In a previous post, I (Rob) warned you about the dangers of insulting and complaining about your spouse in public, but what do you do if you really need advice and input when you’re having problems? Well, in this post I’ll share how to seek this advice and input in a way that honors your spouse, your marriage, and God, and seeks to help you resolve conflicts rather than make them worse.
Let me take a moment to clarify something. In this post I’m talking about the normal aggravations of marriage. If you are having serious marriage problems, then please find a good biblical marriage counselor and both of you seek assistance in resolving the issues.
We all have conflicts. No marriage is perfect because no people are perfect. I have my bad days, and you have your bad days. It happens. But what matters is how you deal with it when you are sharing your problems with people outside of your marriage.
In light of this, let me share how Stacy and I determined to set ourselves up for success rather than failure when we needed to talk to someone. We both agreed that we would only talk to 2-3 people that we both knew and trusted. These people had to have these three requirements:
1) The person you are talking to must be the same sex as you. Guys talk to guys and women talk to women. (The only exception here is immediate family, parents and siblings, but even this can be tricky as your family will probably be biased toward you.) This rule is in place to help prevent future problems caused by creating an intimacy with an opposite sex person who is not your spouse. It happens all the time, when a man or woman doesn’t feel connected at home and makes a connection at work or elsewhere. Often it starts with chit-chat and eventually leads to an affair. Protect your marriage by making this rule in your home.
2) Your confidant must be a biblically sound friend who will always point you to God and the Bible. When we have problems in our marriages, we’re not experiencing anything new. It may be new to us, but no problem is completely new, so having a biblically minded friend is important. We need someone who will pray for us, lead us to helpful passages in Scripture, point out where we may be wrong, and always point us back to God.
3) The other spouse must agree on your list of trusted people. It’s important that you each feel comfortable with who your spouse will confide in.
Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
We also see the importance of wise counsel in the book of Titus:
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” (Titus 2:3-5)
It is here that we differentiate between gossiping/complaining about our spouse and truly seeking assistance. When we’re speaking to a small group of people who are invested in us and the good of our marriage, then we’ll receive wise counsel that can help our marriages.
So, these are our three requirements for seeking wise counsel to help you resolve the conflicts in your marriage. I hope you find these helpful as you implement them in your marriage.
