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5 Things a Millennial Marriage Can't Work Without

  • D. A. and Elicia Horton Authors of Enter the Ring
  • Published Jan 18, 2019
5 Things a Millennial Marriage Can't Work Without

We’re millennials who’ve been married nearly 15 years, and we’ll be the first to admit that the struggle is real. We got married young (ages 22 and 21), carried substantial relational baggage, and were emotionally broken. Yet as we stood at the base of a mountain of issues, God worked in our lives in spite of us, not because of us!

Looking back over our time together, we realized 5 practices have helped our marriage thrive, not just survive. Each practice roots back to the gospel, which for us serves as glue keeping us intact. Jesus’ message of forgiveness empowers us to walk in the compassion He shares with us (Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:12-14).

As we imperfectly strive to walk in step with Jesus, we’ve discovered that the pathway to an ever maturing love for each other includes following these 5 practices, which guide us on our journey.

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  • 1. Communicate with Legit Face Time

    1. Communicate with Legit Face Time

    Our words carry power; they either build up or destroy the spirits of people (Proverbs 18:20-21). The absence of words leads to assumptions, which eventually leads to arguments that drive a wedge of distance between us. This distance quickly becomes a canyon when the busyness of life tempts us to replace talking with texting. We no longer see eye-to-eye because we’re not in proximity looking at each other face-to-face.

    Perhaps other millennial couples like us realize it’s easier to text our emojis back and forth rather than talk through our emotions face-to-face. During our years together, we’ve learned to fight for legit face time that places us in the same room with our phones put away. Fighting for this time is worthy because the prize illustrates the gospel’s power!

    The gospel is a message announcing not only God’s work to save sinners (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) but also the practical step Jesus took to dwell among us (John 1:1-14) and communicate God’s heart to humanity. Jesus’ example has challenged us to carve out time to dwell together by sharing our sinfulness, confessing it, and extending forgiveness. Being consistent in doing this has led us to biblically resolve our conflicts, which results in a deeper level of oneness.

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  • 2. Resolve Conflicts Biblically—and Quickly

    2. Resolve Conflicts Biblically—and Quickly

    Communicating during times of conflict is necessary to build a lasting marriage. When we avoided conflict, things turned bad. We suppressed our pain until we reached a boiling point, and shortly after, we would blow up and argue for hours. It took us a few years to grow weary of this cyclical pattern before we turned to God’s Word to help us resolve, not just manage, our conflict.

    Three passages that God used to transform our hearts are Proverbs 15:1, Ephesians 4:29, and James 1:19-20. These passages challenged us to put the following practices in place to resolve our conflicts in harmony with God’s Word as we stopped operating in FEAR:

    • Don’t Fight by making verbal attacks with trigger words you know will hurt your spouse.
    • Don’t Escape by working to avoid the issue.
    • Don’t engage Apathy by responding as if you don’t care about your spouse.
    • Instead, Resolve to take the time necessary to identify the root issue of the conflict, have a transparent conversation about it, and work to find a solution in harmony with Proverbs 15:1, Ephesians 4:29, and James 1:19-20.

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  • 3. Work on Dating Each Other

    3. Work on Dating Each Other

    We made the mistake of dating to marry rather than marrying to date. We went from spending too much time dating before we were married to going months without having a date night after we exchanged vows. Life comes at you fast and pulls for your time, so it’s especially important to practice the healthy habit of dating after you’re married.

    Normally it would take me (Elicia) calling out D. A. on not carving out time for “us.” And most often it wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation. My disappointment, dashed with unmet expectations and sprinkled with my sarcasm, was the perfect recipe for a fight.

    The following three rhythms helped us develop healthy habits for rediscovering how to date each other:

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  • 3. Work on Dating Each Other (Rhythm 1)

    3. Work on Dating Each Other (Rhythm 1)

    Don’t put all the responsibility of planning on one person.

