The first thing I want to say is, nobody is perfect. I’m guilty and your guilty. The first step in the right direction, is to admit something, and say, “I have this issue and I’m working on it.” I am saying this as a person who failed at a marriage, and though I am happily married going on 2 years, I still fail in areas. The good news is, I am still working on me. If you can get past the sins part, maybe there is something you will find useful to work on yourself. Let’s focus on marriage, because I can write a 24 hour article on the world.
PRIDE: The root of all problems in marriage is pride. Somebody wants the last word. Another wants to give a consequence. Nobody wants to admit they could have done something different because it would hurt their ego. Ego is the main connection to pride that causes the failure of marriage. They say money, infidelity, communication are top reasons, but if you look at the root, it is pride. A person who is unfaithful is a prideful person. A ego that needs to be pleased without the other persons feelings involved. Why communicate when you have a back up plan? Why admit to being wrong or why try working on yourself? You can do better. All the thoughts of prideful thinking. You did this, so I’m going to do that. Tit for tat, childish games that always end in a divorce.
Let’s look at the opposite of pride. Humility. Sometimes you can feel like your under constant attack, but you haven’t stepped back to realize your responses have not been in love and you could have done something to make this better instead of pouring fuel on the fire. How can you use humility to defuse things and even show the other person you won’t allow things to continue this way, because it’s not worth the stress? Respond in love. If you don’t know how, take this advice from the Bible. Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. Sometimes the only time a person learns something, is from how you respond to them in humility.
WRATH or ANGER: Since we ended where we did on pride, let’s talk about wrath. What marriage does a person think they can train a person by consequences? Wrath is a leading cause of physical and emotional abuse. So how does this happen in marriage? A person ignores, or gives the silent treatment is the first thing. Sometimes people need space, but once this goes past the day of your wrath, into another day, your basically holding a grudge and if you don’t let that go, it will turn into a bitterness that you can’t let go of. Are we talking about infidelity? How serious is the problem? Is it worth withholding sex and leaving the house without a reason for hours to destroy whatever trust you have? This can get ugly. Is it really worth it? Wrath is a game of life and death in your marriage. If your using this as a tool, then your playing with fire.
What’s the opposite of wrath or anger? Kindness. If you want to shock someone who likes to play games with wrath, it is best to kill them with kindness. How can you do this? Some like flowers and some like candy. Some like beer and others like ice cream. My wife says, “Bring her coffee” and if she brings me ice cream or lemonada de coco, I can’t play this game. The only thing is, someone has to let go of their pride first. See how so much is connected to pride?
LUST: Let’s look at lust. What causes a person to be unfaithful more than lust which is also connected to ego, which is connected to, you guessed it!! Pride! This isn’t as easy as you think it is. We work and spend more time with other people than our families. So you must accept the truth that it is very possible to become attracted to other people. The problem is when you have to act on that attraction. You must do your best to not allow an attraction, to become a need for action. This is why you don’t play games with wrath, by withholding sex, or holding grudges, because lust can be a strong temptation when there are other issues involved in your marriage, and then the action of infidelity will normally end in divorce. When I say normally, I mean anything that happens more than 51% of the time. How many people never know or find out about infidelities? I would say, only a small percentage.
How can you beat lust? You find something ugly about that other person. You married your spouse for more than their attractiveness, hopefully. You haven’t lived with the other person. Do not let yourself get too close outside of work. Don’t you see the flaws in this person too and how will they deal with your flaws, if you ever admit them! You won’t enjoy the consequences. Think of the consequences! Divorce, money and all the embarrassing things that come with in-laws who will hate your guts even if your forgiven. Then realize things will never be the same if you want this marriage and only wanted to act on your lust 1 time. How about you think of the saying, “What comes around goes around, what will come back to you.” Not always the same way, but possibly 10 times worst.
