4 Ways to Protect Your Marriage from the World

1. Prioritize Affection and Tenderness

Think back to the beginning. Remember when you couldn't keep your hands off your amazing partner? That season of acute togetherness was the fuel for the love that started your forever union.

Oh, how life and its so many demands suck out the energy we have for something as simple as affection. Many of us are genuinely still attracted to our spouse but lack the time, energy, or space to express it. In other cases, we have to work through feelings of rejection, bitterness, and disconnection to regain a heart of affection for our partner. In either case, I urge you to do the work of making physical touch and tender words a priority in your marriage.

When we show kindness to each other through gentle touch, patient words, and thoughtful actions, the feelings of love and respect that the Bible tells us are necessary for a healthy relationship naturally grow (Ephesians 5:33). If love and respect were plants, affection, kindness, tenderness, time together, service, and self-control would be the soil, water, and light that they need to grow and blossom into something beautiful.

2. Prioritize Accountability and Healthy Boundaries

Marriage does not protect us from temptation or from falling into sin. We have to remain committed to being accountable to one another and trusted friends and mentors in order to keep our hearts and minds safe from unhealthy habits or relationships. Healthy boundaries around how we use our time, who we spend alone time with, who we talk to online, what we view online, how we treat each other in our homes, and so much more are vital to a healthy marriage.

The reality is that unless we are diligent in implementing safeguards in our homes, we can almost get away with anything if we set our minds to it. Even the most 'put together' people and marriages can harbor dark secrets and habits when left without proper accountability. We are sinful creatures! We need all the help we can get to successfully serve one another in love through Christ (Galatians 5:13).

A few helpful ideas are to regularly check in with a counselor, pastor, mentor, or trusted friends to share the state of your marriage. Do not spend one-on-one time with people of the opposite gender, and do not send messages solely to people of the opposite gender, always copy your spouse or their spouse. Place limits on your devices with helpful software and controls. If you sense that you are being abused, manipulated, purposefully isolated, lied to, stolen from, or your partner has an addiction, enlist the help of others immediately. You cannot overcome these kinds of negative patterns as a couple on your own!

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3. Pray Together as Often as You Can

Prayer holds us close to God and each other. Genuine, open-hearted, diligent, and honest prayer as a couple needs to be something we strive to do daily. I must confess this is not a habit that we started at the start of our marriage, and we have felt the effects! As we have sought God's healing in our relationship, we have made regular prayer a priority, and it has helped us tremendously.

A crazy statistic tells us that less than one percent of couples that pray together daily get divorced! I'd bet this is true not because these couples are any less flawed than the rest of us but because I think the daily habit of prayer together helps us to shift our eyes from one another when we face trials, fights, and other struggles with the Lord. He is the source of our love; therefore, he alone can hold together a Christian marriage.

4. Offer One Million Apologies and Extend Forgiveness One Million and One Times

Here's the trouble with marriage: if you're lucky, it sticks for life. Do you know how many times you have to apologize to the same person in order to stay connected over a lifetime? A lot of times.

The longevity of marriage is our opportunity to practice offering each other the gracious forgiveness that Jesus models. Don't get discouraged, and stop apologizing. Apologies will never stop being needed in a committed relationship. Even more than that, keep on forgiving. Jesus said we forgive endlessly, and He surely had marriage in mind when he gave that advice. It's not easy, but making a life together means a million apologies and a million and one times to forgive!