What's Love

Good Thursday morning! 

For the last 18 years, I’ve been blessed to walk with many couples as a Christian marriage. I still work with a few couples a year but these days I mainly write and speak at churches or events. Something I’ve noticed is, many married couples still deal with 1st year marriage issues.

Nope, there isn’t a list of problems that only happen the first year 😂. By 1st year issues I mean foundational things that should’ve been at least raised before marriage or in their early years. Instead, they’re in year 5,10, 20 & still stuck by: how are we going to handle money, understanding their different views on parenting, finding a fair balance of household responsibilities, expectations about sex…

Couples have been working through common marital challenges of communication, trust, intimacy and money since Adam and Eve. These “common things” will always be available for couples to be at odds about 🤣. So it helps to acknowledge & address basic understanding of them - early on.

In my book, Angrily Ever After: When the Fairytale Ends and Marriage Gets Real I wrote about a real couple that I gave the fake names Joe and Sarah. I then shared their story of 1st year marriage issues around money and communication that were still a problem in their 7th year of marriage. At a point I asked about their pre-marriage counseling. Uncomfortably “Joe” shared, “it wasn’t very deep”. It went like this, “Joe do you love Sarah? Sarah do you love Joe? Ok, keep loving each other and you’ll be fine.” 😳

Problem with that (non)advice is every person has a different definition of love. So for their 7 years, Joe and Sarah were loving each other as hard as they could just not in ways that clicked with the person they married. For the next year or so we worked to define & reset what love meant to them and how they would express it to each other. 

2 Core Issues - Joe, Sarah and maybe your marriage too…

1. People Centered Love

2. Christ Centered Love

Somewhat self explanatory, when love is people centered the people carry all the weight and remain the center of what love is and how it’s expressed. So Joe and Sarah gave the best love they had whether their spouse understood, needed or wanted it.

On the other hand, Christ centered love, is driven from their/our relationship with Christ. Christ knows the him and her of the marriage so He, Christ alone, defines, explains and gives shape to the love that both a husband and wife need. 

I wish I had time to walk through all that the Lord walked Joe and Sarah and I through but let’s start with this:

1. Re-Focussed Prayer: Either as a couple or if you have to, start alone, but begin asking the Lord to teach you as a couple how to love each other. I jokingly confirm with couples, “The 2 of you were raised in different households, right?”, they laugh but the point is, you & your spouse had different influences and experiences growing up. Now ask the Lord to teach you how to love the person He gave you in the way they need. You won’t know how to love your spouse until you ask God to teach you how.

2. Define Love: Not from the dictionary but from your own hearts, share what love means to you. Use the list below as a starting point: What are 3 key treasured components of love to you? Ask your spouse the same. See that, you aren’t right, they aren’t wrong your definitions are just different.

3. Now, with specific prayer {#1} and a picture of your love definitions {#2}, seek to love your spouse - the way they need.

Want a little more? Here are the passages that we worked through to help them understand what love meant to them:

• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 …love is

• 1 John 4:7-8 …let us love one another

• ***Romans 12:9-12 …let love be genuine***

Do you know a couple that would be blessed by today’s newsletter? Please share with them: https://elevateyourmarriage.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Did you get a chance to check out the marriages of the Bible I shared on Instagram in September, check them out: https://www.instagram.com/elev8yourmarriage/

Have a Great Week! Let Christ’s love Elevate Your Marriage!

Edward

P.S. I feel funny not getting to dig into those Scriptures more - see you next week 😇for more…

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