Marriage Humdrum...Just Click Refresh by Brad Hodges

See if this sounds familiar, married guys?

The first several years of our marriage was like most, I guess.   Rear kids, make meals, go to work, pay bills, clean house, maybe attend church, take out the garbage, do the dishes, help with homework, change light bulbs, plunge toilets, rush through bedtime routine and wake up and do it again…

Meanwhile, in my relationship with my wife… we switched our focus off similarities to differences.  We shifted our dreams with reality.  We fought over finances.  We felt misunderstood and at times disrespected.  We went to bed angry and silent on many nights….

Every couple at some point complains, “We do the same things over and over and over again!”  When a marriage gets wedged in a monotonous rut , the vacuum of intimacy sucks each spouse dry.  It is exhausting and draining.  

Wouldn't it be great to just click the refresh button?  Maybe your marriage feels monotone.  You feel stuck, and want to be unstuck.  Do you remember all the fun times you had while dating and wonder if days like those are even possible again?

So, we ask ourselves, “How do we have that great marriage again?”  “Enjoy each other in the middle of the "routine grinder"?

Enjoying marriage and your wife is actually possible in the midst of differences, hard work, toddlers, communication issues, pain, and a tight budget! 

I’ve read this perspective on marriage recently:  “God gave you your spouse to beat you down and suck the life out of you so you can be more like Jesus.”  What? No way! 

We need to raise the value of our marriage and wife, prioritize our marriage (fight against the kid-centered home), and enjoy our wife. 

Ecclesiastes 9:9 -  Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days.  For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.

When you’re in a rut in your marriage; enjoy life!  Live life and pursue it!  Decide now not to waste it!  Celebrate the little things.  If your marriage is in crisis mode, my prayer for you is that you will find hope again.  Jesus breathes life into dead people, and I know He breathes life into dead marriages.

Over the next several blog entries, we’ll look at a bunch of different warning signs that will help us identify marriage pits that most couples drift into.  And, we’ll look at the decisions necessary to having fun again together.