To Change My Relationship With My Spouse

Get Your Spouse to Change for the Sake of Your Marriage

To Change My Relationship With My Spouse

To get your spouse to change, work on effectively responding to what your spouse is or is not doing

You can get your spouse to change by changing the way you interact with your spouse

If you are many dissatisfied spouses, you can identify some significant problems that your spouse has.  It may be that the only way for your relationship to improve is to somehow get your spouse to change.

While you may be right, directly trying to get your spouse to change is ly to bring resistance. Right or wrong, people don’t to change and if someone tries to change them, they become more entrenched in their position.

However, people will change necessity in order to deal with something in their lives that has changed. Effectively getting your spouse to change means changing the way that you interact with your spouse. Your spouse will then change in order to adjust to you.

Much of the way your spouse treats you now was influenced by how you have behaved with your spouse over the years.  If you gave lots of love and affection, while maintaining good boundaries, your spouse probably treats you very well.

If you treated your spouse poorly or had poor boundaries, your spouse either avoids you or treats you badly. The good news is that you can turn what feels a hopeless situation into a hopeful one. You do this by using good connection skills and boundaries, and persisting, until things have restabilized.

Example:  Get your spouse to change when your spouse is upset and won’t talk to you

If you see the solution to this as directly fixing your spouse, then you will try to get your spouse to feel better and to talk to you.  All he or she has to do is to refuse to either feel better or to talk to you in order to remain in control of both of you.  This is your clue that fixing him or her is not the solution.

 Instead of trying to get your spouse to change, leave your spouse alone while you get on with your daily routine. Do not go to your spouse. Eventually your spouse will finish sulking (how long depends on how bad things have become).  When he or she does, be friendly and don’t mention anything about what happened before.

 Return to normal. The idea is to take away any gain your spouse has by withdrawing, and making it easier for your spouse to end that behavior. If you are used to going to your spouse to cajole or comfort, you have inadvertently trained your spouse to withdraw more and more.

Couple this method with effective communication for building your relationship to restore closeness.

Example:  You feel your spouse does not love you or does not love you enough

If you think the solution is to train your spouse to be loving, then you will continually try to get your spouse to show you more love while getting more and more resistance from your spouse.  This is classic needy behavior.

Pressuring your spouse to show you more love creates a no-win situation for both of you and an overall loss of love in your relationship. A more effective approach is to own the problem. Learn to accept and encourage your spouse’s love, rather than complain about it not being enough.

By doing this, you will get your spouse to change by creating the desire in him or her to love you more.  We always get more from people when we make them feel good about themselves. Be sure to respond to any hurtful behaviors by having good boundaries rather than by complaining or criticizing.

  You can also make sure you are not being too dependent on your spouse for your feelings of self-worth.  Your spouse can’t fix a part of you that is broken.  You need to do that yourself.  Give your spouse the best parts of yourself.

“Aren’t boundaries a way to fix the problems that our spouses have?”

There is a lot of confusion about boundaries.  Most people mistakenly believe that boundaries are a way of controlling other people’s behavior.  Boundaries are actually self-control actions we take when our spouse continues to behave the same way.

  Rather than saying, “Don’t call me bad names ever again,” which is a direct attempt at control, instead we walk away as soon as someone calls us a bad name.  Walking away is under our control, whereas making out spouse stop is not under our control.

When we tell others what to do, they gain power by refusing and are actually more ly to do the same again when upset.  If instead we take responsibility for our behavior ( walking away or hanging up the phone), we become empowered.

 By continuing to focus on your boundaries instead of their behavior, you change the interactions and improve the relationship. It is also important to make sure that most of your interactions involve loving communication. Boundaries can stop the damage, but they can’t do the work of growing the relationship.

“I understand about boundaries, but why do I have to be loving at the same time?”

Boundaries without loving behavior is experienced as rejection.  The implicit message is, “You are bad and I’m not going to let you hurt me anymore.”  That may be OK for someone we don’t want to maintain a relationship with, but not for others.

 If feeling personally rejected, your spouse is ly to attack and reject you if you use boundaries without also using loving messages.  A loving message, such as, “I love you so much that I am not going to let this behavior destroy our relationship,” gives a different meaning to your actions.

  This is particularly true if your spouse can understand the reasons for your behavior (even if he or she doesn’t agree with them). Never expect your spouse, or anyone, to agree with your boundaries.  If you do, then it will create an unnecessary obstacle for your attempts at improving your relationship.

Good boundaries in marriage create initial resistance, which intensifies, then fades, as you continue to use them.

“Your approach seems to make a lot of the problems mine, although I can see my spouse is the actual cause of them”

You are exactly right.  Although you don’t cause your spouse’s behavior, you have the power to make positive changes. That means that you are responsible to do something for the sake of your relationship, even if you are not responsible for the behavior.  Consider the following two statements:

You have a problem shouting at me.

I have a problem giving you power to continue to shout at me.

They are both true, but depending on which one you say or think, you are pushed towards different actions. The first creates anger toward your spouse and makes you feel stuck when your spouse doesn’t change.  The second suggests a course of action you can take and conceptualizes the problem as belonging to both of you.

Taking responsibility means personal empowerment and easier relationship improvement

The more you see the problems as belonging to your spouse, the more you are ly to resent him or her. Your tendency will be to blame him or her (whether you say it or not) without doing anything effective about it. Blame, resentment, and attempts to persuade or coerce create emotional distance without improving relationships.

  They also give your spouse control over your happiness.  You start to believe that the only way for you to be happy is for your spouse to change or for you to leave the relationship.  And, your spouse starts to think the same way.  However, when we take responsibility for improvement, we become empowered, stop blaming, and have appropriate responses.

  This builds respect and improves our relationships.

“The problem is I don’t know how to respond to what he or she is doing”

That is a great realization and indicates good insight.  Many people continue to use the same ineffective responses and attempts to control, although they are having no success. Not until their relationships are almost over do they realize they need to change what they are doing.

  For every problem in a marriage, there is a good way to respond.  The people who get relationship coaching with me are learning to become effective responders to some behavior that their spouse or significant other is or is not doing.  I have given many examples of these methods in my books.

By effective, I mean that they are learning to gain respect, stop damage, and help their spouses feel loved.  My clients tell me they feel empowered and positive about their new behaviors.  They are changing the way they relate with their spouses, which in turn changes the way their spouses behave.

  When we take responsibility for problems by changing the way we interact with others, they change the way they interact with us.

Источник: //coachjackito.com/blog/get-spouse-to-change/

Memorable Moments with My Sibling , Sample of Essays

To Change My Relationship With My Spouse

A relationship with a sibling is everlasting: last longer than the bond with a spouse, parent, or friend. Have you ever thought about the times you have spent with your siblings? Those are memorable moments that I would always cherish.

The bond with my sibling taught me many lessons in life. My childhood relationship with my sibling has changed since I became an adult. The communication and the people we associate with had changed between us.

During any oppression we had gone through, our love still remains the same.

Since adolescence my younger sister, Genesis, and I were inseparable. We were the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry. Genesis used to tell me everything; I was her secret diary.

For example, Genesis would come home to our two bedroom apartment from Attucks Middle school and used to tell me how wonderful or miserable her day went. When she had a delightful day coming home would be satisfying and a little annoying for me.

She would tell me how stunning a boy was in her class and was disturbing for me.

I didn’t want to hear about her Prince Charming. However, you could tell when she had a dreadful day, she would come home slamming the front door and leaving an echo in the vague hallway. She would run to our cluttered room and jump on her twin size bed.

Walking towards her I could hear her calling my name “Eric”. I said “Genesis are you feeling ok, what’s wrong? ” Genesis said “There is a boy in my math class calling me a nerd. ” I would then comfort her by giving her a hug and tell her not to worry.

