Lady Tanner (Relationship Counselling)

Do you stroll nakedly in the presence of your spouse or you still switch off the lights so they don't see "your" body? Does your spouse know your financial, mental, health, academic, social, etc situation or do you still hide certain details and keep secrets? Do you see yourself as one with your spouse or two separate individuals? Do you isolate your spouse's challenges from yours and say "that's their headache" or do you embrace it as yours? Do you disrespect your spouse and think you're being vindictive, not knowing whatever you do to your spouse you do to yourself? A marriage is a vulnerable-no-secrets-no-shame zone! It's an OUR zone. "The Lord God used the man's rib to make a woman. He brought the woman to the man.  Then the man said, ‘Finally, this is someone who is right for me. She has bones that are taken from my bones. Her body comes from my body. I will call her “woman” because God used me, a man, to make her.’  Because of this...

No one wants to suffer or bear pain. We really don't want to have to endure anything. We want a soft life, an easy life. But to get a soft life, there's always a price to pay. Salvation is "free"... Grace is the "soft life" but someone paid the bloody price for these with His life. He paid the price to make you His bride. He bled that you might be blessed. He endured pain to receive glory.  So why do you expect that your marriage will automatically be glorious? There's always a price to pay. There's always pain to endure. The grapes that produce wine endured crushing and pressing. The dough that made the delicious bread endured kneading. The genuine lovely couples and marriages you admire have endured and in fact might still be enduring pain. It's not easy for 2 people from 2 completely different backgrounds to work in sync. It takes work, forgiveness, long-suffering, several arguments, wet pillows, humility, apologies, etc. Marriage is beautiful...

 If we were to ask your children for their assessment of the relationship between you and your spouse, what will they say? Do you spur them to desire marriage? Or do you make them think...if this is what marriage is, I'd rather not? Do you gross them out with the affection you show each other? Or do they cringe at your negative reactions to each other? Your children are watching you closely and making conscious and subconscious decisions based on the examples you lay. Show them what love is; Show them how a man should love his wife as Christ loved the church; Show them how a woman should submit to her husband as the church to Christ; Show them how to give and receive respect in a relationship; Show them how to accept their spouse with their weaknesses; Show them that not all relationships end in divorce; Show them that marriage is beautiful; Show them that no marriage is perfect but you choose to make yours beautiful; Show them that commitment is a requirement for a lasting relatio...