Change you to change your marriage

Have you ever wondered if things can really change in your marriage?  If your efforts can really make a difference?  Well, I assure you they can but only if both you and your spouse are willing to change yourselves first!  There’s a reason why so many attempts at fixing marital problems fail miserably...they jump too quickly into trying to solve how spouses relate to each other when instead they first need to look at the two individuals that make up the marriage.  Are both people making up that marriage happy and fulfilled on their own outside of their spouse?  If not, there will most definitely be issues when those two individuals try to navigate a relationship together.  I know this goes against the whole Jerry Maguire concept of ‘you complete me!’, but there’s a reason why that movie is fiction.  Too many of us enter into marriage thinking it is the missing piece to our happiness puzzle, only to realize later that we are just as unhappy married as we were single.  That’s because WE didn’t change!  If both people don’t have a firm spiritual foundation, a healthy view of them self, their basic financial needs met allowing for food, shelter, and transportation, a sense of purpose in and contribution to this world, and unconditional love by a tribe of people who are meaningful to them, there is no way that they can be effective as a spouse.  Two unhealthy, unhappy people joined together in matrimony cannot lead to a healthy and happy marriage!  Both spouses need to change themselves if they want to change their marriage.  The purpose of marriage is not to make us happy but instead to sharpen us and help us accomplish God’s plan for our lives in ways we couldn’t on our own.  But man do we like to view the world by what it can do to serve us!