Red Flag Tensions in Mate Finding To Share With Your Kids

I've seen a few helpful lists online recently that suggest things to teach our children to look for or avoid in the person they marry. And most of them seem pretty accurate, worth talking to your kids about.

However, let me take a slightly different approach and discuss what I would call the tensions that must be addressed when embracing or rejecting a particular characteristic one sees in a potential mate. What I want to suggest is that even too much of a good thing may be as unhealthy and destructive as an abundance of a negative quality.

For example, let's say that someone is very careful about how they spend money. That sounds like a good quality and probably is. But what if their frugality becomes obsessive to the point where they never spend money for fun, for enjoyment, for special moments or for the spouse to use as they feel led?

It seems to me that we need to also help our children in selecting their future mate to prayerfully and wisely look at the whole spectrum of a person's qualities and be willing to admit that this person may have too much of a seemingly good thing. There may be some underlying need that causes that person to be overly positive which can ultimately become destructive and demoralizing.

Of course in every marriage there will be differences that we must learn to love and appreciate. No two people will ever be a perfect match. But let me suggest several spectra that I often see in marriages where that tension I'm talking about should have been considered and monitored. And let's face it some things can be hidden well but perhaps these suggestions will give you and your kids a place to start looking.

Do they have a sense of humor?  Or can they not stand humor and more specifically yours?

Do they care about the things of God, being like Jesus and their personal faith?  Or can they talk about nothing else so that they are really "of no earthly good?"

Do they talk to you?  Or do they ever stop talking period?

Do they love themself in appropriate ways?  Or are they the only person they care about?

Are they motivated, hard working and industrious?  Or is getting to the top their ultimate goal ahead of you and everything else?

Do they love children?  Or are they basically still a child and likely not going to change?

Do they share their emotions freely?  Or are they a loose cannon who hurts you and others with their feelings and words?

Are they careful and wise?  Or do they actually live in irrational fear most of the time?

Are they nice? Or are they actually just covering up deeper anger, resentment and bitterness?

Are they honest about their mistakes and faults?  Or are only concerned with yours?

There are lots more.  Let me encourage you to think of some that you might add to the list. Remind your kids that this is why they need to take time to get to know someone for a while. The real person doesn't show up on one or two dates or even in a couple of months of knowing someone. Make sure they see this person in a variety of settings.

And no, living together rarely helps this process. Playing house typically covers up or masks any real discernment about the other person under the guise of phony commitment.

When our kids do the hard work of pondering, experiencing and getting to know each other they have far more hope for success and a relationship that is all they hoped it would be from the first time they even considered marriage. Help them mom and dad. Give them some tools they need. I hope this might be one of them.

Bold Love: Laying Aside The Past Wrongs in Your Marriage

I have several large bookshelves that stand directly behind where I sit when I counsel couples. (I somehow believe it will it impress them but that hasn't ever seemed to work.)  And I often use those shelves as an illustration regarding how we like to keep our own personal bookshelves handy, shelves filled with all the wrongs our spouse did in the past.

And then when we need them we grab one or two or twenty of those "books" and throw them again at our spouse. "I've never trusted you since that day five years ago when . . . " or "Don't you ever forget how much you hurt me when . . . " or "You lied back then and you're obviously lying now. When will it ever stop?"

Now granted the past matters because it has shaped much of what we do today. It matters because we need to learn from it sometimes. It matters if things really haven't changed and today you're simply facing more of the same.

However, healthy couples instead learn to leave those volumes on the shelf and communicate only in the HERE and NOW.  When they are angry or upset they talk about what's currently happening and don't include the past as part of the discussion.  They let go of the past out of love for their spouse and work on today only.  This is a biblical concept.

"Love does not store up the memory of any wrong it has received."  I Corinthians 13

We need to forgive, to let go of the wrongs against us. As I've said before, forgiveness is not about letting someone else off the hook as much as letting yourself off the hook.  But if you and your spouse are ever going to make real progress in dealing with conflict you will have to live by this idea of letting go of the past.

How do you live this out in everyday life?  Start rephrasing your comments when you're angry, hurt or confused.  Say something like, "This morning I was really hurt when you . . . .  "  as opposed to, "Every time I try to bring up (blank) you get defensive and blame me.  It started the day we were married and I don't even know why I try any more."

Don't let the past own you anymore.  Love even admits that often our view of the past is skewed by our emotional reaction to it.  Sometimes it's as bad as remember but often it is not.  Either way, it does us no good now.

