I am thankful that Jesus reconciled our marriage. I am thankful for the great marriage help available through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I am thankful for my wife who edits my posts here and makes them look great. I am thankful for our readers. I am thankful for our commenters.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
If you have been served with an unwanted divorce petition it is critical to do some serious checking about your state law. Most states in this country have no-fault divorce laws which eventually allow either spouse to get a divorce regardless of whether the other spouse wants one. However, some states have mechanisms in place that can at least slow the process so people have time to think about the ramifications and possibly even reconcile.
I just found out that in Maryland, for example, in a contested divorce both parties have to attend a parenting type class and some of the topics include the effects of divorce on children and communication. Also both parties must appear before a judge. Maryland also has a two-year waiting period from the time you are legally separated. In Ohio you may ask the judge to order counseling for the parties. It doesn’t mean he will grant it, but you can ask. In no-fault states you can’t prevent a divorce but you can be judicious in how the law is used to give the best chance for reconciliation.
My caution is if you truly don’t want a divorce be extremely slow and cautious about signing a dissolution and give serious consideration to just allowing your spouse to file for divorce and then contesting it.
The Apostle Paul did not try to change the Roman empire by filing lawsuits, but he did strategically assert his rights as a Roman citizen to advance the gospel.
Over the last several years I have participated in Divorce Care, a program targeted for separated and divorced people; Marriage 911, focusing on separated people; “Before ‘I Do'”, a study for engaged couples; PAIRS and RINGS, communication tools, and life coaching – all of which have some application to married, dating or single people. I have also participated in Wild at Heart and a Top Gun series both targeted for men.
I have been thinking about the possibility of a marriage course that would be focused on marriage but would include people from many stages of life – teens just thinking about dating, engaged couples, early marrieds, long-term marrieds, separated, and divorced. Now before you tell me I am crazy and it would never work, let me lay out some topics that might be covered. These are just off the top of my head and I am sure others would be added or changed. These listed might be emphasized to greater or lesser degrees.
A. God’s big picture of marriage. Start with the Garden of Eden where God said it was not good for man to be alone, to the Fall, to Jewish customs of marriage, to Jesus starting his ministry at a wedding, all the way to the end of time when Jesus and the church celebrate the wedding feast of the Lamb to usher in eternity.
B. More specific details about marriage being a covenant, and marriage customs in Jewish and Christian history to modern times.
C. Details of what legally happens when you get married and what happens when you get divorced.
D. Dating and Courtship concepts.
E. Ways to build your relationship with God and the importance of that relationship. If you don’t have a good foundation in this area, you are likely to marry for the wrong reasons, and once you are married, if this slips or takes a back seat your marriage won’t be all God wants it to be and you can be in for a disaster.
F. Practical relationship tools such as PAIRS, RINGS, or Coaching – especially the learning to listen aspect of coaching.
G. Sexuality. Topics such as God’s view of sexuality, desire differences, changes in sexuality based on life stages as newly married, pregnancy, menopause, etc.
H. The importance of the basics of the faith – forgiveness, confession, basic disciplines such as taught in First Steps Discipleship (www.disciplinganother.com).
I. How to deal with anger.
J. Family of Origin issues and how they influence everything.
K. Life challenges such as illness, mental issues, financial issues, etc.
L. I am sure there are many more topics I will think of once I review various materials and programs.
I would also like to combine several methods of education in the Marriage Course.
1. Teaching with attendee interaction. Teach many key concepts out of the Bible and supplement with solid reference material.
2. Use videos and various media.
3. The leaders model tools and then the attendees practice. If there are couples attending they can interact with their partner for the tools, while people attending alone can write their responses or, depending on the tool, practice with a same gender partner.
4. Ample time for discussion and feedback.
5. Personal testimonies from the speaker and the attendees.
I would think with all of the above elements people would stay engaged and truly learn some new things while coming to appreciate people who are at a different place in life than they are.
So why do I think it would be good to have such a broad range of participants? I think there is a huge benefit from cross generational understanding. Young people risk either being so in love that they think life will be bliss (they need a little dose of reality from some older people), or they are so cynical about marriage and relationships because of their family and cultural experience they could use some models of good, but not perfect, marriages to inspire them.
Premarrieds need to realize the seriousness of the vows they are about to make. When they have their first big disappointment with each other – which is highly likely somewhere between the honeymoon and the end of year two of marriage – they need to be prepared how to handle it and not give up.
