We want to put out a challenge for you in your marital walk together. That’s because we believe it’s essential that every married couple comes up with a set of mutually agreed upon marriage rules and absolutes that you predetermine together to live out in your everyday life for “as long as you both shall live.” (Even if you do this later in your marriage, it’s better than never doing it at all. You can call it a marriage repair.)
The health of your marriage relationship is too important to just live together without deciding upon important guidelines and commitments that you will both honor. It’s like building a house you will live in without using blueprints. You can do so but it’s not advisable. And if you did, you might need to make such important repairs.
Here’s one of the problems we have going on in today’s marriages — we don’t talk about what’s most important. Have you and your spouse talked about the “rules” or commitments that you each believe are most important to live out in your marriage? (We’re talking about things like, no yelling, hitting, telling private things about each other to other people, etc…) Or do you just assume things will work themselves out without them? We dare say that if you haven’t talked about them, you may be assuming too much.
That’s what happened to us (and multitudes of other married couples). We didn’t even give it a thought that we needed to do this. That was a BIG mistake! As a result, we almost killed our marriage relationship (and still could if we don’t take this seriously, which we do).
Marriage Rules or Commandments
So, a number of years ago, we sat down to put together a list we call “Our Ten Marriage Commandments.” Afterward, we vowed before God that we would each live by and honor it for the rest of our life together. We see it kind of like the Ten Commandments God gave to Israel. Once they had it, they had no excuse as to what was expected of them. Putting together a list of Marriage Rules or Commandments (or whatever you want to call them) can bring so much clarity to your life together. It certainly has done that for us!
We hope you will take the time and make the effort to do the same thing. It’s such an important step to take so you cleave all the closer to each other. It also helps you to honor the vow you made to each other and to God on your wedding day. To help you to put together your list, we will show you what we came up with that we honor daily in our marriage. If you like, you can use some of our points in your “Commandment” list or adapt them or come up with a different list of your own. The choice is yours.
So, below is our list of marriage rules. We’re adding a few (FYI) elaborations in parenthesis, so you better understand why we arrived at those particular points. Our original list is quite simple, on purpose. Here goes:
OUR TEN MARRIAGE COMMANDMENTS
Because our marriage is based on our dependence on God, and the Truths of His Word, we commit to each other and to the Lord:
1. The word, “Divorce” will never be part of our vocabulary, using it as a threat or consider it to be an option in our marriage.
(FYI: Conrad Smith gives this advice: “Take the word divorce out of your vocabulary: Consider the following illustration of what marriage commitment should be. If you were on the 10th floor of an apartment building and you smelled smoke, you would look for a fire escape. But if there were no fire escape, the only thing to do would be to put out the fire. When couples make a commitment that divorce is never an option, they give themselves no fire escape. The foundations of trust are strengthened. If threat of divorce is used as a tool of manipulation, the relationship is in serious trouble.
“During the first years of our marriage, there were times in the heat of arguments when either Roxana or I would threaten divorce. We were smelling smoke and were ready to head down the fire escape. I don’t believe either of us really considered divorce an option. We both hold strong beliefs against it. Yet even the threat of divorce was eroding our trust in each other, and we began to be afraid that the other was serious. We talked about this and agreed never to use the threat again, regardless of how hurt or angry we were. Our trust is strong now because we’re committed to putting out the fires. We have no fire escape and depend on the fact that we’ll have each other regardless of what happens.” (From the book, “Why Just be Married When You Can Be Best Friends?”)
Additionally:
2. We will always speak and act in respectful, non-attacking ways.
(FYI: This includes no name-calling, rolling of the eyes, sarcastic mocking or degrading remarks or actions.)
3. We will protect our marriage by “building hedges” to guard our integrity and strengthen our commitment to one another.
(FYI: These are guardrails or boundaries that we put into our marriage so each of us feels safe. We will NOT allow anyone—including relatives—to the best of our abilities, to put division between us. As Jesus said, “Let no man separate what God has put together.”
4. Any purchases over $100 (except for groceries) are to be mutually agreed upon (unless it is from personal funds such as birthday money, etc.).
5. When one of us has a “problem,” we BOTH have a problem. We will work to resolve it together. It’s “All for One and One for All.”
6. During times of crisis and hardship we will draw towards God and each other rather than away. Yet we will give each other grace and space, when necessary, with the goal in mind to survive these times together as best as possible as marriage partners.
7. We will protect each other’s dignity. We commit to build each other up both when we’re alone together and also in front of others — not tearing each other down.
8. We will pro-actively do something for our marriage at least once a year to grow our relationship with the goal in mind to reveal and reflect the heart of Christ within our marriage, to the glory of God.
More Marriage Rules or Commandments:
9. We will support each other in our outside family connections, friendships, and individual ministries as long as they don’t emotionally or physically hurt our marriage partnership. We will not let anyone, or anything cause marital division and separation between us.
10. It is our mission to work together in family matters, and in ministry opportunities — especially in helping to strengthen marriages.
Now, here’s the second important step in all of this. We posted it on one of our walls. It’s hanging there in a prominent place among a grouping of family pictures. These “commandments” are our commitment to each other and to our family (who also benefits from our stable, loving, happy marriage). We want to be transparent to everyone—especially to our spouse, that we are totally committed to make our marriage as Godly, healthy and lovingly protective as we can. We pray you will do the same in your relationship.
As we are told in the Bible, God expects us to “Live a life of love” with each other. This is one important step to take that can help you to do this. We hope you will!
Cindy and Steve Wright
— ADDITIONALLY —
To help you grow further, we give a lot of personal stories, humor, and more practical tips in our book, 7 ESSENTIALS to Grow Your Marriage. We hope you will pick up a copy for yourself. (It’s available both electronically and in print form.) Plus, it can make a great gift for someone else. It gives you the opportunity to help them grow their marriage. And who doesn’t need that? Just click on the linked title or the picture below:
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