The Essay on Day Home Child Son

… seen him grow further away from me. Every day when he gets home he goes to his room without talking to me … have always said to him every time he comes home, how was your day Miguel? He would always say, it was ok … to pass the class. I was with him every day when he got home, helping him to study and memorize the story …

You know what they call nerds in the future? Boss! ” I said. Genesis always felt safe around me I was there to protect her from any harm a father figure. However, I joined the United States Army; our molded relationship became more distant.

I would only see her physically when important events occurred. For instance, I saw her three months after I graduated from basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

Communicating through Skype and the six hours difference between Germany and Florida makes it difficult to talk my sister.

Our daily conversation about are experiences since we were younger became weekly or monthly as we matured. Overall, age and the distance between us had caused our connection to fade.

When I was younger I used to consider Genesis annoying, because of her eager desire to hang out with my friends living around Coolidge Street, Florida. For example, when I got invited to house parties, Genesis assumed she was automatically invited.

Of course she was wrong; a house full of 18 year old teenagers partying had no business interacting with a 14 year old girl.

As I got older Genesis became a young adult; the age difference didn’t seem to matter anymore. Now that Genesis became mentally matured, she is acceptable to be in my group of friends.

A couple of my friends spend time with my sister watching movies and taking her to different vicinities. My sister and friends took a trip to Rapids Water Park in West Palm Beach, Florida. They enjoyed having a blast in the refreshing pool and the water coasters.

In brief, since my sister and I share common friends, we socialize more than the past.

The love between my sister and I will remain the same. Even through any tribulation that had occurred toward us, we would always be there for each other.

For example, my sister would try to hide the fact that she had a fear of crossing the road every morning to the bus stop; I had an intuition that she was, so every morning at 5 o’clock I would walk my sister five blocks and cross the street with her to the bus stop, sacrificing two hours of my sleep to ensure that she would arrive safely and according to schedule.

Genesis is currently nineteen years old, she had two car accidents and is going through some hardships because she is unemployed and her insurance bill went up. I manage to help her financially until she’s on her feet.

Vice versa she also helps motivate me with her encouraging words and accomplishments. She graduated top ten percent of her graduating class and did early admissions while in high school.

I was discouraged to enroll into University of Maryland University College while being in the military; by her achievements I was inspired to enroll into UMUC and take a writing 101s course.

The Essay on Florida History Palmetto Leaves By Harriet Beecher Stowe

… to travel south each winter. The Stowes arrived in Florida nearly twenty years ahead of Henry Flagler. Harriet, her brother Charles Beecher … of family with clearly expressed puritanical strictness.

She had one sister and six brothers. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a … When Stowe was eleven years old, she entered the seminary at Hartford, Connecticut, kept by her elder sister Catherine. The school had …

As you can see, during any discomfort Genesis and I will go through, we will always take care of each other. In conclusion, since childhood my relationship with my sister has changed, our communication had faded over time.

Some of the friends we spend time with, are the same. When we had gone through any problems, we would help each other. Why is our bond so strong? We had been there for each other our whole life.

Even the distance between us, would never break our love for one another.

Источник: //educheer.com/memorable-moments-with-my-sibling/

If I Change Me, Will my Spouse Really Change?

To Change My Relationship With My Spouse

Marriage isn’t always easy. We come into a relationship with certain expectations and can be disappointed with reality.

Marriage reveals our weaknesses, and I have learned that the best thing to do to try and fix your relationship is to work on yourself. I talked about this concept more when I wrote, “This One Tip Will Transform Your Marriage.

” The questions still remains, “If I change me, will my spouse really change?” The short answer? There’s no guarantee.

I’m guessing that’s not the answer you want to hear. I know I don’t want to hear it either. Movies “Courageous” and “War Room” are fabulous for encouraging positive steps in marriage.

I absolutely believe that making steps to change how you interact with your spouse can make huge impacts on your marriage and often result in positive changes in your spouse. I believe God is big and through prayer great walls can be broken and relationships can be healed.

