Marriage Advice

Many of our readers know one of my favorite writers is the prolific author anonymous. So, imagine my excitement when I stumbled across this facebook page “Deep Minds Anonymous.”

A link click, however, revealed the source was Madiha Batool who authored a book “Deep Minds Anonymous,” a collection of her poetry, thoughts, and feelings focused on empowering women.

“When you’re choosing a life partner, think beyond the romance,” advised Batool.

Then she offered these real life situations which all couples know are so true.

Think about the breakfast conversations, the quiet moments after a long day, the way they handle stress, money, mistakes, and growth. Look deeper than chemistry – look at character. Because their mindset will influence your peace. Their decisions will affect your future. Their patience, or lack of it, will echo through your home.

You’re not just choosing someone to laugh with, you’re choosing someone to struggle with, grow with, and build a life with. Pick someone whose wants, habits, and vision match the life you want to live. Love is more than feeling – it’s a partnership. A foundation. It’s everything.

This advice reminded me of a book Norma Jean and I read over 30 years ago by Dr. Willard Harley, “His Needs, Her Needs: Building An Affair Proof Marriage.” In it Dr. Harley, a psychologist and marriage counselor, shared the 10 most important emotional needs men and women possessed that must be satisfied in a marriage relationship for it be successful and mutually fulfilling.

• Affection
• Sexual Fulfillment
• Intimate Conversation
• Recreational Companionship
• Honesty and Openness
• Physical Attractiveness
• Financial Support
• Domestic Support
• Family Commitment
• Admiration

Dr. Harley offers this insight regarding the specific needs of men and women.  “Everyone is unique. While men on average pick a particular set of five emotional needs as their most important and women on average pick another set of five, any given man or woman can and do pick various combinations of the ten. So even though I know the most important emotional needs of the average man and woman, I don’t know the emotional needs of any particular husband or wife.”

You can read an explanation of these needs plus the Love Bank concept on his web page Marriage Builders. Incidentally the course, Dynamic Marriage, offered by the Marriage Dynamics Institute, in Franklin, Tennessee, is based and built on these 10 emotional needs. Norma Jean and I have attended the course and are certified facilitators. We highly recommend it.

This advice of both authors bring to mind Paul’s admonition and Peter’s exhortation to husbands and wives.

“Let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband”. (Eph. 5:33).

“Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (I Pet. 3:8).

When we understand the Bible meaning of love, we see it expressed in meeting these needs and sharing the joys and sorrows of life together.

This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.

Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen. (1 Cor. 13:4-8, J. B. Phillips translation)

While there are many components to a successful marriage, Barnett Brickner was right when he wrote, “Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.”

Finally this often observed maxim cannot be ignored. “A successful marriage is always a triangle: a man, a woman, and God.”

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman