How can you set your marriage up for success?

[FeministVampireQueen]

Problem is nice guys are too often subservient and allow women to run over them. This will result in divorce after she gets enough of ick feeling.

Yes, well no one wants a pushover, people can be nice without being a pushover. I've always found nice men attractive. I think the advice was more referring to being someone that others want to be around, most people want to be around someone with a good personality.

 

[MemeFan]

Yes, well no one wants a pushover, people can be nice without being a pushover. I've always found nice men attractive. I think the advice was more referring to be someone that others want to be around, most people want to be around someone with a good personality.

Then we aren't using same definition of nice.

 

[millennial_mama]

"F2 is a wonderful person who would fit perfectly with our entire family" - If this is true, your wife may not realize or understand this now, but you are your whole family have been highly blessed and favored by the Lord.

I’m the F1 wife here. I realize people on this forum believe this idea, but I just feel like I’m being cheated on and am being pressured to accept it as something Godly and right. Due to addiction issues and more, I really have had no trust for him for our whole marriage, and so trying to trust him in this issue is made extremely hard. I imagine that it would be easier for a wife to accept this if her husband was always a trustworthy person.

 

[indigenouspolygynist]

I’m the F1 wife here. I realize people on this forum believe this idea, but I just feel like I’m being cheated on and am being pressured to accept it as something Godly and right. Due to addiction issues and more, I really have had no trust for him for our whole marriage, and so trying to trust him in this issue is made extremely hard. I imagine that it would be easier for a wife to accept this if her husband was always a trustworthy person.

I'm just going to say exactly what she's talking about so people know the context.

For context, I have an addictive personality. My grandpa (the one who died when I was a baby) was an alcoholic and I inherited that trait from him. I've always avoided alcohol because I know I wouldn't be able to stop if I started drinking. I used to be addicted to sodas. I was drinking a ridiculous amount. I had to stop completely because I couldn't just drink a little. I haven't had one since 2011.

The specific issues she's talking about here are mainly porn and spending. A neighbor kid introduced me to porn when I was 10 years old and I became addicted. It was a struggle for most of our marriage because I had been relying on it to deal with my stress since I was a little kid. I tried to quit a few times unsuccessfully. I was finally able to let it go when my other grandpa revealed his affairs when he was dying a few years ago. It was hard at first, but at some point, something inside me changed, and I don't have a desire for it anymore. I just find it completely repulsive now, especially thinking about what kind of man it made me when I was doing those things. I have no respect for the person I was. I just find the image of myself doing that completely pathetic and it disgusts me.

The spending issue is my coping mechanism for stress. It comes and goes depending on what season I'm in. When I get stressed, I often just turn to shopping because I've lacked healthier coping mechanisms. We have my paycheck setup to automatically put money into savings and retirement to make sure I can't go too far.

For context though, we have over $40k in cash right now (not including any retirement funds). I do have an unhealthy relationship with spending, but my wife has the opposite problem. Because of the way she was raised, she's very uncomfortable with spending money. Her dad's a miser. I spend a lot more than she's comfortable with, but I also make a lot of money and we're financially stable. We paid off our first house in three years and we only have a small mortgage on our current house.

 

[millennial_mama]

Because of the way she was raised, she's very uncomfortable with spending money. Her dad's a miser. I spend a lot more than she's comfortable with, but I also make a lot of money and we're financially stable. We paid off our first house in three years and we only have a small mortgage on our current house.

This is missing the point. We made agreements about how we would spend our money and he has broken his word and my trust many times over in order to buy Legos and things for himself. We have a shared goal of moving to the county someday with several acres and he put us back over a year on our progress as he mostly drained out emergency fund to buy stuff for himself. He has always done things to make himself happy throughout our whole marriage at my expense and while I’ve suffered with difficult pregnancies and tough babies to take care of. It’s hard to trust that this is not one more situation that’s mostly for his benefit. I can’t believe he’s putting me through this turmoil, especially in this tough postpartum season for me. It’s so inconsiderate.

 

[julieb]

I hear you @millennial_mama and @indigenouspolygynist. You are just another example of the "crazy cycle" talked about in the Love and Respect book by Dr. Emerson Eldridge. (I highly recommend that you get and read that book if you haven't already) If you have read it then you know what I am referring to, the never ending emotionally driven discussion that gets you nowhere. In addition to bad communication skills that you came into the marriage with what were taught by your dysfunctional families, I believe you also brought blessings and curses from your families. You stated in one post that you had both mindfully and purposefully have worked on NOT being dysfunction in your ways regarding your marriage and raising your children. So, I challenge you to mindfully and purposefully dig a little deeper into what is driving the seemingly never fixable negative behaviors that effect your lives. We all, or at least most of us, struggle with something like this. We tend to say, it's genetic, or it's the thorn in my side that God doesn't want to heal so I need to just do my best with it, or it's how I was raised, so how can I change something so deep ingrained in me. Blessings and Curses through the generations is a VERY real spiritual dynamic in this fallen World. I have been freed from several myself and seen the power of freedom in others over the years. I have also been blessed to marry into a family that has had generations and generations of Godly families who have pasted on blessings to my husband and thus our family. That doesn't mean we don't have difficulties but I can feel the spiritual grace God has extended to us all these years of marriage. I recommend a book that I have read several times written by Derek Prince, called Blessings and Curses, You Can Choose. It is a book written in the 70's, I believe, but the truths still stand today from the Scripture. There are several other authors on this topic now that you can read, too. I encourage you to pray about purchasing at least one of these books on this subject.

Addictive behavior and fearful or excessive Frugalness are both most likely negatively amplified in your emotions due to a curse that was created by a person in your past generations, something you have spoken over yourselves, or something spoken over you by someone else. I am happy to talk to you more about in private if you want.

My prayers are with you both as you seek to have a better marriage. I suspect this is one more "tool" God is putting in your tool box for marriage.

 

[julieb]

This is missing the point. We made agreements about how we would spend our money and he has broken his word and my trust many times over in order to buy Legos and things for himself. We have a shared goal of moving to the county someday with several acres and he put us back over a year on our progress as he mostly drained out emergency fund to buy stuff for himself. He has always done things to make himself happy throughout our whole marriage at my expense and while I’ve suffered with difficult pregnancies and tough babies to take care of. It’s hard to trust that this is not one more situation that’s mostly for his benefit. I can’t believe he’s putting me through this turmoil, especially in this tough postpartum season for me. It’s so inconsiderate.

Respect due to our husbands has NO prerequisites or qualifying behaviors for us to do it. Thankfully, there are no such things for men to love their wives, either. I know some here would lean more to the side of "he needs to earn my respect by his actions" but I find that doesn't reflect the scripture (Eph 5:33) or the character of God. God freely gives his love to us even while we were yet sinners. He also says he has given us freedom from death through Christ just because he wants to give you freedom. (Gal 5:1) There is NO requirements for salvation other than our choice to believe that Christ bore our sins on the cross and desires for us to live in freedom from death because he conquered death on our behalf.

Marriage is a reflection of Jesus and the Bride, the church/the believers. It is a mystery as Paul states, but it is a reflection of that spiritual relationship regardless of whether we think about our marriages in that way. Respect for a husband is a wife's super power!! It brings unsaved me to Christ and saved men to desire to be better men of God. I have just finished the book, Created to Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl. I am embarrassed to say it has taken me this long to read it. I have been married 39 years this Nov and I gained a great deal from this book. I am also thankful that righteous behavior has no expiration date! I have gained a new insight into my husband and myself as a woman. I challenge you to show more respect to your husband than you desire in behavior and words for 2 weeks and see what God will show you.

I also encourage you to get this book in audiobook form and listen to it while doing housework or nursing the baby. Another tool for your marriage tool box!