Is your marriage AFFAIR PROOF
BY HEATHER ROSE
ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE AN AFFAIR?
Are you falling out of love with your spouse? LISTEN UP! Because I believe an emotional or physical betrayal doesn't “just happen.”
I believe only a person who allows their heart to fall away (note - I said fall away, not “be pulled” away) from their spouse would ever follow through and act on a temptation presented to them by another person.
I don’t believe there could be a seductive enough person to “pull” you away from your spouse UNLESS your heart is NOT positioned close to your spouse already. If you find yourself drifting away from your spouse, feeling disconnected, "missing" each other in shared experiences or quality time together, lacking communication and conversation, disconnected in your heart, mind or spirit, you will be prime for temptation. This may allow another person to fill that void for you, whether you were looking for it or not.
Now I should add, that in most cases this happens unintentionally and without even realizing it.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to the potential falling away of your heart… Pornography, other sexual brokenness, addictions, laziness, apathy, depression, lack of time, distance, health issues, young children, good TV shows, etc... I could go on and on.
Ok, stay with me right now - we won't ever achieve perfection or reach a point in our marriage where we don't have to continue to nurture it.
But, we can be intentional and aware of the enemy's tactics.
It is your responsibility to keep your heart connected to your spouse. It is our responsibility to be "as one" (unified) as a married couple. We must make it a priority to know how to be connected to each other. Every marriage has its own flow and heartbeat, just as every person has their own way for giving and receiving love.
It’s my joy and duty as a wife to steward my husband’s heart. 🖤
If I don’t have a consistent relationship with him where I am connecting with him regularly (in a way that HE feels connected and cared for) …then I am not stewarding his heart well.
I need to be listening to him and acting on
his needs,
his likes,
his joys,
his excitements.
I want to be hearing him and then taking part in his discomfort, pain and struggles. You know, the things that came so naturally while we were dating. Because I don't just love him, I LIKE him.
When faith is expressed, God’s grace is released. In other words, He equips us to do…HARD THINGS!!
It’s easy to complain. It’s easy to run. It’s easy to avoid. It’s easy to reject feedback and criticism. It’s easy to be lazy. It’s easy to give up. It’s easy to defend myself. It’s easy to _______________(you fill in the blank).
As wives/husbands, we do hard things! As mothers/fathers, we do hard things! As children of God, we do hard things in order to make other people’s lives around us better. We commit to doing hard things for our own lives to be full and content. However, doing the hard thing is not always easy to identify!
Doing the hard thing in my relationship with my husband is recognizing that I am not always right!
Doing the hard thing is being humble and realizing that his point of view has value; what he thinks and feels is not exactly the same way I think and feel.
Doing the hard thing is embracing the fact that he is a different person than me and he functions differently than I do! And that is good!
Doing the hard thing is asking tough questions and staying up late to have deep communication and conversations and….sex.
Doing the hard thing is to engage with him even when I don’t want to talk.
Doing the hard thing is keeping my heart connected to his even when time and seasons of life are busy, and I feel tired!
To do the hard thing is to stay consistent in pursuing my husband. I must guard my heart. I must guard our relationship. Doing the hard thing might be allowing your spouse to change YOUR mind. It is sitting through an argument where you feel completely correct in your viewpoint, but sticking “in” the discussion, truly listening and pausing your own emotions... to accept your best friend's viewpoint. Doing the hard thing is recognizing the fact that your viewpoint could actually be entirely false! This is not at all to say that I always change my view to his, but I want be humble in heart and mind. You can never go wrong with humility. Doing the hard thing is not assigning motives and intentions to your spouse. Give them "grace space" to communicate clearly what their heart has to say.
“To do the hard thing is to consistently pursue my husband.”
DOING THE HARD THING IS RECOGNIZING THAT YOUR VIEWPOINT COULD ACTUALLY BE ENTIRELY FALSE!
COMMUNICATION IS A COMMITMENT AND A PROCESS…
Most of the time, we hear through our own filter, but with "grace space," we patiently listen with non-judgmental ears. Then when you hear their explanation, receive it as truth, don't assign intention, just listen and believe the words as they come. This act of pausing and taking their word for it as they say it is very honoring to your spouse. Doing the hard thing is believing you're on the same team, then ACTING like you're on the same team. You would never set up your basketball teammate for failure on purpose; you are decidedly working together to score points to WIN the game! Decide to WIN in your marriage.
Our Rose family creed is, 'We are followers of Jesus and leaders of men. We do hard things, and we never quit!" I must guard my heart towards my husband! The Lord has put us together, and the devil would want us to be separated.
The enemy of our souls would love to get in between us in the smallest ways; he never takes a day off and never plays nice.
I must do the hard thing and do whatever it takes to lay down my selfishness, to lay down my own wants and desires, and to serve my husband and put his heart before my own heart. Then, he does the same for me. The enemy will have a harder time sneaking in and confusing that kind of humble love.
Here is a prayer I consistently pray…
"Lord, keep me positioned close to my husband's heart. I want to love him with grace and acceptance. I choose to guard my heart from offense and opinions. I choose to listen to him, honor and love him in my heart and with my words and actions. Lord, help me not to jump to conclusions or assign motives to his words; he is not perfect and neither am I. Thank you for this man you have given me, I know you are in control, and I choose to work with you, Lord! You are on our side. I choose to be on the same team as my husband, and we will WIN our marriage today, AMEN!”
“But from the beginning God created male and female. For this reason a man will leave his parents and be wedded to his wife. And the husband and wife will be joined as one flesh, and after that they no longer exist as two, but one flesh. So there you have it. What God has joined together, no one has the right to split apart.”
Mark 10:6-9 TPT