Why my marriage will fail in two more years

Last year on our 17th anniversary, I wrote a blog entitled, “17 reasons I have a great marriage” -- to this day, it has been the most read blog post I’ve ever put up. I’m guessing today’s won’t have quite as much success. Because now, on our 18th anniversary, I’m going to show you how I could end my marriage before our 20th anniversary. It’s actually quite simple, and if you follow these five steps, you can end your marriage, too! (Don’t worry, if you’re working on a great marriage, I have a list for you, too!)

1. Make your marriage about you: This is the first and most important step in ending your marriage. Making sure your marriage centers around you is crucial in bringing it to a screeching halt. Nothing is more draining about other people than when they focus everything on themselves.
2. Make marriage about your happiness: If you’re working hard to make your marriage about you, this should be relatively easy piece to add to your marriage-ending arsenal. Make the majority of decisions about your marriage (and family!) that revolve around what makes you happy and content.
3. Keep track of everything wrong your spouse does: This is a very important list, and truly, might make the difference in whether or not your marriage ends appropriately. Keep this list current, keep it dated and keep it very private until just the right time. I can’t stress enough how  important it is to keep a VERY detailed list of wrongs your spouse has committed. (Practical tip: It’s best to have two lists. One of the obvious offenses [ie. when your spouse embarrasses you in public] and one of the unknown offenses [ie. your spouse puts their inside-out socks into the laundry hamper]. Trust me, you’ll want both lists at the end!)
4. ALWAYS assume your spouse has ulterior motives: If you actually think your spouse is doing something out of love, simply open up your secret book of lists (step #3) and review them. After just a few minutes you’ll realize that whatever acts of niceness your spouse is performing must be making up for something on one of your lists.
5. NEVER forgive, and if you accidentally do, NEVER forget: Forgiveness is weakness when it comes to ending your marriage. Once you start down the slippery slope of forgiveness, you’ll start to see the good in your spouse and experience the grace of God in your marriage. Trust me on this, if you want to end your marriage, forgiveness is a killer. Don’t do it!

Thankfully, by God’s grace, I actually have no intention of trying to end my marriage in the next two years. There are three basic reasons for this. First, (you really should read last year’s blog about this!) I’ve made a commitment to God, and to my wife, to fight for our union. That was a “death til’ us part” commitment, and since I’m blogging, I must be living, and that means I’m still holding up my end of the covenant. Second, I’m running out of words and ways to describe my wife. Next to God, she has been the most important person in my life. She has endured more than anyone, and been my greatest cheerleader and fan. Why would I want to end that? Third, and honestly, this is a bit on the practical side, but I checked the marriage market for middle-aged, slightly overweight, Mexican men with pitiful investment portfolios (thanks DK for helping me try to change this one!), twelve-year-old mini-vans, furry bodies and having three kids....things aren’t looking good for me. If my wife can love me in this condition (and I often think she’s crazy for doing so!) then I’m more than happy to keep this marriage thing going!

Truth is, however, the key to our marriage has been the grace of God in our lives. By His help we’ve been able to keep this thing afloat. Here are five not-so-secret secrets to our marriage success: (For those that need a more comprehensive list, check out this post with 17 not-so-secret secrets.)

1. Make your marriage about serving others: It’s not easy putting others first, but it’s the first part of a strong relationship. I’ve seen too many friendships, businesses and marriages end over wrong focus in the relationship. When I focus on me, I get in the way of everything. When I focus on others (my spouse), their success becomes my success, their joy, my joy and their happiness...my happiness. Truly, deeply and profoundly.
2. Make your marriage about holiness, not happiness: If I focus on becoming who God wants me to be, and less about whether or not I’m happy at any given moment, I’ll find two life-changing facts. One, I’m far more content in my place in life when I’m being changed into the man/husband/father God wants me to be, and two -- that new-found contentment will lead to a profound joy and happiness that circumstances can never provide OR take away.
3. Keep your lists short: In the Bible, Paul tells us, “Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath...” In other words -- resolve your conflicts with each other. And while he wasn’t specifically writing about marriage, it works there to! Clean up your list, every day, with your spouse. Resolve what needs to be resolved (or at least start the process) and forgive what needs to be forgiven. (Make sure you clear out your garbage, too!)
4. ALWAYS assume the best in your spouse: If you start the day by assuming the best in your spouse’s actions and motives, you’ll go a long way in keeping your lists short. I’m not talking about ignoring obvious problems or excusing away abusive or sinful behavior, I’m talking about assuming flowers were given because of love (not to cover a wrong), that sex was offered out of desire (not out of conflict resolution) etc...
5. NEVER hold on to wrong once it has been forgiven: If you’re keeping your lists short (step #3), make sure you don’t keep the completed pages in the back of your notebook. Again, I’m not talking about ignoring patterns of sin or unfaithfulness, I’m talking about truly forgiving your spouse and releasing them from the wrong they’ve committed.

I hope you’ll choose the second list of five, over the first! Marriage is hard work, but I can tell you that after 18 years of hard work, you couldn’t offer me enough money, power or status to make me want to end mine. God has given me such a great gift in my wife Traci, and because we’re both working through our imperfections with Him, and with each other, we’re making a pretty good go at this marriage. And it’s worth it. You are worth it, and so is your marriage!

Go ahead and take the plunge, life -- and  marriage! -- is always better on the water!

