Marriage...

 

A couple of months ago, one of my favorite pastors said something that stuck with me.

 He said ‘I’ve met couples here who should never have gotten married in the first place’

The more I speak to young couples and this generation of eligible bachelors, the more I understand what he meant when he said that.

I’ve heard men who just got married saying ‘my wife already knows not to expect me to come home on this particular day of the week. That’s my day to hang out with the boys’

There are a lot of people getting married without fully understanding what that commitment is supposed to mean. 

There are the ones who are not quite ready to give their partners all access into their lives, in the name of privacy. The ones who are not quite ready to ‘forsake all others’ like their vows said they would. Then we’ve got girls walking into marriages knowing there’s a 90 percent chance they’re going to be miserable in it.

Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of what marriage really means. What that union is supposed to represent. 

Here’s how I see it…

If you’re not ready to give your husband/wife all access into every area of your life, don’t make that commitment.

If you’re not ready to forsake all others…there should be no male or female friend in your life that does not also chat with your significant other. Any friends of the opposite sex should be friends with both of you as a unit.

Your partner should be the number one priority in your life. The hierarchy goes God-Spouse-Children-Rest of the family-Friends. It is never OK to put your friends above your spouse. Ever.

The thing about marriage and family is that it is so important to God, that it has become the very thing that the devil has attacked and broken down. Look at what has become of it. We have compromised the standard set by God, added gray areas to an otherwise black and white standard and then made that new low standard, the norm.

You need to understand the importance of not making room for the enemy to walk into your marriage and tear it apart. The minute you start keeping secrets, deleting messages from friends of the opposite sex, entertaining ‘harmless flirtations’ from people, you’re making room for all kinds of things to walk in.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend of mine and asked him if I could meet with him for a chat, to get his perspective on whatever issues I was dealing with, he said ‘could you please talk to my wife first, let he know that you want to meet with and confide in me, and make sure she’s ok with it’….

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who is not willing to let anything/anyone walk into his marriage and wreck it. The doors are closed and guarded. I’m not sure if expecting the same from my future husband would be unrealistic lol…

He is so aware of the damage even the smallest secret, the smallest entry can do to his marriage, that he will do whatever is necessary to protect it.

During a chat with a friend of mine a few days ago, he said ‘I would not be comfortable with my ‘future’ wife going through my phone and I wouldn’t want to go through hers either’

He’s not married or engaged. He does, however have a girlfriend. 

There should be nothing on your phone, email, Facebook, Instagram that would make you uncomfortable if your significant other saw it. Nothing!

You partner might not go through your phone, but whether he/she does or not should not make you jittery.

I said to him ‘if that’s the case, then you’re either not ready for marriage or you’re with the wrong woman’

Let me explain the last part…the way I see it, if a man is in love, he knows for sure that this woman he is with is the one, there is no room in his heart for anyone else, there is nobody else he wants to flirt/sleep with; there will be nothing inappropriate from any woman on his phone. A man who is still entertaining flirtations from women, having inappropriate discussions (that would upset his girlfriend if she read them), however innocent he might claim them to be, keeping his options somehow open…that man is not sure about the woman he’s with.

Let me not say too much though, I am after all…not married yet…lol

This is just the way I see it.