Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
My husband and I are married 33yrs today. We were together five years before that so we’ve been together for 38 years! We’ve been through good times and bad times. At times, the bad times have almost overshadowed the good times especially when we were going through several chronic illnesses, family issues, and financial stresses all at the same time.
People often ask me what’s the secret to being married for so long, especially as so many call it quits before the first decade. I’ll tell you. It’s not all of the things most Hollywood movies say it is. It’s commitment.
Marriage isn’t just love. Love will not see you through. Many couples divorce still feeling love for one another; it’s just that they never learned to live through the tough stuff. Without commitment, love may not even survive.
Here’s what marriage really is:
It’s facing financial ruin together. It’s hours praying over a virus that may take your child’s life. It’s holding each other through the loss of a pregnancy. It’s building a life together again after a devastating job loss. It’s moving across the country together not knowing a soul and leaving all your family behind so that you only have each other to rely on.
It’s going without so your husband can get what he needs to get to work. It’s working with a bum knee and the flu because you can’t take off from a temp job without sacrificing your son’s college tuition. It’s crying together after watching your MIL dying on a video chat because you can’t get there. It’s coffee on Sunday mornings before church reminiscing about all the little things your kids did and how they’ve grown up so fast.
It’s not the romantic dinners or fancy vacations you look back on that make you smile. It’s the thought that the other did the little things that cost them dearly just because they wanted to make your life a little easier!
Marriages that last are made up of two imperfect people committed to getting through those tough times…relying upon God to help them through the tough times. Because there WILL be tough times!
Ephesians 4:2: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
