9 Rules Every Marriage Should Live By

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Any married person knows that a successful union takes work. While most couples will face the normal adjustments early in their marriages, significant struggles can be avoided by viewing your marriage partnership as 100/100 instead of 50/50. A fruitful marriage constantly cultivates love through trust, understanding and sacrifice. This is especially true when it comes to what every couple will encounter from time to time: arguments. No matter what the situation, loving the other person is always more important than being “right” in an argument or getting what we want.

That doesn’t mean that you will have done everything right, but when there is a problem, work at it with God in the middle. Don’t make it about fault finding or blame, but about moving forward, with God’s help, beyond the glitches to get closer to each other and to Him than you were before. Pray together and pray for each other apart. Here are a few rules of engagement to abide by to keep your marriage strong.

Never Talk Ill of Each Other to Other People

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Talking negatively about your partner to others fuels division and strife between you and your partner, and puts others in the difficult position of choosing sides. Sometimes, seeking clergy or counseling can be helpful. Otherwise, don’t look to friends, family members or associates to take your side or come alongside your point of view and against your partner’s. Consider that a marriage has one side: the side of the relationship. Some folks excuse the negative talk as venting, but venting in that way against the spouse only builds animosity, is hurtful to the partner and to the marriage and sets your partner up to feel betrayed. Energy is best spent turning to each other, not in anger or resentment, but in love and honesty, to work through each and every situation.

Never Attack Any Insecurity or Love That You Know is Very Close to the Other's Heart

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Agree that negative talk and verbal attacks directed to your partner about their friends, family, peers and other sensitive aspects of their life important and dear to them are strictly off limits. That’s like kids throwing darts at each other. One or both are going to get hurt, and throwing darts puts the other person on the emotional defensive. The hurt inflicted and the hurt suffered damages the relationship, builds resentment and can take months and years to forget, forgive and heal. Problems are resolved with two sound minds and a lot of love, not in the heat of emotions, anger and hurt.

Always Talk Positively About Each Other to Others

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When you build up your partner, you are building up your relationship. Some partners believe they can feel better about themselves only by tearing down their partner, declaring how right they were and how wrong their partner was in any given situation and hearing others back up their point of view. If you talk negatively about your partner, you are actually talking negatively about yourself and your marriage and your choice as a marital partner, and discounting in public broadcast your ability to get along with your mate and work through your problems together. That’s not cool, politically correct nor the Christian way to be a good spouse.

Always Be Willing to Stop What You Are Doing If Your Partner Needs Yoru Presence or Encouragement

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A healthy marital partner is never unreasonably demanding or needy. If God is the center of the relationship, He is the main source of love and provision for both partners, but each partner has vowed to love and cherish the other. So a spouse should be willing and ready to drop everything and respond with love to the other partner to comfort, encourage and attend to the other person’s needs. Partners should look for ways to respond in love to each other, not ignore the cues. Love and attention should not be held away or ransomed in a way that manipulates the other person. Partners should be candid about their needs, but not excessive in their demands. When marriage partners make their needs known, they become vulnerable in their trust of the other partner and their faith in the marriage. Trust and love can be built or broken down by how we choose to respond or not respond to each other.

Always Communicate in the Face of Misunderstanding, Hurt, or Disappointment

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If two people will communicate and try to see each other inside out, they will realize that the non-loving acts were—most of the time—fearful and not hateful acts. Communication flushes out truth, and truth brings understanding. All of this leads to a healthier relationship where love has a chance to grow stronger. But if communication is lacking, then truth is often not seen. That’s when we can become weary of the same person repeatedly offending us. Over time, if we are not careful, at some point when this person offends us, instead of persevering in love, we might choose to lash out in anger and un-forgiveness or we might just turn away and not turn back to God or to them to nurture the marriage. We can feed a rift or feed the relationship.

Always Step Away From a Dispute and Pray

By far, the most important thing a married couple can do before, during and following a dispute is to pray. When you know God’s character, all you have to do is begin to pray and you already know what He expects of you. He reminds you that your lashing out in anger is not what He wants. It’s hard to feel hate or anger or want to hurt another that you are and have been praying for. God helps us see the other person as He sees them and with unconditional love. It’s totally amazing and truly a miracle the difference it makes in our hearts to stop and pray with each other, then walk away from each other, turn exclusively to God in prayer and then turn back to each other in His love. Pray apart and pray together, but always pray.