Marriage Secret

Dear Ladies,

I have just finished writing a long letter to a friend who is ready to end her marriage. All around me it seems couples are falling apart. Several are couples who have been married for over 20 years. Twenty years is a long time and yet they are willing to walk away and start again. How did this happen? Well I know for sure they didn't start having problems a few years ago, they started having problems on the honeymoon.

Here is a funny story about problems starting on the honeymoon. I got angry at my husband on our honeymoon. It seemed to me he laughed at me quite often and I didn't like it. I said something to him and he laughed at me, but I didn't think it was funny. I went to the bathroom and shut the door. I showed him, I was upset, I wouldn't talk to him that would teach him a lesson. My husband explained to me that he wasn't laughing at me, he was laughing with me; he enjoyed me and what I said and did. Now that's sweet, if your honey tells you he enjoys you. However if my husband hadn't communicated that to me I wouldn't have known. In my mind he was being mean and making funny of me. This may seem to be a small and funny moment, but it could have been the beginning of a wall that I built in my heart.

Those little moments in our marriage in and of themselves aren't what cause couples to divorce, However, 20 years of little problems build on each other and make bigger problems. The problems are not dealt with and they grow and multiply.

A big secret to a successful marriage is communicating. It is ok to let your husband know he has hurt your feelings, or treated you badly. Chances are he meant it differently then it was perceived. When we were first marriage we would say "I heard you say..." or "This is what I meant to say..." By doing this we learned to communicate and see how what we said was received.

"So friends-How is your marriage?' Don't wait until your problems are too big to solve, work on them today. Pray together for protection for your marriage. Marriage is a holy institution, therefore Satan wants to destroy marriages-including yours.

Blessings to all of you,
Melissa