    The Bible does not say, “Thou shall leaveth all date night planning to thy significant other.” In our early years of marriage, I put the responsibility of date nights on D. A. while I got the easy pass. Nurturing your marriage involves both parties sharing the responsibility. If it is left to one person to plan every date night, that person will easily get burnt out and stop trying. Work together in finding ways to both contribute and let your creative juices flow. 

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  • 3. Work on Dating Each Other (Rhythm 2)

    3. Work on Dating Each Other (Rhythm 2)

    Consider others as more significant than yourself.

    In Philippians chapter 2, the apostle Paul highlights the beauty of what it means to consider others. In verses 3 and 4, we’re instructed to not be selfish but, rather, selfless. We must learn to stop thinking of ourselves all the time and truly seek to serve our spouses. We must learn to speak in their love language, not just our own.

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  • 3. Work on Dating Each Other (Rhythm 3)

    3. Work on Dating Each Other (Rhythm 3)

    Be adventurous.

    When you know you have a busy week ahead, carve out time to surprise your spouse by squaring away babysitting and finding an activity that you both will enjoy. Also, communicate about things you both would like to do in the next couple of months; make a list and set aside days on the calendar to make it happen. Do things that would surprise your spouse. D. A. and I both love it when the other person makes the effort to try new things so we can live to the fullest, together as one!

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  • 4. Be Generous with Your Resources

    4. Be Generous with Your Resources

    We grew up poor in communities where dangerous pitfalls were normal. Early on, our financial focus was dead set on living the American Dream, or at least the appearance of it. This level of selfishness led us to file bankruptcy before our fifth anniversary!

    We had to hit rock bottom before seeing through a gospel-saturated lens, which led us to imitate the generosity of God, who gave His Son as a gift to pay off the sin debt we could not (John 3:16 and Romans 5:8). We were convicted to develop a culture of generosity with our financial resources and time management.

    Psalm 37:25-26, Proverbs 30:8-9, Matthew 6:31-33, and 1 Timothy 5:8 gave us a framework of generosity that has empowered us to find contentment in all God has provided for us, share out of any excess He has blessed us with, and live in meaningful relationships with those in our local church. This has provided us ample opportunities to share not only the gospel but also our entire lives with those we love dearly (1 Thessalonians 2:8).

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  • 5. Pursue Sexual Purity

    5. Pursue Sexual Purity

    As millennials who were raised in church during our teenage years, we were told that sexual purity is something to strive for prior to marriage. “Save yourself for your spouse” was the anthem, and the implication was that the need for purity ends once you’re married. But after we were married, we discovered this truth: Marriage is not the cure for fornication, lust, or pornography. The gospel is.

    Full disclosure: We didn’t walk into our marriage completely sexually pure, and we weren’t given the tools to properly process pasts that included abuse, guilt, molestation, pornography, and shame. We’ve had to learn how to walk in sexual transparency with each other. We do this by intersecting our sex life with 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 and Hebrews 13:4. The power of the gospel has redeemed our sexual brokenness and empowered us to respect the sexual freedom God has given us inside our covenant relationship as husband and wife. We’ve learned to communicate physical boundaries, desires, and expectations to each other in order to together keep our marriage bed both active and undefiled.

    In closing, one cultural virtue we millennials value is authenticity. We’ve found a freedom in being truthful enough to confess our marriage is made up of two broken people who have both entrusted their hearts to God (through salvation in Jesus Christ) and each other, while living in a broken world that keeps trying to break them apart. By God’s grace our admission of being broken and in need of Jesus has kept us together for 15 years, and by God’s grace, He will carry us together in His hands for our remaining years together on this side of eternity.

    D. A. and Elicia Horton have been fighting for their marriage for over 15 years. D. A. is working on his PhD in Applied Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Elicia has master’s degrees in Religious Studies and Organizational Development from Calvary Theological Seminary. They teach and serve together at Reach Fellowship, a church plant in North Long Beach, CA, and have been blessed to counsel couples jointly for over 10 years.

    Check out D. A. and Elicia Horton's new book, Enter the Ring:

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