There is Always a Way Out of the Messy Marriage Other Than What You Think

It’s been a long while, and I feel bad that I have abandoned the writing of the marriage blog in pursuit of so many other things. Trying to combine business with blogging has been a big distraction, but today, I pray for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ not to abandon His assignment on my life, knowing that meeting my needs is His priority. Without so much story again, I want us to dive straight back into the marriage discussion.

When I talk to wives, I tell them the way out of a messy marriage differs greatly from what they think. Most wives who have husbands who are not taking up their husbandly responsibilities have resorted to prayers. When prayers seem not to be working, they resolve to either abandon the marriage and go for a separation or endure the miserable situation as it is. And shocking but true, some die trying to patch a terrible marriage in the best way they know how.

But one thing I love about God is that when we pray, He tells us what to do about what we have prayed about, and when we do it as He has instructed, we see the results that we desire. Based on my relationship with God and how He has helped me out of my messy marriage situation without having to get a divorce or a separation, still married to the same husband, I learned to not just pray but also to listen to God for a sense of direction.

As we should know, prayer is a dialog between the one who is praying and the God to whom he/she is praying. Prayer should not be a monolog whereby you just talk and then stand up and go. When you pray, you should expect a response from the One you have prayed to, and a response is not just in miraculously seeing a transformation of the situation you have prayed about, but a response in knowing what God (whom you have prayed to) would have you do for the situation you have prayed about to change.

The Bible says prayers without deeds are dead. So, with a few wives who have discussed their marriage situations with me, I have asked a handful of them what they have done to help their marriage. Most of them have responded that they have prayed. And then I ask the question, when you prayed, what did God tell you to do? At that point, the response I got was that I didn’t hear God ask me to do anything.

The truth is that it wasn’t God who didn’t speak of a way of escape; it was us who didn’t listen or were unwilling to listen to what God was telling us to do. In most cases, what we hear in our spirit might be far from what we expect or desire as a response, so we tell ourselves we can’t go that route. And then we accuse God of not answering our prayers because all we want is to wake up one morning and see a brand-new person in the spouse we are complaining and praying about without any input from us.

It’s just like praying about your terrible financial situation and expecting to wake up one morning and meet a million dollars in your account without working for it just because you prayed. I am sure you will agree with me that that is an impossibility. When I had my own terrible marriage experience, I must confess it was heart-wrenching, and to say that I prayed is to say the least. I went for all manners of deliverance and counseling, and still, nothing changed. And then, I just resolved to look for the solution to my problems within the pages of the Bible, and from therein, God began to speak to me. I was so desperate for a solution that I was willing to obey anything He told me to do. And He told me to do the oddest thing that I could possibly hear God give as instruction back then. He told me to submit to my husband.

At that time, I had considered my husband the devil while I was the saint. But with strength and grace from God, I obeyed, even though it was challenging and difficult. With time and help from the Spirit of God, obedience became easy, and then God began to use my obedience to bring about a glorious change in the life of my husband. Today, I am enjoying the time of my life with the man of my life and in the marriage of my life. My marriage is just so sweet and glorious.

I have repeatedly mentioned my case in my blog articles, and I can’t say it enough. Now, what are you willing to add to your prayers to make your marriage the beauty you desire? What is that thing that God is telling you to either put in or take away from your life to make your marriage what you desire it to be? In truth, if you want a change from the status quo, the first thing to do is to look into the mirror and begin the change with who you see as the reflection in the mirror. That change that you so long for in your marriage starts with you.