5 Essential Ways to Fireproof Your Marriage

1. Commit to Living with a Posture of Love and Respect

Ephesians 5:33: "Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." All people desire to feel loved and to receive respect from those who care for them. It's a basic human need that marriage is designed to fulfill, but offering these things to your spouse is not always easy.

We so easily fall into thinking that our spouse is chronically wrong and, therefore, does not deserve our respect or begin to believe that our spouse does not love us the way we desire to be loved. Once these lies become part of the narrative in our relationships, conflict becomes more common, and we grow more and more disconnected from one another. As we distance ourselves from one another, we become much more vulnerable to failure in our marriages.

Our daily commitment to each other must be to let love and respect define our interactions. When we fail to do this, we need to repent, apologize, and once again come to our relationships with a posture of service and love. The point of this journey is not being right; it's being together, which requires a huge amount of humility as we strive to love each other well.

2. Commit to One Million Apologies and a Million and One Times You Forgive

Marriage is a lifetime venture. Time and repetition of the same mistakes can make it harder for us to forgive. Offering that much-needed "I'm sorry" gets harder to say and even harder to accept. We often feel that we've heard it all before. Aren't you just going to make that same mistake again? Well, yeah, I probably will.

Don't you wish you could promise your spouse in earnest that you'd never again do that thing that sent him over the edge for the fifth time this month? I know I do. I want to get it right, to stop needing the same things, and to have my apologies be as real as they were the first time we did this.

If I had to guess though, I'd say it's the repetitive nature of marriage that makes it harder to hear each other right away. You can talk and fight and then the pressure is on right away to get it right. A new day starts and you're on the spot to try it the new way, while all the old stress is still there. Kids running around. Schedules filled to the brim. All the things.

Suddenly, an apology was needed again so soon.

But if we want to see this thing last our only option is to keep on apologizing, and what is even more important is that we keep on forgiving. Jesus said we forgive as much as it takes. He surely had marriage in mind when he told that story. Making a life together means offering one million apologies and being willing to forgive one million and one times.

Photo credit: ©Unsplash/Gus Moretta

3. Commit to Communication and Connection

There is no one thing that keeps our marriages strong, it's so many choices in a day, week, month, and over the years in which we choose to invest in remaining close and connected to each other. Daily communication is vital to staying on the same page. Checking in on what each other are doing, how we are feeling, what we need, and more lets each other know that we are loved and seen. Don't let a day pass without conversing with your spouse.

Connection looks like service, love, quality time, gifts, words of affirmation, and physical touch. Choosing one or more of these as ways to connect each day keeps your marriage strong. Remaining physically present in your marriage through intimacy and tenderness guards against so many very real temptations in our world.

4. Have Safe People That Can Encourage You

Tough times will come in a healthy relationship. If you never fight or face a challenge in your marriage that is likely a sign that there is an unhealthy imbalance in your relationship. Typically in that case there is a dominant personality that is controlling the relationship and a more passive partner that is unwilling to challenge the wishes of their spouse. If you are in this situation it's important that you take steps to find a more healthy and balanced dynamic in your relationship.

When you both are freely expressing your wishes, needs, and opinions there will be conflict. That conflict is a chance to learn and grow together but most of us don't walk into our marriages with all the skills we need to resolve every conflict seamlessly. We need safe mentors, counselors, friends, and pastors in our life that can encourage us when we need a little help sifting through our conflicts and repenting for our sin nature.

5. Create Accountability for All Areas of Temptation

Married people are still just sinful people trying their best to love each other well. We are not above temptation of many kinds, including sexual sin, addiction, lying, and more! The best way to keep these struggles from destroying your relationship is to be proactive about setting up accountability for the areas that you are struggling with.

If you find that pornography is a struggle, get filtering software, enlist the trusted support of friends that can check on you, and be diligent to not let yourself have free reign on digital devices. If shopping is something that you have a hard time controlling, create a budget, limit your access to money, and keep all your financial transactions visible to your spouse. If lying is a struggle, get into counseling and find ways to keep your life transparent.

We all have our struggles, it could be anger, depression, anxiety, jealousy, and the list goes on. Be proactive about setting proper boundaries in your life so these struggles don't have the power to destroy your family and marriage.

Our marriages are worth fighting for. We have to live guarded, intentional, and proactive lives if we want to love each other the way God loves us. Covering our home, spouse, and relationship with prayer is a vital part of the work of fireproofing our marriages. Be diligent in your love for one another.

Related Resource: Winning at Love: Learning How to Overcome Complacency and Enhance Your Intimacy

When we stop pursuing and choosing one another, we allow footholds to take place in our lives and in our relationships. In other words when we begin prioritizing other things, getting distracted, or simply growing complacent - we create a recipe for losing at love. No matter your relationship status, this is a conversation that will equip you to look, live, love, and lead more like Christ from the inside out! If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to The Built Different Podcast on Apple, Spotify or YouTube so you never miss an episode!