Creeping Killers

Some of us attended the men's retreat at Camp Yamhill last weekend. During the different lessons, the presenter mentioned our roles as men in our marriages. That wasn't the focus of the retreat, but the topics did overlap somewhat.

I started thinking about all of the comments he made and then started thinking about my own marriage and marriages I have seen over the years within the church. There are definitely things we can do to enrich our marriages and things we can do to kill them. However, I don't think most people wake up one day and say, "I think I'll wreck my marriage." The things I list here are things that creep into a marriage and kill it, like those thingies that float around in our blood streams until they plug up our arteries and we have a stroke or heart attack. If you recognize any of these in your marriage, deal with it now!

Impatience: Inability to accept your mate's differences or deficiencies. If they don't think, act, or do things they way you do them, you express your unhappiness. Patience is the relational oil that helps two different people act as and become one.

Unkindness: A good marriage is made up of little kindnesses done for each other. It includes special events and deeds, but also day-to-day stuff like helping the other out with some task or serving the other in some way. Doing chores together is kindness on two levels.

Envy: Jealous of the other's opportunities or progress. Sometimes a mate can feel left behind when their spouse is accomplishing life or work goals. Envy leads to resentment and resentment leads to bitterness. Instead of making and achieving your own life goals, you want the other to stop accomplishing theirs.

Boastfulness: The praising of self or drawing attention to self. It can be seen in constantly talking about one's accomplishments, but also in buying clothes from a certain place because it's trendy or expensive, etc.

Pride: A focus on self instead of your mate. Jesus came to serve, not to be served. A proud person expects everything and everyone to revolve around them. Their needs and wants take priority over everything.

Rudeness: To talk over, to ignore, to make cutting remarks to and about, and to treat unkindly.
Self-seeking: Closely tied to Pride, a self-seeking person constantly puts their interests and goals ahead of their mate's. The only time they may defer to their mate is when their mate's wants and goals don't conflict with their own.

Short-tempered: While impatience leads to exasperation, short-temperedness seeks to gain control of the other through the threat of anger. Anger can be internal such as cold shoulders or it can be external like yelling, breaking things, or even striking the other.

Numbering wrongs: If you want to increase the intensity of your marital arguments, remember all the previous wrongs your mate has committed. Eventually, even the burning of toast will be a divorceable offense. It takes a lot of energy to remember every offense and turns your thoughts against your spouse, ignoring the good they are.

Delighting in evil: You are actually happy when your spouse does something wrong or even sinful. Everything becomes another reason why your mate is a horrible person.

Carelessness: Related to unkindness, carelessness is seen when we're going to be late coming home but we forget to inform our mate or when we are constantly forgetting things that are important to them. It is not caring about what grieves the other; it is a cold indifference.

Doubt: Although spouses can lie and make it difficult for their mate to believe them, this particular thingy is more focused on the worth of the person you've married. You're convincing yourself you've picked a loser and that even the good they do is a fluke.

Hopelessness: The idea that a marriage relationship is unchangeable. It is true that it goes faster and better when both spouses seek to develop their marriage skills out of a desire to please God and be better lovers. It is also true, though, that even small changes by one can bring improvement.

Quitting: Not necessarily about divorce. Often heard when one or both say, "I'm done" when arguing about something. There may be a lot of little "I'm done"s before the big one hits. Marriage takes work and when one or both quit doing this or that to maintain or improve the quality of the marriage, they are quitting.