Reconciliation is more ly as you take action toward respecting or loving your spouse, meeting their unique love language and having a servant’s heart.

That said, there is no guarantee. Your spouse has free will – just as you do. Your spouse is sinful – just as you are. Sometimes we all wish it were easier.

If I follow this recipe, my marriage will be healed. If I take these steps, my kids will be OK. Oh, if it were that simple. Life is complicated. People are complicated.

We live in a broken and sinful world where you will face strife, conflict and hardships.

I believe the prosperity message that can be promoted in Christian circles isn’t a healthy one. The message of Christianity isn’t that life becomes some sweet walk in the park when we choose to do it God’s way.

The idea of faith is more that we have a God that suffered for us. He has been broken, so He understands our pain. He has the strength, power and empathy to walk through it with us and give us guidance along the way.

The Bible doesn’t teach that be will be void of hardship. There are no promises of a pain free life. Some find great disappointment in promises they thought were being promoted. “If I just stay pure until I’m married, I’ll be blessed in my experience with sex.” False.

“If I just stay faithful, God will bring me a husband.” False. “If I just pray enough, God will bring me a child.” False. “If I just follow certain steps while raising my kids, they will be successful.” False. “If I just change myself, my marriage will change.” False.

This is what the Bible does teach about hardship?

  • “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:3-5
  • “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:35-39
  • “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Cor. 12:9-10
  • “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” – 1 Peter 4:12-13

We are obviously ensured that we will face hard times. Why do it God’s way then if there’s not guarantee of better circumstances? God assures us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28. ALL THINGS. That means the hard things too.

How do we respond to the “bad” news that our spouse may never change?

From my limited perspective, I see this as bad news. I’m not one who loves to embrace the trials in life. I love it when things are running smoothly. My response to the challenges of life is something I constantly need to work on. Trying to rejoice in my suffering so that perseverance, character and hope can be built in me is the goal.

I believe people often enter into the concept of improving themselves for their marriage sake are short sighted on what that means. We do it hoping for change in the other person. When we don’t see the change we anticipated, we just want to give up. “Well, I tried my best. He didn’t change. I’m out.”

You made a promise – “through good times and bad.” Of course, if there is abuse, I always advise to get help and protect you and your children immediately, so this is not the situation I am addressing today.

In the Sacred Marriage (affiliate), Gary Thomas poses the question, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy.” Anyone can handle life and marriage well when all is going along nicely, but it is often those tough trials that reveal our true heart and character.

You may be asking, “Jodi, are you really asking me to stay miserable? Do you want me to remain unhappy for the rest of my life?”

The answer to that question is also no. I don’t wish for you to remain unhappy and miserable, but the solution I’m suggesting requires you to stick around in your marriage.

What I want for you is to erase away the Hollywood message from Jerry McGuire aimed at your spouse, “You complete me.” I want to propose that you be completed by your Maker. Your spouse can’t make you happy but God can.

 Your circumstances don’t take away the misery but God does.

Just look at the brokenness that can be found in the “successful” individuals known to the public.

You see people who seem to  have it all – fame, fortune, family, and success  – throw it down the tubes with addictions, suicide, and divorce.

It is said we have a vacuum shaped hole that can only be filled by Jesus. Are you trying to force your spouse into that space? Are you relying on your marriage to bring you joy.

The thing that needs to change (and I’m preaching to myself here) is ones response to adversity.

Ugh. Not what I wanted to hear either. Trust me.

If my primary reason for changing myself is to change my spouse, inevitably I am going to be disappointed. When I perform with the attitude  that I’m expecting a certain response or to get something in return, my heart never changes. I, therefore, set myself up for letdown over and over again.

There needs to be a radical shift in my attitude. I need to learn to love without complaint. Love is choosing the best for the other person…over and over again.

