Do you remember what you thought being married would be like? Did you imagine?

Honestly, my wife and I lived together as an engaged couple before we got married. Please let me be clear in my experience. THIS IS NOT GOD’S DESIGN. This is just a data point – called my story.

To a certain degree, I didn’t think life would be much different after I was married. At least with regard to living with my wife. We had already lived with each other for 2 and half years, what could be so different?

Whether or not we are aware of it, commitment does change our perspective. Deep down, well before we ever walked the aisle, my expectation of marriage was much higher than I realized.

The Marriage I thought I was Getting

I thought it was going to be Bliss.
I thought we could build a life together that was simple and didn’t have problems.
I also had the idea that my sex problems would go away.
Somehow I believed that my anger would fade off into the distance.
I believed that we got to control our own destiny.
In many ways, I recall being clueless as to what I was signing up for.
While I absolutely love my wife and want to be married to her, I got married because “we were supposed to.”

I got married on the concept that everything would be wonderful and we had control over our future, if we just made the right choices. Somehow, I had this idea that getting married would repair the sex problems and my anger problems that I grew up with. Maybe it was the idea that “I was obeying by getting married”. While my wife and I both tell the story that “we both knew each other was the one”, I got married because that is what you were supposed to do. Due to my father’s death when I was just 7 years old, I did not get to witness the inner workings of a marriage up close and personal like a “normal” family.

The Marriage I Actually Got

• Clarity of commitment together and what that really meant.
• Being a couple was easy at first.
• We were DINKS. Double Income No Kids.
• We had the first love our life together – our dog Riggs.
• At first we were doing all the right things.
• Planning for our future together.
  • Jobs
  • Financial
  • Kids
  • Retirement
• I still had sex problems.
• I still had anger.
• Sex problems and my anger and behaviors on those topics along with the loss of a job through a company buy out was a big turning point in our marriage.
• A business decision that cost us more or less 10 years of financial struggle and gain that included a bankruptcy that was a huge hit to our finances that tested our marriage.
• Strain in the family as kids were arriving and consequences of the mess of life were slowly becoming unmanageable.
• WORK – Marriage is work! We musty work together, however – First, we must work on ourselves. We must clear our own wreckage of our past, before we can have a right relationship with our spouse.
• I had to get sober from sex addiction.
• I had to work on my anger.
• We had to work our way out of financial disarray together.
• We had to focus on the kids first – Putting Jesus in their lives was priority #1
• Bipolarism is real.
• MORE WORK ON SELF!
• I FOUND JESUS!
• Now life will get easier?
• WORKING ON OUR MARRIAGE TOGETHER.
• Repair of sex and anger problems became more evident.
• The FRUIT of all our years together began to reveal itself.
• Persecution and disruption of our family by the evil of this world.
• Strength and Growth through it ALL.

That’s just a brief overview of The Marriage I Got. A lot of this story has to do with me. I am the source of much of the pain in our marriage. I was GRACED by Grace. God provided me with Grace. Not only did I receive God’s Grace. My wife is also Grace. She is the Rock in our marriage. Simply put, my wife has informed me of why she stayed all these years. She saw progress. DO NOT MISINTERPRET THIS! I didn’t get robbed in my marriage.

I WAS GIVEN GRACE!

But what if I was given the proper tools to begin with?

What if I had cleared the wreckage of my past before marriage ever began? I can’t speak to something that in some ways I never had control over in the first place. I didn’t have control over my childhood trauma. My father’s death was not my choice. I didn’t grow up without a father or a marriage to witness by my choice. I did not choose mental health issues. I did not choose anger. I did not choose sex addiction. While I did participate in anger and sex addiction, I did not purposefully set out with those intentions. I grew up wanting the life we call “The American Dream” For me, that meant a marriage of bliss, with 2.5 kids, a dog and a bountiful life together full of luxury and happiness.

What if you had the tools for The Marriage You Want?

I didn’t have the tools to drive toward The Marriage You Want until much later in our marriage. What if I had the tools earlier, would it have helped? Perhaps. However, I contend that we must prepare ourselves. We must have #JESUS FIRST. We must clear our past and be right with self and Jesus before we can truly be right in our marriages. For this I was given Grace! For me, that meant that my wife tolerated much of the garbage I brought to our marriage with extreme patience. It meant that God gave me Grace and time and space to grow right with Him to finish it off! To finish this life with The Marriage You Want.

This weekend, my wife and I are presenting together at our church, a simulcast for The Marriage You Want. These are the tools that you can use together to get The Marriage You Want.

BALANCE—how to keep Jesus at the centre, while balancing our own needs and responsibilities

AFFECTION—because you want to keep love alive!

RESPONSIBILITY—how to function as teammates and partners

EMOTIONAL CONNECTION—how to grow the intimacy you yearn for

What if you had an Abundance of Fruit in your marriage? What if your marriage had so much fruit, the cucumbers and tomatoes were falling off the vines? What if you had so much fruit in your marriage that you could take that love and give a plenitude to others? What if you had so much fruit that you were desperate to give it to others?

Imagine & Receive – The Marriage You Want