Stand up for marriage!

Happy Tuesday all! So today I figured we would go back down newlywed marriage life! You may recall I have mentioned before the Love and Respect and 5 Love Languages book, and how great they are for any marriage. We are currently doing the Love and Respect book on our date night with many other married couples, and we watch the videos that go along with the book. They are located on youtube if you would like to check them out! This has been helping us tremendously and I would highly recommend it to any couple, whether dating, engaged, or married!

I would also like to recommend 2 movies as well. One is about being a good Christian father, and the other is about having a good Christian marriage. They are both awesome and have helped both of us during our marriage. They are Courageous, and Fireproof. Go get them!!

via google

via google

Most people assume marriage is going to be just this easy fun thing they portray in movies. Or that if things get hard then I will just get a divorce, easy out! But as Christians, we have decided that when we said I do, we said I do for forever. And we will work as hard as we possibly can to make things work. The word divorce is not in our vocabulary.

Marriage is probably the absolute hardest thing I have ever done in my life. There are days I want to bang my head against the wall, and there are other days life is grand. But it is a full time job, and going into marriage I hope people understand this. /You have to give up your old selfish life, to be completely selfless. And this is so very hard when you have been selfish for (insert age here) yrs. It takes a lot of transitioning, a lot of trial and error. But when you start understanding God's design for marriage and giving yourself to that, things become wonderful. I am not saying marriage will always be wonderful after this. You will have hard days, and you will have ok days. But in the end you know you have a partner who loves you, and wants the best for you. They love you like Christ loves the church. And that is a great feeling!

But before you can fully feel that love, you also have to have a personal relationship with God. You have to understand your spouse can NOT fulfill you 100% and only God's love can fill you up and fill your inner most needs. So when you have that relationship and closeness with God, you are fulfilled and every sweet thing your spouse does is just an added bonus! And when they do things like this-

Tulip plant (flowers die too fast, he says) & cosmo!

It makes your day so much better, and you are so appreciative! If you say I do, just remember you want to work hard at this new job, you want to make it work, through good and bad, not just good. 

Marriage in our country is such a joke. Do you ever hear the phrase "stand up for marriage?" No. All you hear about are divorces, not long lasting marriages being praised. The amount of divorce and 2 days marriages, or drive throughs in Vegas, are such a mockery to the sanctity of this precious gift God gave us of marriage. It is pretty disgusting to me and so sad to see how selfish people are that they would rather make themselves happy then their spouse, and run to lawyers for divorce papers when things get hard. It saddens me to see the lack of effort people put into marriage anymore, and don't realize the effects it has on their children and families, just so they can be happy. Or they run into someone else's arms because they are not being fulfilled the way they want to. But yet are they trying hard to fulfill their partners needs? If you look at so many other countries, the divorces are far less then in America. No one believes in a long marriage and if you are married 10+ years people perceive it as a miracle! How sad. 

I told someone that divorce was not in our vocabulary and no pre-nup and they were shocked. And couldn't believe we could commit to that and how great there's still people left like that. This is what our country has come to. And pre-nups? Come on you are basically asking for failure. Completely ridiculous if you ask me. If you are adult enough to get married, then you are adult enough to work things out and take responsibility for your choices and actions. 

Another thing that bugs me is how the view of men in marriage has changed so drastically over the past 100 years. Most men are pushed to the back burner, and so disrespected when it comes to marriage, it's no wonder they want out. They get so degraded and belittled, just so the women can have some "rights." But equality in marriage has turned more into the man should bow down to the wife and treat her like a queen. Now I am not saying being treated like a queen is bad, but I will treat him like a King back. We as women are so spoiled as a nation that we think we deserve to be the only ones being respected and treated amazing in marriage. Guys are sidekicks. Well then why get married in the first place? Marriage is not about who reigns above who. You are a partnership and need to treat each other with respect and love. And at the end of the day, the man is the head of the household and should have that respect. Not made to feel like he is dirt on the rug you step all over. Pictures like these used to be funny to me before I got married, but now I realize how mean and disrespectful to a man this is.

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all via Pinterest

Comments like these all make a mockery out of marriage. So it's not wonder our country takes it as a joke when that's all we see most of the time. Or we see all these celebs being married for 72 days, less than a year, 2 days. It is looked upon as a joke and made to be ok to just give up. It's not often you see things like these in movies, or on tv-

all via Pinterest

If only movies and media portrayed marriage as something real, not a joke, do you think our country would have quite a different outlook on marriage? Or if divorce was made illegal? What would happen if people had to stop being selfish and lazy and actually had to work on their marriage last for forever? Imagine it will you? So let's help each other stay married, not push people into getting a divorce. Support the sanctity of marriage and the effort in trying. Stand up for marriage and what it's worth.

Any tips you have for married couples??