I love well not because I am going to get something in return but because that’s what I promised to do, and that is what glorifies God. I want to walk away with the attitude, “My husband has not changed, but I have changed.

I’m glad my difficult circumstances didn’t change because it was the only way my motives for obedience could change.”

We live in a “self” culture that emphasizes a desire for recognition and inevitable rights. We can forget that our attitude should be Christ – humble with a heart to serve (Philippians 2:5-9). I’m not proposing it’s easy, but it is what we signed up for when we walked down the aisle and slipped a ring on the other person’s finger.

Elisabeth Elliot is a woman who had a husband killed by the tribe of people he was trying to tell about Jesus. She had enough grace, forgiveness and courage to return to that village and lead them to a relationship with Christ.

In a talk found here about servanthood, she recalls her house mother in college who was kicked her wealthy family, leaving behind all money and inheritance because she decided to be a Christian.

When Elisabeth was talking to her later in life about the impression made on her because of the way this older woman served she replied, “Just think about the Mercy of God that he allowed me to carry mops and toilet paper to his glory.

” She speaks of Jesus who, being in the very nature God, made himself a servant to others, and the Bible urges us to have the same attitude.

We often do things in this life for recognition. Elisabeth reminds us that we “are a servant of the Lord of the universe.

” Am I accepting the will of God in the daily moments that I find myself in throughout life? I know I am often not, but it’s what I am aim for.

It is choosing the right thing in the moment, not for recognition or change of another person, but because it’s right. It’s refining me. It’s glorifying to God.

In the end you say, “My spouse never changed, but I changed. Praise be to God.”

It is not easy. I know many of you are sitting here saying, “You have no idea what I have to put up with.” I agree. I do not. I have seem some really nasty marriage situations. However, I have seen a lot of hope. I have seen couples healed. I’ve seen one person decide to make a change and the other spouse making dramatic change in behavior.

However, I have also witnessed many people in life whose situations do not change. They have become transformed as an individual, not waiting for life circumstances to become better but knowing that God can take all things and turn them into good. They let their hearts and attitude to be overhauled. That’s what I want. Will you join me?

More Marriage Posts You Might Enjoy

This One Tip Will Transform Your Marriage

You are Responsible for How You Respond

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Источник: //meaningfulmama.com/if-i-change-me-will-my-spouse-really-change.html

Why Doesn’t My Spouse Change? Functional Fixedness

To Change My Relationship With My Spouse

Marriage Missions Editor Note: The following article is written to wives. However, most of it could also have been written to husbands. That is because a lot of the same principles apply regarding having your spouse change as you think he or she should. We encourage you to glean through it and learn what will apply in your marriage concerning functional fixedness:

Dr. Melody Rhode often uses a psycho-neurological term to describe a man’s reluctance to change: FUNCTIONAL FIXEDNESS. Men don’t normally change if what they’ve been doing seems to be working for them. When a woman allows her husband to treat her with disrespect, he has no motivation to change. So it’s unly he ever will.

Different Blueprint Needed

Melody notes:

“There’s a simple question I ask wounded women who seek help to endure belittling or degrading treatment from their man. ‘Why does your husband treat you badly?’ Answer: It’s because he can.”

This is not, in any way, to blame a woman for the abuse but to develop a new blueprint for a different future. Melody continues:

“If what he’s doing is working for him, why change? He needs a compelling reason to change, and it needs to be more compelling than your unhappiness or private misery with the situation.”

Motivated to Change from Functional Fixedness?

I would think that a God-fearing man would be motivated to change simply by understanding that his actions hurt you. But I’m also a realist. Some of you may be married to a man who doesn’t much care if his actions hurt you. He cares that he is able to get what he wants.

In such cases, allowing the behavior to continue while complaining about it won’t change anything. It’s not your pain that motivates him but his pain.

You have to be willing to create an environment in which the status quo becomes more painful than the experience of positive change.