16 Years and Counting!

Today I am celebrating my 16th wedding anniversary. In some ways, 16 seems like a really big number…in some ways, not so much. However you feel about anniversaries, weddings and marriages, the reality is that we are all involved in relationships. And great relationships take work. The Overboard Life cannot be lived alone. If you are going to follow Jesus out on the water where He is building His Kingdom, you will need other people in your life. For me, Traci has been the most significant relationship I’ve had in pursuing Jesus. She has believed in me, invested in me, pushed me, prayed for me and endured me all along the way. Eight years of roller-coaster dating followed by 16 years of marriage has made for a wild ride -- but she has shared every part of the journey.

I want to share with you some values I’ve learned from my wife during our 16 years. We work hard at being married, and while we both bring glaring flaws to the marriage table, we’ve committed ourselves to the choice of standing by each other. These values work in all relationships, but especially in marriage, and my wife has been exemplary in living them out with me.

1. Take failure off the table. I know divorce is a touchy subject, but Traci and I started our marriage commitment by removing it as an option. I know we all change. I know we sometimes enter relationships without caution. I know we see things in people that sometimes don’t exist, and that people can flat-out lie about who they are or what they want. Relationships are risky. I’m not saying there is never a reason for divorcing someone or filing for separation, but when Traci and I said, “I do” to each other, we agreed to take divorce off the table. When you take failure away as an option, you are required to do whatever it takes to make things work. Traci and I have weathered some bad days with each other (more than I wish to admit!), but a commitment to stay together forces us to work hard, even on those bad days.
2. Make remarkable the new normal. Not only did we remove divorce from our marriage vocabularies, but we made the choice to not be content with just “making it.” I remember a few years back when we committed to one another that our marriage was going to be remarkable. Not perfect by any stretch, but remarkable. In other words, just staying together or living the status quo wasn’t going to be enough. Here are some of the tangible realities of that choice:
   • Date night every week. Kids can complicate marriage a lot, but we weren’t going to let that stop us from dating. It’s been tough and sometimes expensive, but date night has been worth the sacrifice. Our weekly date is a major part of our marriage commitment to live together remarkably, and not just in survival mode. We also take off for one week a year without the kids. It takes a month of planning to pull it off, but the week away is worthy of the effort. The kids actually enjoy being with friends and family, and we enjoy a kid-free week!
   • Marriage growth. We’ve both read books about marriage, we’ve attended seminars, and we’ve intentionally hung with people who have great marriages so that we can grow in our relationship with each other. Like any quality, skill or value you want to improve, marriage demands work. We’ve worked hard to be better spouses. I still have colossal screw ups. I still neglect her needs from time-to-time and I still occasionally forget important events. But I still keep working on being a better husband so that despite those things, the general curve of our marriage is up.
   • Personal growth. You will only be as strong of a spouse as you are a person. You cannot make your husband or wife do anything to grow, but you can choose to work on you, no matter what. There have been seasons when I was stuck in a rut and Traci continued to plow ahead. I was apathetic and listless, but she was passionate about growth. And you know what, her desire to grow became contagious and on several occasions, her own journey has inspired me to rise up and be a better husband and father. The more you grow personally, the better your marriage will be.
   • Dream together. Traci and I share big dreams for our lives, together. It’s not that all of our goals and dreams are mutual -- in fact, most of them are not. But Traci has often been more committed to my dreams than me! The result has been that when I was faltering or ready to give up, she kicked me in the pants until I got going again. I know Overboard Ministries would not exist without her. And likewise, I’ve invested in her dreams, too. Big dreams make for strong bonds.
3. Get help when problems arise. Relationships are hard. So when problems creep up, get help. Talk to trusted friends, visit your pastor and see a specialist when struggles come up. Too often, in the past 16 years as a pastor, I’ve gotten the call for help after both parties were already in divorce mode. If they had called when they were fighting over the bills, we might have been able to help. But by the time things escalated to sleeping in different rooms, intentionally working off-schedules so that you aren’t home with your spouse -- it’s almost too late (especially if you haven’t followed steps 1 and 2!). Traci and I have requested and received help on multiple occasions. Our pastors, our parents our friends…we’ll ask for help when we’re struggling.
4. Make God the center of your marriage, not your spouse. As much as I love Traci (more than anyone or anything I’ve ever loved!), my love for God is even bigger. I know Traci loves me more than any other relationship she has, but she loves God exponentially more. You see, I let my wife down all the time. I will fail her again in the future. But God has never once failed Traci and He never will. His love and plan for her is so much more than mine, she can trust Him fully in every circumstance -- even when her husband is being a giant doorknob! When I fail, God remains faithful. When I am mean, God remains loving and kind. When I drop the ball, God helps Traci catch it. When I don’t give her a reason to keep believing, He does. And when God (not love, not happiness, not staying together) is that the center of your marriage, you can endure anything.

I think Traci and I have a great marriage. It’s not perfect, but I can confidently say it’s better than it was 16 years ago, and by God’s grace, tomorrow it will be better than it is today. My wife is amazing and when people see us together they know I “married up”! But a great marriage didn’t just happen, and it won’t continue without hard work. Your marriage is worth the effort. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you strengthen yours.

Happy 16th Tra. Thanks for taking the plunge with me over and over again, during this journey. We’ve definitely seen that life is always better on the water, especially in marriage.