One thing I appreciate more as I get older is the people who have walked through life with me. They remember things no one else remembers. They were there for seasons that are now only memories, for some of my best days and some I would rather forget. After enough years, someone can become so much a part of my life that I hardly stop to think about what it means to have shared so much of it with them. There is something very special about sharing that much of life with someone. Perhaps nowhere do we experience that more deeply than in marriage.
That kind of shared history is something to treasure, but years together do not automatically mean two people are still close. A husband and wife can share the same house, sit at the same table, love the same children and grandchildren, and still find themselves growing apart. Often, neither person could tell you exactly when it started. Life gets busy, conversations become mostly about what needs to be done, and gratitude goes unspoken because each assumes the other already knows. Before long, they can be keeping up with the bills, the calendar, and everything around them while knowing less and less about what the other is thinking, feeling, or carrying. They may still be married and still sharing the routines of everyday life, but much of the closeness they once shared can quietly disappear.
We see that from the very beginning. When God created Adam, there was one thing He said was not good: the man was alone. “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’” (Genesis 2:18). God did not design marriage merely so two people could live under the same roof. He gave husband and wife someone with whom to share life. Ecclesiastes says, “Two are better than one,” because when one falls, the other can help them up (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10). It goes on to speak of warmth, help, and strength when two stand together (Ecclesiastes 4:11–12). That is a beautiful picture of what marriage should be: two people walking through life together, helping one another when one is weak, sharing burdens, encouraging each other, and standing side by side through whatever life brings.
God’s standards for marriage are meant to protect that shared life. Faithfulness and honesty build trust. Kindness makes it possible to be close without always bracing for the next sharp word, and self-control keeps anger from tearing down what love has built. Forgiveness gives a marriage room to move beyond the wrongs that have been done. God instituted marriage, and His Word shows us how to care for it.
On a personal note, I do not think we can afford to take the things of God less seriously than we take any other matter in life. We give tremendous thought, time, and energy to our work, our finances, our plans, and all the responsibilities that press upon us every day. Yet none of those things reaches as deeply into who we are becoming as our response to God and His Word. What we take seriously eventually shapes us. If God’s Word truly has the highest place in our lives, it should be seen not only in what we believe, but in the way we love, forgive, speak, and treat the people He has placed closest to us.
Sharing a life with someone also means taking responsibility for the part we bring to it. One of the easiest things to do when a marriage is hurting is to become very clear about everything our spouse needs to change. We can see their faults, their habits, and the ways they have disappointed us far more easily than we see our own. But God’s Word gives us a mirror before it gives us a measuring stick. Before I ask whether my spouse is doing what God expects, I need to ask whether I am.
Scripture speaks very plainly to husbands: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). That should make every husband stop and examine himself. Does my wife actually experience my love in the way I listen to her, speak to her, care for her, and consider what she needs? Peter also tells husbands to live with their wives with consideration and to treat them with respect (1 Peter 3:7). A husband’s love should be more than something he claims. His wife should be able to see it in the way he treats her.
Wives are also called to examine the part they bring to the marriage. Paul says that “the wife must respect her husband”(Ephesians 5:33). That does not mean being silent, having no voice, or simply agreeing with everything he does. A wife is meant to be a companion, helper, and partner who brings strength, wisdom, encouragement, and honest counsel into the life she shares with her husband. She should be able to ask herself: Do I speak to him with respect? Do I encourage what is good in him? Does he experience me as someone who strengthens him, or has criticism become what he hears from me most?
Neither husband nor wife gets to measure their own faithfulness by the failures of the other. God still calls each of us to humility, patience, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, especially toward the person with whom we share our life. Paul wrote, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2), and “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Before I focus on what my spouse should be doing differently, I need to ask, “What does God expect of me?” If these qualities belong anywhere, they should be seen first in our own home.
One of the clearest tests of our character is how we treat the people closest to us. We can be patient with a friend, encouraging at fellowship, pleasant with a stranger, and careful with our words at work. Then we come home tired or frustrated, and somehow the person we love most can end up getting the impatience, criticism, sarcasm, silence, or indifference that everyone else was spared. Marriage has a way of revealing whether the kindness and patience we show in public are also part of who we are at home.
If your spouse were asked privately what it is like to be married to you, what would they say? Would they describe you as patient, attentive, and easy to talk to, or would they speak of impatience, defensiveness, criticism, or distance? Marriage brings us close enough to another person that very little about us stays hidden for long. Sometimes the person who knows us best can see things in us that we have stopped seeing ourselves.
There are seasons in a marriage when closeness does not come easily. Life can get hard, hurts can build up, and two people who once felt deeply connected may begin wondering what happened between them. The feelings that once came so naturally may not be as strong, and that can be unsettling if we begin to think love is something we either feel or have somehow lost.
