God knows this is not an easy task! Choosing to love the same person over years of new responsibilities, needs, interests, wishes, struggles, pains, and joys requires more than we have to give on our own strength.
The vows we make to one another on our wedding day is a promise to be faithful to one another.
We declare to each other and in front of our loved ones that we are in. We are there for the good, the bad, and the ugly.
We are each other’s people for life! It is such a beautiful and powerful pledge of commitment that we make to one another.
The covenant of marriage that God honors and desires us to remain faithful to whenever possible. Matthew 19:6 says it this way, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
God desires those heartfelt and optimistic words we declare at the start of our marriage to remain true over the course of the life we spend with our partners.
God also knows this is not an easy task! Choosing to love the same person over years of new responsibilities, needs, interests, wishes, struggles, pains, and joys requires more than we have to give on our own strength.
We need Jesus to be able to faithfully love each other well. Let’s explore what God’s word says about remaining faithful to our marriage and some practical ways we can live this out in our daily lives together.
Here are 3 Scriptures about faithfulness:
1. Galatians 5:22-23
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law."
God’s Spirit alive in us looks like living a life marked by the fruits of the Spirit. This is the evidence that we are followers of Jesus.
These are the things that set us apart from the world around us. That evidence includes being faithful to our relationships, commitments, believes, to God, and to our marriages.
2. 1 Corinthians 10:13
"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."
We don’t have to be faithful through our own strength. God knows that we will be tempted, that life is filled with hardship, and that darkness seeks to entice us with the lie of forbidden pleasure. God encourages us but reminding us that HE IS FAITHFUL.
We can overcome the temptations that are common to this world because God’s power is at work in our lives. He gives us the strength we need to remain faithful to our commitments.
3. Proverbs 28:20
"A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished."
Our faithfulness to living a righteous and committed life does not go unnoticed by God. He promises that our efforts will be blessed.
God is pleased when we choose to be faithful in our marriages.
How Can We Be Faithful to Our Spouses?
Remaining faithful to our spouses requires more of us than just not having an extramarital relationship. It requires us to be present, engaged, loving, committed, and willing to forgive over and over again.
What does that look like in practical terms? Here are some ideas for you.
1. Be Honest with One Another
Honesty creates security in your relationship.
A few years back my husband and I went through about a year of counseling together and the first question our counselor asked was if we had been honest with each other. He wanted to know if we had any major breaks of trust in our past or present.
Thankfully, we could answer this question with a yes and our counselor confidently said that we could get through our struggles. As long as we had trust we could rectify the other broken parts of our marriage.
Research has found that the number one issue that came up for married couples was trust and betrayal.
Honesty ensures that we are living in a true shared reality with one another. We have to be open in our communications with one another not to just avoid major betrayals but also so we are not blindsided by smaller ways that we fail to share our truths with one another.
Even things such a lack of clarity on how much one of you enjoys a certain activity or concealed concerns about the other party can feel like a betrayal if they're not’ openly shared.
2. Keep Each Other a Priority
This advice feels so obvious but if we are honest it is not at all easy to live out! When life gets rolling along the easiest thing to put on the back-burner of your priority list is your spouse.
I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with friends lamenting how long it has been since they have had a proper date night with their spouse.
Work, kids (especially the kids), not wanting to bother others by asking if they can babysit, and general busyness as reasons date night has been on hiatus.
Allowing uninterrupted time with your spouse to fall to the wayside is dangerous to your marriage.
his is what it looks like in my house: My husband and I are getting along well but then several weeks pass without us having time alone to relax without the kids. All of a sudden I start doubting that he cares about me, I feel extra stressed because I haven’t had a “grown-up break” from parenting and my other responsibilities, my husband sees my exasperation as a complaint against him, and then by week 2 or 3 some tiny kindling lights the fire to a big argument.
Every person needs affirmation, connection, kindness, and love. The only way we can consistently give and receive these things in our marriages is if we make loving one another well a priority.
3. Be Ready and Willing to Forgive One Another
Matthew 18:21-22 says, “Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
Marriage is the place we get to be tested on the ability to live out this scripture in our own lives!
Offering undeserved forgiveness is something we have to be willing to daily offer to our spouses… and I know from years of experience that it is not easy to extend!
We have to be willing to forgive not just for the major mess-ups but what may be even harder for us is forgiving each other for the tiny mistakes we make. Like forgiving your spouse when he forgets you have plans together on the calendar or when they forget something you desperately needed from the store.
When we start holding onto secret grudges against our spouse, walls starting going up in our marriage. All of a sudden tiny things become big things because you aren’t just frustrated about the fact today they forgot to help with the dishes, you are mad because every time they have forgotten to help clean up over the last 15 years.
Dishwashing can even become a reason to separate yourself emotionally from your spouse.
When we say that out loud… I can’t stay faithful to my spouse because they didn’t do the dishes… it sounds crazy!
But if we are honest how much of the struggle we feel in our marriage is about big stuff and how much is over tiny failures we’ve secretly logged in our mental “book of grievances” against our spouses? We have to forgive over and over and over again in order to stay faithful to the vows we made to our spouses at the very beginning of our journey together.
Marriage is a living thing. It requires that we tend to it, water it, feed it, nurture it, protect it from the elements of this world, and it only takes a short period of neglect for decay to become apparent to us.
If we desire to be faithful to one another, then we have to make a daily choice to pour into our relationship. We have to create routines that communicate love, consideration, and make space for us to connect with each other.
Being faithful to one another is a daily task but thankfully God promises to give us the strength we need to help our marriages thrive.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Jon Asato
