TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SURVIVING MARRIAGE.

SERIES: UNDER THE SUN.

TEXT: ECCLESIASTES 4:9-12.

There are Ten Commandments to improve your marriage. Five for ladies and five for the men. This commandments I have drawn them from “The Art of understanding your mate” by Cecil G. Osborne-1970.

God commands husband and wife to submit to each other. To submit one to another means to prefer one another, to consider your partner to be better than yourself. Let us learn:-

FIVE COMMANDMENTS FOR WIVES.

• They always say, “ladies first.” So let us start with you ladies.
• If you are single, this message is for you.
• If you are widowed, you have children who need your counsel for their marriages to work.

1. Give up on your quest for a perfect marriage.

• Marriage is the most complex and difficult of all human relationships. It requires patience, skill, tact, emotional and spiritual growth.
• You can “grow a good marriage” if you are willing to work at it.
• Take your husband as he is, it takes a wise and patient wife to make a good husband.
• There are no ready-made husbands, they must be made through love and perseverance.
• People hardly change even in the course of life.
• If a man is dating you and you see some behaviors you don’t like in him, leave him or take him the way he is.
• Only God can change people and you are not God.

2. Give up on all hope to changing your husband or his relatives through criticism and verbal attacks.

• The simple truth is “you cannot make your husband more thoughtful by complaining.”
• Such tactics usually have one or two results with men. They either retreat and run away or they will become hostile.
• We can change no one other than ourselves by direct action.
• We can only change ourselves and when we change, others tend to change in reaction to us.
• Give up making demands. Abandon the martyr stance. Be what you want him to be.

3. Give praise and affection instead of seeking it.

• Ephesian 4:29, “let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”
• Be your husband’s biggest fan. Your husband has deep needs to be admired.
• He wants to know if you value him, if you respect what he does, if you are proud of him.
• If your friends only knew your husband by what they heard you say about him, what would they think?
• When you are around your woman friends don’t criticize your husband, brag on your husband.
• Say good things about him to others, it will pay dividends in your relationship.

4. Do things your husband likes to do-Eccl. 4:9, 11.

• Men want their wives to be their best friends.
• They want to hang out with them. They want their wives to share their interests.
• Enjoy time with your husband. Develop the intimacy that comes from having fun together.

5. Provide a peaceful place- (Proverbs 17:1).

“Better is a dry morsel with quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife”

• Is your home stress reducing or stress producing?
• Create a peaceful, loving environment especially in this society of career, working women.
• If possible be home to welcome your man home, meet him at the door, not with reports of how bad the day was.
• The wife/mother sets the atmosphere of the home.
• Meet your husband’s greatest needs, respect, honor, praise and worship.

FIVE COMMANDMENTS FOR HUSBANDS-1^st Peter 3:7.

“Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life.”

• Me, this is a most important listen to your wife.
• Women speak more (double) the words men speak daily on average. If you don’t listen to her, someone else will and you will lose your wife to the men who listens to her.

1. Assign top priority to your marriage relationship.

Eph. 5:25, “Husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.”

• Never take your marriage or your mate for granted.
• You need to be around to help in the house. A wife loves to smell the sweat of her husband!!
• One woman said that her husband’s idea of helping out was to lift his feet when she is mopping.
• Put your relationship with wife to a high priority list.

2. Dare to talk, give praise and reassurance.

“Proverbs 16:24, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.”

• Verbalize your affection and feelings for your wife, tell her how you feel.
• Never allow yourself to be out of touch with your wife.
• Remember the four level of communication.
• Facts-share what you know.
• Opinions-share what you think.
• Emotions-share what you feel.
• Transparency-share who you are.
• Grow your relationship and communication to the highest level of nakedness-transparency.

3. Listen without feeling the need to solve the problem-James 1:9.

“Take note of this; everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak.”

• The most common complaint from most women is that their husbands don’t listen to them and understand them.
• Women want their husband to understand how they feel about their problems not for husband to solve the problem.
• Listen to your wife, let her know you understand how she feels and don’t try to fix situation unless she asks you to.

4. Avoid criticism-Prov. 13:3.

“He who guards his mouth preserves his life, but he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.”

• A man who constantly criticizes and puts down his wife can produce numerous negative results in his wife.
• Criticism in any area is inevitable in almost any human relationship, but the less there is, the more satisfactory the marriage.

5. Remember the importance of little things.

• Men are less sentimental than women and attach less significance to such things as birthdays, anniversaries and “special days.”
• Men tend to overlook the little gestures that mean so much to women.
• Love your wife-love is the greatest need for a wife. Provide, honor, respect.
• Never forget your wedding anniversary or your wife’s birthday.

CONCLUSION

• Marriage is never finished, the lesson is never learned, the effort is never at an end.
• Marriage like life itself is a matter of solving the little things, the big things generally take care of themselves.
• Success in marriage is not a matter of finding the right person but being the right person.
• Always focus on the person you can change and that is yourself!!
• It is not marriage that fails, it is people that fail, all that marriage does is to reveal that failure.
• In the final analysis the only person that can meet your deepest needs is Jesus Christ.
• If you are looking for a man or woman to meeting your deepest needs you are looking in the wrong place.
• Only God can meet your deepest needs, why not turn to Him now?