Love was never intended to be easy or not require big-time sacrifice. Read the rest of I Corinthians 13 and you'll see what I mean. But the love God describes there is the only kind we should settle for. And if we're going to enjoy it then we need to forgive . . . even when it's hard.

How To Make Your Marriage Last - part 2

So let me continue what I began in my last post about helping your marriage last until death do you part.  It's not easy, there are no simple recipes but there are a few principles that can help.

Brag about your spouse to others. No, don't make things up. But be sure to speak well about your mate to your friends, relatives, neighbors and associates.  I regularly hear about people who tell jokes, gripe and make fun of their husband or wife to others. And now and then when you both agree there's a funny story to be told about the other that's fine.

But our speech about our spouse needs to affirm and build up the other person even when they don't hear our comments. I'm pretty sure that many people say negative things about their spouse so that they themselves won't look so bad. That's a crummy excuse and our resulting words end up hurting the other person and destroying trust. Speak words of life and tell the world about all the great things your mate is and does.

Keep learning more about intimacy of body, soul and spirit. I've spoken on this in other posts so go to the index and click on "intimacy"  for more. However, intimacy of soul and spirit takes much more intentionality and practice than the physical part.  The interesting and important thing is that all three areas complement one another. As we develop all three we help all three.

Serve others together.  One of the best ways to develop intimacy and grow your relationship is to serve, do projects and help others together. Working as a couple helps you bond and gives you something special to talk about later. And if you become involved in an endeavor that is ongoing it becomes both of your passions and you enjoy it together.  Serving especially helps you grow stronger even in the middle of struggles.

It shouldn't take the place of working on your problems, but serving can help growth to speed up.

Don't allow your relationships with your kids to become more important than yours.  Our kids are important and should be one of the loves of our lives. Ours are. I would take a bullet for either of them, their spouses or our grandkids. I couldn't be prouder of them all.

But we've tried to both teach and model for them that our marriage and their marriage is always more important than their parenting. We're to love, protect and provide for our children but one day we're to set them free to live, lead and love on their own. And during that whole process we're to model what a healthy marriage is all about. And healthy marriages don't live vicariously through their offspring.

Healthy spouses keep loving each other, working at their relationship and thereby teaching their kids to do the same.

So do you want to keep your marriage for a lifetime?  I would guess you do.  It's work, it's not easy, but it's worth it. Happy anniversary . . . whenever it is.

How Can a Single Prepare for Marriage

I recently had a single guy ask me how he could prepare now to be a good husband someday. What a great question! And the good news is that there is a lot any single man or woman can do now to prepare well for marriage.

I often tell couples in premarital counseling this maxim that I coined a few years ago: If you throw your socks on the floor before you get married, you'll throw them on the floor AFTER you get married. I hope my point is obvious: Marriage typically doesn't change our habits or character. Change takes time and character is molded and shaped, not merely put on one day because we hoped it would be different (or got married).

So single person do what you can now to become the person you want to be when you get married. No, none of us will ever be perfect, but you can become more and more a person of character, someone who loves Christ and lives out his or her faith every day. If you are a poor communicator start finding out now how to communicate more effectively. If there are unresolved issues that may impact your relationship with your spouse someday, don't wait to get help, assuming that those issues will change. They probably won't by themselves.

Second, foster healthy relationships with the opposite sex now. Your current relationships will be the proving grounds for what your married life will be like someday. Be willing to face some of your weaknesses and keep developing your strengths. In fact, ask others you trust about things in your personality that could improve. Then spend some time trying out some new ways of relating.

You may need to look at some underlying issues that cause you to think and ultimately act the way you do. But that can be a good and potentially lifechanging process if you get a competent and helpful person to walk you through it.

But let me say this, even though I wish I didn't need to say it. Don't live with someone of the opposite sex. I hear all sorts of excuses about why people do it but the statistics, facts and God are all against you on this one. Living with someone requires little commitment and no legal protection or safety. Either one of you can walk out on a moment's notice. It doesn't prepare you one bit for married life because it doesn't reflect true married life.

Instead, work hard at becoming the kind of person you would want to marry - spiritually, physically, intellectually and emotionally. Practice being a giver more than a taker, a listener more than a talker and committed to Christ more than anything or anyone. If you do, you'll be the kind of partner that someone of similar character will also be attracted to and it will be worth the wait!