But biblical love is more than a feeling. We can make the mistake of waiting to feel close again before we start doing the things that help bring closeness back. We may need to listen while we are still hurt, make time for each other while conversation still feels awkward, or choose kindness before it comes naturally. That is not pretending. It is choosing not to let our feelings decide how we treat the person we share our life with. Sometimes the heart begins to follow what love has already chosen to do.
Hurt that is not dealt with has a way of piling up. A careless comment, a decision made without the other person, or something said in anger may be forgiven in words but still carried into the next disagreement. Before long, we can find ourselves keeping a mental record of wrongs. Paul says that love “keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5). Some marriages are still paying interest on old debts because yesterday’s failures keep getting dragged into today’s problems. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that serious wrongs never happened or that trust has already been restored. It means refusing to keep using the past as a weapon.
It is often taught that adultery is the only biblical reason for divorce, but Scripture is broader than that (Exodus 21:10–11; 1 Corinthians 7:15). Adultery is not the lone ‘key’ to a door leading out of marriage. God never intended divorce to be the answer simply because a marriage is difficult, disappointing, emotionally distant, or going through a painful season. His desire is that husband and wife seek change, forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation wherever that is genuinely possible. But an abusive marriage is something very different—where there is serious or persistent physical or psychological abuse, coercion, threats, or a deliberate failure to provide the basic care and protection through which marital love is expressed. God’s design for marriage does not require anyone to endure serious abuse, coercion, or danger.
Much of the care a marriage needs, however, happens in very ordinary moments. It may be an apology that ends before the excuse begins, putting down the phone when your spouse starts talking, or saying thank you for something they have done so faithfully that you barely notice it anymore. It can be making time to pray together, laugh together, or simply have a conversation that is not rushed by everything else going on. Those things may seem small, but they are part of how we keep reminding each other, “You still matter to me.”
Even a strong marriage will have disagreements. Put two imperfect people together long enough and there are going to be times when they do not see things the same way. The real question is what we do when that happens. Can we listen without immediately defending ourselves? Can we speak honestly without becoming hurtful? Can we care more about solving the problem than proving we are right? A marriage begins to suffer when husband and wife stop seeing themselves as two people facing a problem together and start seeing each other as the problem.
Caring for a marriage also means being honest when something is not working. Sometimes that means asking for help instead of pretending everything is fine. Trust can be rebuilt, but usually not by words alone. It takes changed behavior, consistency, and time. If something in the marriage needs attention, we have to be willing to face it rather than keep pushing it aside. Healing begins when both people are willing to acknowledge what is wrong and do their part to address it.
So after all these years, what is your marriage becoming? If it is strong, protect what you have built. Do not assume affection, trust, and closeness will simply take care of themselves. Keep learning about each other. Make time for one another. Say the things you may have started assuming your spouse already knows. A strong marriage deserves care before it ever needs repair.
If your marriage is struggling, do not assume that hurt, distance, or repeated conflict means there is nothing left to save. But do not assume things will somehow fix themselves either. Sometimes the first step is simply being honest enough to say, “We are not doing well, and something needs to change.” That conversation may be difficult, but avoiding it usually gives the distance more room to grow. Change often begins when husband and wife stop minimizing what is wrong and are willing to face it honestly.
If you are reading this and wondering whether there is anything left worth holding on to, do not let years of disappointment answer that question for you before you have honestly brought your marriage before God. I believe it grieves God’s heart to see two of His children, who love Him and once made a commitment to walk through life together, become divided from one another. Marriage matters to Him because the people in it matter to Him. He is not indifferent to the distance that can grow between a husband and wife or to the pain that can settle into a home. Before deciding what comes next, seek Him. Ask Him to show you what needs to change, what obedience requires of you, and what His way forward is. The question cannot simply be, “What do I want?” or even, “What seems right to me?” It must be, “What does God want?”
Time alone will not repair a marriage. Someone may need to speak first, apologize, ask for help, or change the way they have been responding. But no one can rebuild a marriage alone. We cannot make another person listen, forgive, love, or change. God has given each of us freedom of will. He can give us wisdom, strength, and courage to do what is right, but restoration requires both husband and wife to participate. We cannot carry our spouse’s responsibility, but we are accountable for our own—for the way we speak, the attitudes we allow to grow, the love we show, and the choices we make.
Whatever condition your marriage is in today, the years behind you cannot be rewritten. But what you bring to your marriage from this point forward is still yours to choose. You can listen more carefully, speak more kindly, acknowledge what you need to change, and take seriously the part God has given you to fulfill. When we truly love God, His way—not ours—must be paramount.
You chose one another then. After all these years, keep choosing one another now.
In His Love,
