#3 Positive Interaction

"Positive emotions toward one's spouse are vital to a healthy marriage.  Negative emotions, if they occur frequently and are allowed to deepen, can threaten a marriage."

 Two years after I lost my first husband to cancer, I remarried. Life was wonderful, but less than a year after we'd married, he began to tell me that we should get divorced. It was infrequent, so I ignored it. I should not have. It did nothing to help our marriage, and every time the words were said, they hurt. As the years went by, and life's struggles began to mount and increase, he began to suggest divorce on a regular basis.
5 years went by, and one day when he said those words, "We should just get divorced," I replied, "I think you're right."
(Now, there is much more to our story. This is the smallest portion of it, but it will serve the purpose of explaining my point.)
WORDS ARE POWERFUL! Do not ever say anything that you do not mean, or that you do not want to come to pass. Speaking of divorce without intent is a threat. It is an unbridled tongue. If you have not made every effort to improve yourself, if you do not want divorce but you suggest it, if you speak such things, you need to check yourself. The Lord is not pleased with you. I know.
I know because the Lord has been displeased with me. During my first marriage, I listened to Satan as he urged me to threaten my husband with divorce. Fortunately, my husband nipped that right in the bud. He sat me down and explained to me that our marriage was intended to be eternal and that it was foolish of me to try to suggest that it would be anything else, even when things got hard. I knew he was right. So? I stopped, and I never said those words again.
I didn't think much of that experience when the threats began in my second marriage, but it would have been good for me to have taken action when the comments began.
Marriages are meant to last, but they're seldom easy. They're hard, and if the marriage is not hard, the children are, or the finances are, or work is, or . . . . you get the picture. Life was not meant to be easy! It was meant to be worth the effort! Marriages take patience, mutual tolerance, and a great deal of love, but they are absolutely worth the sacrifices.
Don't give up on what is most precious in your life, and don't lose it because the words you spoke so many times without restraint finally come true. Please.
"Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred." Job 6:24
With my love,
Georgia

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