For Newly marrieds this can be a lonely time and they need encouragement to go on.
The Separated need to be inspired with hope to continue on in their relationship and also learn to lay a new and better foundation if they reconcile.
Divorced people run the risk of either becoming so cynical about marriage that they turn everyone around them off about marriage, or they run head long into a new marriage, never really thinking about what went wrong the first time.
Long-term stable marriages need an outlet for their wisdom. Just being married 40 or 50 years is a testimony to those around them. Most of the time they are people who still admit they want to learn more, which then becomes an inspiration for the younger people just starting out in married life.
What do you think of this general concept? I know it needs much refining, but is it something you might show up for? What would you like to glean if you could sit in a room and learn from every generation about marriage?
I thought this was an excellent post about something I have been pondering lately about how our marriages on earth are meant to show a little bit of what is meant by Christ’s marriage to his Bride the Church.
http://www.epm.org/blog/2010/Nov/17/christ-centered-marriage-christ-centered-parenting
Lots of times I am not very articulate in a tense situation so maybe if I practice here I will be ready at the appropriate time. Sometimes when I have had a struggling couple come to me who are still in deep pain and pointing fingers at each other I have wondered about saying something like this:
I am sorry for your pain. I have been there myself. Jesus did heal our marriage. I do think you need to slow down and consider several possible options and then make a wise choice about how to proceed.
a. You have mastered living in a painful marriage. You can keep on doing what you have been doing and continue to survive in that miserable marriage.
b. You can both agree to voluntarily give up on your marriage and just sign a dissolution and be done. Of course in doing so you are giving up on all those dreams you have had as a couple, you are going back on your promise of “till death do us part” that you said before God, friends, family and your spouse, and you are leaving a legacy of divorce for your family and culture. You are also saying that God either cannot or will not do a miracle in your marriage and you are not willing to wait until He does.
c. You can just move into an ungodly lifestyle – have an affair, live it up, put it to your spouse. If God’s command of “Thou shall not commit adultery” doesn’t stop you – read some current magazines, newspapers, or social media for the amount of pain caused by those who have walked this road and maybe you will be inspired to restrain yourself.
d. Go get an attorney and make a preemptive filing against your spouse. Be the first to hit and hit hard. If you are both Christians, just sort of ignore the Apostle Paul’s admonition not to sue other believers. The courts are open and there are many attack-dog attorneys ready to demolish your spouse, your kids, and your checkbook – so that is an option.
e. Somebody – either one or the other of you – can drive a proverbial stake in the ground and say, “By God’s grace I am going to do everything possible to fulfill my vows, and I am going to do everything in my power with God’s help to “Let no man put asunder what God has joined together.” I am going to pray and fast, get help for whatever issues of mine that have contributed to our problems, love my spouse like never before and learn new ways to love them and communicate with them. I am not going to give up.
I challenge you as Joshua challenged Israel to make a declaration: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Often in marriage one or both partners may do something that they think they have thought through such as have an affair, file for divorce, ask their spouse to leave, or leave themselves, and then later realize that there were many consequences they hadn’t thought about nor prepared for.
A good visual illustration of unintended consequences is from this video from our hometown of a smokestack demolition that went awry. A couple of things to notice: the media thought they were far enough back to be safe, but they missed one crucial danger, and the child was the first to instinctively run when things went wrong. Many times we miss all the ramifications of our actions and often times children are sensitive to things going wrong in adult relationships.
This is a new resource from the Huffington Post blog considering different aspects of divorce. Conservative pro marriage commentators such as Elizabeth Marquardt and Judith Wallerstein along with other commentators who take a more liberal approach to divorce are featured. I find it helpful to understand what others are thinking even if I disagree with them.
I found this to be a very inspirational song about life long marriage.
I found this to be a touching story about a couple’s journey with the husband’s amnesia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3313452/The-man-who-keeps-falling-in-love-with-his-wife.html
I farm and it’s harvest time so I haven’t had much time or energy to post. This year we’ve had an unusually early harvest. We hope to be in full swing harvesting corn by my birthday in mid October, but this year, because of our summer weather and early planting, we have been going strong since mid September.
What’s the relevance to marriage? If you are in a distressed relationship and you see a time when things start going better with your partner, seize the opportunity to make a difference, even if it is sooner or in a different context than you expect.
If things are not turning around as soon as you had hoped, continue to prepare yourself so when the opportunity does arise to make great strides in your marriage you will be prepared.
stubborn-pursuits.com 