mind; but we must also convey that honor through our words and actions.
There’s a story about a husband who was known to be a man of few words. His wife longed for a little romantic conversation, but it never came. One evening when he was engrossed in his newspaper, she asked, “Steve, do you still love me?” He replied, “I said I did when we married, didn’t I? If anything ever changes, I’ll let you know.” Then he went back to reading his paper. His wife was sad because her need, like any of us, was to be loved by her best friend.
Steve may have thought all the right things. He may have chosen to focus on his wife’s good qualities. He may have cherished her as a pearl of untold value. He may even have felt that all this meant he was honoring her. But clearly honor wasn’t getting across to her as long as he kept his feelings bottled up inside. Love is not really honor until it is expressed and demonstrated. Those positive emotions for your mate that you hold in your heart must somehow find their way out through your mouth. You’ll find it much easier and almost natural to speak more positive words after you finish chapter four.
Better still, those thoughts take on even more meaning when they are expressed in action. Show your love not only in what you say, but also in what you do. I’m reminded of a letter that one young man wrote to his girlfriend across town back in the days before automobiles were common. “I would climb the highest mountain for you,” he gushed. “I would swim the deepest river just to be where you are. I would fight alligators, lions, and tigers to be by your side. I would walk through fire just for the privilege of gazing into your eyes. And by the way, I’ll see you Saturday night if it doesn’t rain.” The wimpiness of this young man’s intention yanked the rug out from under his high-sounding words, and all the love they expressed tumbled into meaningless rubble. The love you give your mate is not just in what you choose to think. It’s not even in what you feel about him or her. You show love in actions.

What is the Value of Your Mate?
By Gary Smalley

Honor is a way of accurately seeing the immense value of a person made in God’s image. God created each one of us as a one-of-a-kind person with unique gifts and a unique personality. He sees each of us as precious and valuable because he sees the innate worth he built into us.
When God brought to Adam the newly created Eve in all her naked glory, can you imagine what he thought? Wow! When God said he’d give me a companion, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anything like this. Man, what a treasure! Can you imagine the tingling thrill Adam must have felt the moment he first touched her?
Now, think back. Didn’t you feel the same way when you married your mate? Didn’t it feel as if you had discovered a cave filled with priceless gold, silver, diamonds, and sparkling gemstones? And it was true. When you married, you received a treasure of unfathomable worth. You will never be able to understand all the wonders God has given you in your marriage partner. Just the physical differences alone are unimaginable. The cells, organs, hormones, features, and shape all combine into a magnificent being who has value above that of the angels. As the scriptures say, “You are a marvelous creation, a spectacular wonder with splendor above the worth of all creation.” Adam was right to gape in wonder when he first saw Eve. You were right to gape in wonder when you married your mate. And maintaining that wonder is critically important, because it means you are still finding in your husband or wife reasons for honor.
Picture your mate as personally autographed by God. Wouldn’t you feel thrilled to be seen with someone who bore God’s personal autograph? Wouldn’t you want to have your picture taken with such a person and hang that picture in a prominent place on your wall? Once you start thinking like God and realize the supreme value of that other person in your life, your treatment of him or her will be much like bending your knee in the presence of a highly honored person or giving a standing ovation to a soloist after an outstanding concert. When you look for the good and the honorable in your mate, you will find it, because it is there. God instilled his glory into each one of us.
Adam and Eve’s value was enormous as shown by God’s creation and love for them, but sin changed all that because they “showed God by their actions” the age-old, basic sin of all mankind, “God, we don’t trust your ways any more; we’ll go our way and you go yours.” But by taking this action, they tarnished the glory that God had built into them in the same way that rust ruins the glistening sheen of steel. C.S. Lewis reminded us, however, that the original glory is still there, lying just beneath the surface of every human, waiting for the day it will again be brought into the open. He said that in all our everyday dealings with each other, we must “…remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. There are no ordinary people.” When we look at each other, it’s all too easy to see only the rust on the surface—the irritating habits, the failures, the broken promises—and forget that beneath the tarnish the true steel is still intact. All the glory that God created into us is still there, waiting for the moment when that coating of sin is scoured away. As we are transformed more and more into his image, we actually start looking more and more like him and reflecting his loving nature.
You can learn to see this inner, godlike glory that God’s own hand infused into your mate. It may not be easily visible at first, but when we look past the failures and weaknesses and affirm the immense value he created into every one of us, we see that honoring each other is appropriate. When I choose to look at the inner value of my wife, I’m simply looking at her as God looks at me. And I’m so very glad he sees me as he does. I would cringe to think that he sees only my weaknesses and judges me by my stumblings and bumblings. Instead he sees my potential, my innate worth, complete with all the godlikeness he instilled into me originally. Honor is so simple, really. All we need do is look at each other as God looks at us. When you develop that kind of honor for your mate, you help create a secure environment in which great relationships can flourish.
The Apostle Paul encouraged the early Christians to build their relationships on this kind of honor when he wrote, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor” (Romans 12:10).

Who’s Fault Is It, Anyway?
By Gary Smalley

My all time favorite comic strip is the one from Peanuts where Charlie Brown attempts to kick a football held by Lucy. But she always jerks it away at the last minute, causing poor Charlie to fall flat on his back. Each year Lucy promises Charlie Brown that this time she will keep the football on the ground so he can kick it. Each year Charlie Brown is doubtful. He wavers. He remembers all the times that Lucy has yanked the football away. Each year Lucy gives Charlie plausible, sincere explanations why this time it will be different. And each year Charlie Brown finally believes her, races determinedly across the yard, and falls with a thud when yet again Lucy yanks the football away.
If you are like me, you feel sorry for Charlie Brown. You also probably feel angry at Lucy. She’s really being unkind. But has it ever occurred to you that Charlie brown is being stupid? After all, he’s been falling for the same old trick for years. When will he ever learn? What is he thinking? Well, obviously he thinks that this time, at long last, Lucy will not jerk the football away. And when she does, what does Charlie Brown do? He blames Lucy! Now think about this for a moment. Who’s really at fault here?
I believe Charlie Brown is at fault. Here’s why. Who, in the final analysis, is the cause of the problem? It’s not Lucy. Lucy is not doing it to Charlie Brown. He is allowing this to happen to him. He hasn’t learned a thing in all the years Lucy has been snatching the ball away. Unless Charlie Brown decides for himself to stop trying to kick the football, nothing will ever change. But if he changes his behavior and stops trying to kick the ball, two positive things happen: He avoids disappointment and Lucy’s behavior changes. She has no choice. She won’t be able to take the football away.
Saying all this doesn’t make Lucy right; it just means that Charlie Brown’s happiness is always in his own hands. Happiness is always your choice, as we will see in a moment. When you feel unhappy or unfulfilled in your marriage, more than likely it means you have not done enough to create a secure environment where unconditional love can flourish. You need to focus your attention entirely on what you can do to become more loving—not on trying to change your partner—because that’s what will make the greatest difference in your marriage and in your happiness. As long as we focus on being right and in control, insisting on the appearance of being correct while making our spouse appear to be wrong, the secure environment in which love can grow will elude us.
You probably don’t want to hear this, but it’s true. If you are unhappy in a relationship, you’re the one who’s probably at fault. A strong statement? Absolutely. But if you can come to grips with the truth of it, it will change your marriage and your life.