I was speaking this weekend with my husband at a Family Life Weekend to Remember. They're all over the U.S. too, but in Canada the couples speak together. It's not just the men speaking the way it tends to be south of the border. So we have a riot up there talking about all our mistakes and funny stories and the truths that God has taught us to keep our marriage strong.
I find that each conference has a different feel to it. Last conference I had at least five people come to talk to me about pornography. They were struggling with it, had quit the addiction, but their sex drives hadn't come back. It was really sad. I gave them some pointers on how to reawaken proper sexuality, and prayed with them.
This weekend it wasn't pornography. It was remarried families. Or "blender" families as one of the other speaker couples calls them. The pain in these people's faces was incredible. They had already had one major relationship fail, and they didn't know how this one was going to work, either.
If we could have had all those couples up at the front to talk for a minute about how difficult their relationships were, I'm sure all the couples who were on marriage #1 would work harder to make it succeed. Remarried life is definitely not easy, what with kids and ex-spouses and differing expectations galore.
I did a lot of praying with people this weekend, because you can't counsel people well that you don't know in 10 minute increments. But most of them really did want to make it work, they just didn't feel loved by the other.
And that's the crux of it, isn't it? When we don't feel loved we get afraid, lonely, and angry. But whether or not we feel loved is not always a function of what the other person is doing. Sometimes it's our issue as well. I'll talk about this more on Wifey Wednesday this week, but I hope some of the couples listened.
You can't change another person. But you can change yourself. And that's really who God wants us to work on: ourselves. I think if more couples understood that, even in the midst of the pain, more marriages would succeed.
When we went through pre-marital counseling we were told countless stories (like 4) where only once a spouse started working on themselves did they see results in their spouse. Good advice!
Stopped by from Organizing Junkie so thought I'd say hi.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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When we went through pre-marital counseling we were told countless stories (like 4) where only once a spouse started working on themselves did they see results in their spouse. Good advice!
Stopped by from Organizing Junkie so thought I'd say hi.