Who are you spending quality time with? (I mean, besides your toddler and The Cat in the Hat.)
Are you choosing your friends wisely?
I think it is very important to spend time with lonely people, hurting people, needy people and struggling people…because people need people and we all at one time or another are lonely, hurting, needy or struggling. This post is not suggesting that you ignore all people who have nothing to offer you at this moment. God calls us to reach out and love on his children.
But what I’d like to suggest to each of us is that if you’re interested in keeping your marriage strong and together, it is wise to spend time with people who can help you and encourage you in those efforts.
Look around you. Who has been married for many, many years? Who outwardly adores her husband? Who speaks kindly of her husband? Who has gone through difficult marriage struggles and landed on her feet beside her man? Who will help you hold your marriage together?
And I’m not just talking to those of you whose marriages are barely holding on. I’m talking to all of us.
Do the people around you engage in “husband or men bashing”? Do your friends prefer to do their own thing, leaving their husbands out of the picture? Do your friends hold marriage as sacred? Do your friends encourage you to put your husband first? Do your friends challenge you be a devoted wife…no matter what?
You wouldn’t ask financial advice from your broke, scatter-brained uncle, right? Neither should you seek godly marriage wisdom from someone who truly isn’t equipped to offer it.
Choose to surround yourself with people who can show you how to love. Develop relationships with women who can encourage you as a wife to be the best godly helper that you can be for your husband.
On the flip side…no matter how old you are or how long you’ve been married, make a decision to be a good example to young girls and younger married women around you. Show others how much you love your husband and how grateful you are to be married.
Seek mentors. Be a mentor.
I do believe this is exactly what Titus 2:3-5 is all about. :)
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
You are wise beyond your years, Laura! I love reading your posts. Keep on keeping on. You are blessing the lives of many women, and thereby many families!! Love and blessings, Janet Herndon
I hope you know how much it means to me that you read my blog and offer me encouragement like this Janet!! You are a blessing to me!
God is speaking through you and this post. I have prayed about this very thing for some while now, diligently over the last week. He keeps giving my the answer to my query and this is just another example.
Yes, we need to help others and be supportive. But have you ever heard the saying “If you sit in a barbers seat long enough you will eventually get a hair cut” or that “water seeks its own level”? Negativity breeds negativity. Certainly we can be friends with people that are at different seasons then we are. However, I don’t need to surround myself with toxic people or toxic situations. I believe that setting boundaries is necessary.
Many years ago I used to watch “I Love Lucy” at noon time when I made lunch for my little ones. After about a month of this I really felt the Lord whisper to my heart, “Is this the kind of woman you want to spend so much time with every day?” I was soooo convicted! I didn’t think I would immediately turn into a manipulative, controlling and not so honest wife, but I also knew that this was not the kind of wife I wanted to “fellowship” with day after day! So I stopped watching.
I’m not saying it is for everyone, and folks laughed at me because it was such a *clean* show…but I had to look hard at those who I spent that kind of time with, and had to be sure to guard my heart toward my husband and any influences in my life!
So, Amen, sister!
GREAT post Laura! :) Women like this are getting harder and harder to find these days, that’s why we must stand strong and be that example!! :D
Thanks for that! I have been convicted of that in past weeks about the husband bashing thing. I have engaged in conversations related to husband bashing with a few friends. I would say my group is pretty good about staying away from it, but after a sermon and some Bible study I have been extremely convicted of it. So much that I confessed this to my husband (who asked because it had come up in a conversation) and I had said I had shared my woes about him with girlfriends to “get it off my chest”, but I needed to share it with him and God and not with them. It is a betrayal to him and to us to discuss it with friends is not good for our marriage because it makes him look bad to my friends (the Bible is pretty clear about a wife building up her husband to others) and it really doesn’t help the problem…it’s just complaining.
What a great post laura!!! Very good advice!
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Always on point…thank you.
I think it’s wonderful advice, but, like always, I have to take mine with a gain of salt. Having a husband who cannot stay faithful makes things a bit more difficult and complicated. I have Godly friends who love their husbands and I’m so glad they are encouraging and want me to try to work it out. At the same time, you cannot make a woman who has been cheated on several times feel bad for considering divorce or for seeking a divorce. God permits it for a reason.
I don’t think Laura meant that a good wife just sits there and acts like everything her husband does is alright. Unfaithfulness is wrong and if it just goes on and on, divorce is probably the right decision. If you’ve done all you can and your husband just doesn’t want to be faithful to you, then I’d say, it’s over. Am I right in saying this?
I think that in your case it is wise for you to have godly friends who can encourage you to do what is right for your situation. I hate that you are living through something so difficult. I have a strong respect for women who are dealing with a husband who has a sexual addiction. I really have no answer for what is best in these situations. Hopefully the godly friends you speak of are able to offer counsel about what is right for you. You’re right, the Bible does say that divorce is permitted in this situation. What a heart-wrenching decision.
