Three things you didn’t hear in marriage counseling…but should have

Today I am guest posting for my friend Andy Gill, who blogs at andygill.org. He’s a deep thinker, a button pusher (in such a good way), and a lover of Jesus who will really make you think with his words. I like that, and him, a lot. Be sure and go check out the rest of his blog after you read my post there, and while you’re at it, subscribe so you won’t miss anything new from him.

Andy asked me to write something about marriage. This is how it starts:

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So… You’re married… and you’re finding out (or know full well) just how difficult this thing is.

The. Hardest. Thing. Ever.

Right?

Marriage is hard, really hard.

There’s a reason that an entire industry, marriage counseling, exists, after all. If you are married, there is a good chance you have attended such counseling. If you did pre-marriage counseling, you may not remember much of what was discussed. I mean, at that point there was nothing that was going to deter you from getting married to the person sitting next to you, right? You might have given some mental ascent to the impending difficulties of becoming one with another person, but it’s likely that your “bulletproof love” filtered away much of what you were being told.

It may not have mattered. In my experience and observation, the challenges of marriage seem as massive waves crashing against the vessel of your marriage union – frequently barraging and threatening to capsize your love boat – whether there was counseling before, or during marriage, or not.

I’m no expert, and certainly not qualified myself as a counselor (who by the way, do amazing work), but I have managed to make enough mistakes with eyes open enough to learn a few things in almost 13 years of marriage. So, with that, allow me to humbly offer three such things you likely were not told before you got married (or after… or ever?) but that you should hear…

[ Go read the rest of the article here ]