Here’s the trap I’ve seen too many women fall into: a woman keeps expressing to her husband how he is doing something (or not doing something) that is hurting her. Even after several such conversations, he doesn’t change —or he’ll change for a few days and then go back to his old habits, at which point the wife complains again.

No Lasting Change Concerning Functional Fixedness

Still, no long-term change. The wife reads a book or attends a seminar and decides she needs to find a better way to communicate so she can get her message across. But even after this, there’s no permanent change.

Her error is assuming that she’s not getting through. In point of fact, she is getting through to her husband. He may fully understand and be completely aware of her pain, but he’s not motivated by her pain.

If he s the marriage as it is, he’ll put up with an occasionally disagreeable conversation now and then.

In such cases, spouses need to make a serious evaluation. There was a point in “Jenny’s” marriage when she realized, her and her husband’s parents’ health history, that she and “Mike” could be married for sixty years.

At the time, Jenny had been married for just fifteen years. That left, potentially, another forty-five years of being together.

It also meant another forty-give years of a situation that Jenny wasn’t sure she could live with.

Unwanted Divorce

“There is no scenario in my life plan in which I want divorce —none,” Jenny told me.

“At the end of my life, my fervent hope and determination is to be, unreservedly, a one-man woman. But I also know enough not to overestimate my patience. I could put up with some disappointments.

But was I willing to live with this for another forty-five years? At that point, I felt I needed to be more honest about some struggles and more up-front about making a change. It created some discomfort for a season as I stopped pretending that everything was OK.

But was a season of discomfort worth changing the course of our marriage for the next forty-years? Without question!”

Without nagging and without pretty recriminations (withholding sex, the silent treatment, a critical spirit, and so forth), Jenny gently but forcefully made her husband see that as long as he acted the way he did, their marriage was going to suffer in specific ways. These ways affected him. It was only when Mike started feeling his own pain that he was shaken his functional fixedness enough to change his behavior.

Don’t Over-estimate or Pretend

I believe Jenny makes an important point: be wary of over-estimating your willingness to live with a glaring hurt or a gaping need. Don’t pretend that Satan won’t exploit it or that you won’t be tempted by another man who happens to be strongest exactly where your husband is weakest.

If, Jenny, your ideal life plan leaves no room for divorce, you must honestly accept your weaknesses. You must be willing to create a climate in which your spouse will be motivated by his pain. This is a courageous and healthy movement toward your spouse and toward preserving and strengthening your marriage.

It is an act of commitment, not rebellion.

All this requires a very specific application your spouse’s personality. I can’t give you “five steps to overcome functional fixedness” here — but you’ll receive plenty of ideas and suggestions as we touch on various topics throughout this book.

[This is a good reason to obtain this book.] At this point, it’s enough to say that if merely communicating your hurt isn’t solving the problem, you’re most ly dealing with a case of functional fixedness.

You’ll also need to be strong to address that issue.

The Trap of Functional Fixedness

Some women fall into the trap of failing to speak up for fear of losing their man; they don’t want to “rock the boat,” even though it appears that the boat is headed toward a waterfall.

But this passive acceptance makes it more ly that the husband will stray; he won’t respect his wife for putting up with his poor behavior, and this attitude will only reinforce his disrespectful behavior.

Sadly, many women think their husband’s anger is the great enemy of their security, but, if fact, weakness and the corresponding relational boredom pose a far more potent threat.

If you can stand strong and secure in your identity and in your relationship with Christ, courageously making it clear how you will and will not be treated, you will be amazed to see how to respect and show for yourself rubs off on your husband.

This Fixedness Must Change

Here’s the male insider’s view, right at the start: you have more influence over your husband than you realize. When you are a woman of respect, the last thing your husband wants is to lose you.

If he things he can heave you and his aberrant behavior, he’ll take both.

But if the day comes when he knows you won’t simply turn a blind eye to what he’s doing, when he thinks he might even lose you if he continues down the path he’s walking, he’s going to be shaken his functional fixedness and at least consider making changes.