Praying for you…
Also, I wanted to be sure that you saw PJ’s comment below:
Kate, I will be praying for you and your situation. I am so sorry you are going through that. I am going to try and email you separately. If I can’t, would you e-mail me? [email protected]. I wanted to share my experience with you.
Thank you for the solid reminder! This is where Facebook is so helpful to me! I can seek communion with wise married women whom I have known most of my life, and despite the distances between us I can still solicit their advice, read of their godly examples, and have Christian fellowship. Those relationships are invaluable to me.
Laura, thank you for this post! With my 15 year anniversary coming up, it’s so sad to see marriages around me begin to crumble. I guess it’s the age that I’m at, unfortunately. Only by the grace of God is my marriage thriving today! My passion is marriage – we need to constantly pray for our marriage, pray for our friends’ marriages, and pray for our church leaders and their marriages.
And Kate, I will be praying for you and your situation. I am so sorry you are going through that. I am going to try and email you separately. If I can’t, would you e-mail me? [email protected]. I wanted to share my experience with you.
Thank you Laura!! Such an amazing post!! I am having such a hard time with my friends right now. My husband and I have been been married for 15 years and we have been catching a lot of grief from our friends at church reminding us that the honeymoon should be over by now and to stop showing off our relationship to everyone else that isn’t as happy as we are. Which is hard because we are just showing love and respect for each other. It is so hard to find women who agree so when I do it makes my heart happy! Thanks Again!
I say that you don’t stop ANYTHING that you’re doing!!! You ARE just showing your love and respect for each other which is exactly what you should be doing. Hopefully you are able to use the blessed marriage God gave you to minister to those whose marriages are struggling.
Wonderful post.
I appreciate this so much, as a mother to 3 beautiful daughters, it is encouraging to know that someone else shares our passion for marriage! I try to lead by example, but sometimes they need to hear it from someone besides me.
This is why I am enjoying your blog so much!! Thanks for speaking truth Laura!!!
Laura,
thank you so much for this post. i love your blog and am always so challenged by your posts!
what you shared today is so true…..this past year, i had to walk away from a long time friendship because the Lord convicted me that this friendship was neither healthy or beneficial to my spiritual life. i had “hung-on” to this friendship for quite some time because i didn’t want to hurt this friend, but in the end, i had to walk away.
though it was painful to let go, God has blessed my obedience to Him by bring another godly woman into my life who both inspires and encourages me in my walk with God. God is so faithful!!
thankful for you,
~patty
Thank you for saying this! A wise older woman taught me this when I was only twenty something. I am now 50 and I have ben married for 32 years. I feel like this has been huge in the success of our marriage. Husband bashing is my number one pet peeve and it just makes me physically sick when I hear it.
Great post. Thanks!
I hope it’s okay to have posted about it on my own blog.
Here is the link.
http://joyfulcreations2.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-kind-of-friends-do-you-hang-around.html
I agree we need to be careful to hang out with positive people as much as possible and avoid the husband-bashing that sometimes goes on. I love my husband very much but I wouldn’t say I “openly adore” him. We have been married nearly 17 yrs and they have not been easy. I have friends who have said, “my husband is a genius and SOO good at home renovation!!” Great for you, but mine isn’t!
It’s hard to find the balance between not criticizing your husband but not glossing over the hard times. My husband has a problem with anger that he is learning to control, but I have been on the receiving end of that in the past.
One thing that saddened me lately was hearing of a young couple at our church, who are divorcing after 2 yrs of marriage. This is despite them both coming from church families, having lots of counseling and follow-up before and since their wedding, but neither of them felt able to say how bad things were until it was too late. The result is that neither of them come to church now because they feel they have “failed”.
So I think it’s important to not paint too rosy a picture and let young marrieds know that there will be hard things to work through too.
I SO believe this!! I try to NEVER speak ill of my husband. Ten years in, and people still tell me how lucky I am to have married Prince Charming!! I tell them, Prince Charming only stays charming if you see him that way every day!! Life’s not perfect, but you can choose to see it that way!!
Though late to respond to your post about godly mentors, I still want to share my experience. Shortly after I got married, I realized I was married to an angry, controlling man. I suffered silently for years before I opened up and released my pain to godly mentors. These women told me I wasn’t to blame–something I took on easily. They pointed me to Jesus, comforted me and helped me reverse negative thinking patterns and negative emotional behaviors. Slowly I began to change. My change was a catalyst for change in my husband. Today we’ve been married for 30 years! Because I want others to experience the benefits of mentoring, I founded Beautiful Womanhood-a Christian mentoring ministry for wives. I wrote a book that serves as the curriculum for Beautiful Womanhood small groups. Thanks Laura for highlighting the need for mentors!