Learning Lessons from a Marriage Fight

Have you ever had a "disagreement" with your spouse? Better question, when was the last time you had a fight with your spouse? What did you learn from it? Michael Hyatt has a great post entitled "What I Learned About Leadership from a Fight With My Wife." Michael and Gail Hyatt have been married for thirty-three years. They truly enjoy each other's company, but they had a "doozy" (Michael's word) of a fight. Michael identifies 5 lessons which he wants to remember for future use. These five are important for all of us to consider.

1. Clarify our expectations up front: too often we have differing expectations and our spouse doesn't know what we anticipate. Our spouse can't read our mind, but we some how assume that they should know - if they really loved me, they would figure it out!

2. Assume the best about the each other: that is one of the statements about love from 1 Corinthians 13 - "believes all things." That is, believes the best about the other. We should not assume that our spouse is doing something intentionally to make us miserable!

3. Affirm the priority of the relationship: our relationship is the most important asset that we have. It ought to be more important than "getting our way."

You can read Michael's comments (HERE) on the above as well as the final two lessons. They can make for a great discussion if you take the time to sit down and talk about these things -- even before the "fight" begins. It could help to prevent the escalation as well as serve to prevent those battles. Take time to also read through the comments to his post.

Husband's Responsibilities to his Wife in Headship

This past week we looked at God's design for the roles of a Christian husband and wife. We focused primarily on the headship responsibilities of a husband to his wife. Here are seven areas of focus as a reminder:

• Honor her Maritally: not flirting, no wandering eye
• Honor her Physically: she is weaker, don't hit, shove, push or grab
• Honor her Verbally: no nasty nicknames, don't raise voice or threaten
• Honor her Financially: provide for her, pay bills, don't be stingy
• Honor her Practically: maintain the house and car, and other responsibilities
• Honor her Parentally: love your kids, help raise them, spend time with sons & daughters
• Honor her Spiritually: pray with her, read the Bible with her, encourage her spiritual growth.

You can read more as laid out by Mark Driscoll (HERE)

Would You Remarry Your Spouse? ~ Study Shows...

In keeping with our current message series, "Don't Get Married Until...." I found this research to be interesting.

In a new CBS News poll, nine out of 10 (90%) married Americans said they would marry their spouse again, a percentage which has barely changed since 1995 (93%). Ninety-five percent of men said they would marry their wives again compared to 85 percent of women saying the same. When asked to pick what is most important in a successful relationship, about half picked "Respect" (49%), followed by "Trust" (37%), and a "Sense of humor" (10%). "Sex" was picked by two percent and "Money" by zero percent. [from CBSNews.com quoted from PWB, 2/26/2010]

That is nice to know!