…Dr Melody Rhode sees the threat of a husband’s losing his wife as perhaps the greatest possible motivator for a husband. Of course, we have to place this within the context of a covenantal, committed marriage.

The Bible is very specific and very limiting regarding what constitutes an acceptable divorce.

Discontentment, seeming incompatibility, and mere displeasure don’t qualify! Melody points out, “A woman’s power needs to be surrendered to God and used for his purposes, not our own.”

Women DO Have Power

She also stresses, however, that most women, because of our culture, don’t realize the power they have to move their husbands.

“They feel powerless because of their sex,” she observes, “and this has resulted in a lot of pent-up anger, frustration, and even desperation.” As your brother in Christ, I’m encouraging you to be bold, courageous, and strong.

Use the natural and very spiritual influence and role that God has designed for you to move the man in your life.

…Our culture in general —even Christian culture —is on a long slide toward passivity. It completely goes against who God made us to be.

Wishing Won’t Change Functional Fixedness

Let me be blunt: hope is not a strategy. Merely “wishing” that your husband would change, merely “wanting” your marriage to be different, won’t do anything. The problem is that some Christians spiritualize wishing —we call it “praying.

” Please understand, I’m not knocking prayer; I’m challenging a misconception about prayer, namely, that we can merely voice our displeasure and expect our world and our relationships to be transformed. True biblical prayer is about much, much more than that.

It involves receiving our marching orders and then acting on them.

A good marriage doesn’t happen by accident, and a good marriage isn’t maintained by accident. I’ve never written a book by accident, and you can’t build a business by accident.

These endeavors require deliberate choices and much perseverance.

When you start acting instead of merely wishing, when you begin taking initiative instead of simply feeling sorry for yourself, you become an active woman, and active women mirror the active God who made them.

Active God, Active Women

Genesis 1 provides our initial glimpse of who God is. The first thing God wants us to know is that he is an extraordinarily active God. In Genesis 1 there are thirty-eight active verbs describing what God does: he creates, he speaks, he separates, he calls, he blesses, he gives, and much more —all in just one chapter.

Then —and this is the key —he tells the woman and the man to do the same: “God blessed them [male and female] and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” (Genesis 1:28).

God made you, as a woman, to rule in this world, to subdue it, to act according to his image. Sin begins with sluggishness, despair, and despondency.

People give up on their marriages, on prayer, their churches, their kids, and eventually even give up on themselves. They say, “It’s no use.

” They start to sulk instead of painstakingly remaking their marriage —simply because their first (or even tenth) attempt failed.

Deliberate Choices

This may sound a hard word, but readers of my previous books know I’m not one to shy away from that. Your marriage is what you make it.

The relationship you have is the direct result of what you’ve put into it, and in many cases, a marriage can rise only to the level of your courage. Initial romantic intensity is unearned; it seems to fall on us nowhere. But marriage has to be built stone by stone.

We have to make deliberate choices; we have to be active and confront the weaknesses we see in ourselves and in each other.

This article comes from the GREAT book, Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands written by Gary Thomas, published by Zondervan.

There was so much more in this chapter and in the entire book that we would have d to include in this article. But you’ll need to find a way to obtain the book.

You’ll truly want to see what else Gary Thomas has to say on this subject (and others). You’ll be glad you did!

— ALSO —

Below are some links to additional articles. We suggest you glean through them to see if you can find more information to help you in your marriage. If the article is written to wives and you are a husband looking for answers, or the reverse is true, please read the article anyway. Look to see if you can adapt the info given to help you concerning functional fixedness in marriage.

• WHEN YOUR HUSBAND WON’T CHANGE

• WHEN YOUR HUSBAND WON’T CHANGE – Part 2

— ALSO —

• MY WIFE WON’T MEET MY EXPECTATIONS

• HOW TO GET YOUR SPOUSE TO CHANGE

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Источник: //marriagemissions.com/why-doesnt-my-spouse-change-functional-fixedness/

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