ENVY: Why being married would you be envious? Hopefully you have a common goal in mind with your spouse. Wanting what others have, can lead to you valuing another persons spouse, house, car, money. Then you put these expectations on your marriage, that weren’t part of the original plan. For a real life example; my wife is not the cleanest person, so because I am clean and I see another persons house that is clean, should I put this on my wife because I envy the person with a cleaner house? Should I want that cleaner person? No. This maybe a flaw, but imagine living under the rules of a neat freak. You thought you were clean, but now you can’t touch nothing without this person panicking and cleaning it. So what if the person’s house is bigger, if they are at work so much they barely enjoy it.
How do you handle envy? Learn to be grateful for what you have and if you have a good marriage and a plan to build a life together, stick to the plan. Keeping up with the Joneses or the Kardashians, normally keeps most of us in the poor house and that leads to other marital problems.
GREED: How does one get married and become greedy. Normally in marriage what’s yours is your spouses also. People who start saying, “Mine, My” won’t last long. People who keep their money hidden to use for themsleves (Pride, Ego) will harm their marriage and we know where the saying came from, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” This has many paths. You have those who do things illegal for money that can affect the marriage, and you have some that blow money gambling at casinos, online, and lotteries. This can cause a person to work so much, they put money over their marriage. This can be someone that worships, money or material things and doesn’t think of the necessities of the other person. It’s kind of selfish right? Kind of seems like another link to pride and ego.
How to beat greed, is to be generous. Don’t only be generous to a spouse, but if it’s possible, to others also, like when tipping. This also works in what people say, “Paying it forward” and if you believe in, “You reap what you sow” you can normally earn a lot of respect from the other person. If your broke, and need more money, you have to do what you have to do. Discuss it in marriage and don’t put money or hobbies, above your spouse, or eventually the spouse will become frustrated and look for their own individual satisfaction, which works against marriage.
GLUTTONY: It’s kind of connected to greed. When you can eat or drink so much that it is harmful to your health or to your budget, or even the attraction of your spouse, then you pretty much are harming your marriage. A person who is a glutton, is not normally doing this with vegetables or water. It’s normally alcohol, soda pop, fast food, fried foods, junk foods, candy, sweets and ice cream. What’s the worst thing besides a slow death, is also a slow death to your marriage. This affects attraction and health, which affects sexual activity, which affects your marriage, your confidence, and it can spiral into troubling addictions. Imagine a glutton full of alcohol, full of pride and wrath.
The fight against gluttony: You might be eating or drinking from depression. They say, “Drinking is a way to numb your feelings.” If so, you need to get help and find out where it stems from. You can do things to drive your spouse away. Not that physical attractiveness goes on forever, but it is your effort, that can make your spouse lose or gain respect for you. If your marriage is the reason that is causing you depression, make sure that you are working on yourself, so if you do walk away, you’ve done everything the best you can, so you have no regrets.
SLOTH: Being a sloth puts a burden on the other person that isn’t fair. Nobody married you to become a slave, because your lazy. This is a selfish and prideful thing when they feel, they don’t need to work or they don’t need to help with the house chores and don’t let it be children. Even if your both working their has to be a balance. Being a sloth at your house or your job doesn’t benefit the marriage at all. It doesn’t build respect and doesn’t accomplish the goals. Realize that marriage is about bringing the best out of the other person and in turn that benefits you. A sloth ruins marriage by causing the other person to burn out to the point, if they have to do so much alone, why carry the weight of someone else who doesn’t seem to give the effort? Slothfulness is a major lack of effort. Can you expect a marriage to last like this?
To fight against being a sloth: A sloth can be caused by how you were raised and you weren’t expected to do nothing, and also by gluttony. You have to learn to put the shoe on the other foot. If you wouldn’t like this done to you, don’t do it to your spouse. Make it priority to find energy in vitamins B12 or other things. Help them, help you. It’s something about working together that gets the best results in marriage. If you sit on your phone all day on social media or play video games while the other person is working on chores all the time, it’s not fair. It will eventually destroy your marriage. There is a time and place to do nothing. Just don’t let it affect your spouse in marriage. Don’t be the person who’s effort is, to ask if your spouse needs help and hope they say, “No.”
I hope this helps someone.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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