Does God want me to stay in a loveless marriage?
A loveless marriage is not a marriage in the first place. By definition, marriage only exists when there is love. When God formed marriage, He ordained love to be the glue that holds the husband and the wife together.
But then what should people in a loveless marriage do? What does God have to say about a loveless marriage?
Before I get into discussing what God says about a loveless marriage, it is important to help you understand the concept of marriage and why God created it.
It is only when you understand why God created marriage that you will be able to understand how to deal with a loveless marriage.
Some of the issues I’ll talk about may be painful to accept but if you really want to find help, you have to face the bitter truth.
Does God want Me to Stay in a Loveless Marriage?
God’s Intention for Introducing Marriage
When God came up with the concept of marriage, He wanted a man and a woman to enjoy fellowship. It was never in God’s mind for marriage to be stressful.
But then when Adam and Eve sinned against God and were driven from His presence, everything became hard; marriage included.
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To this day, preserving love in a marriage is difficult. It takes a lot of work to have a working marriage.
Marriage is a physical representation of the love that Jesus has for the church. This is why a marriage can only exist when there is love.
But then love requires sacrifice. Jesus had to sacrifice His own life to save the church. For the marriage between Jesus and the church to survive, Jesus had to shed His blood.
That is the spiritual marriage. For physical marriages, the husband must be ready to lay down his life to make sure that his marriage stands.
Husbands represent Jesus in physical marriages. Just as Jesus worked hard to establish His marriage with the church, husbands need to work hard to establish their marriages with their wives.
Wives are expected to help their husbands in building the marriage just as the church also has to carry its cross and follow Jesus.
As a good wife, a woman must be ready to sacrifice a lot to ensure her marriage stands.
Even though marriage seems like an endless struggle, it is meant to be fun. The intimacy that a husband and a wife share is worth the work of establishing the union.
Since marriage is made in the pattern of the love that Jesus has for the church, it can only work if the pattern is followed. Drifting from the pattern God ordained for marriage is a sure way to break a marriage.
How a Loveless Marriage Forms
Now that you know God ordained marriage to be enjoyed, it is important to know how a loveless marriage forms.
It is obvious that God doesn’t want any of His children to suffer in a loveless marriage. Love is beautiful.
A marriage becomes loveless when the pattern of Christ is not followed. There is only one way to love and Jesus made it clear to us.
Jesus said there is no greater love than for a friend to lay down his life for his friends. In short, the only way to love is by sacrificing; the deeper the love, the greater the sacrifice.
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All loveless marriages become loveless because either one or both the partners have stopped sacrificing. We all agree that sacrificing is not easy but then for a marriage to stand, each of the partners must independently choose to sacrifice.
Every one of us has weaknesses. We are all in the journey of being perfected by the Holy Spirit. This means that in every marriage, there are annoying behaviors that must be tolerated.
No partner is perfect. The best you can get is a partner whose weaknesses you can tolerate. Different people can tolerate different bad behaviors.
Anytime one of the partners in a marriage reduces their level of sacrificing, the other partner has to sacrifice more to keep the marriage stable.
If the level of sacrifice is insufficient, the marriage will go down.
How to Fix a Loveless Marriage
If you want to fix a loveless marriage, you have to accept the fact that you may put in all effort and do everything right but still fail to save your marriage.
Saving a marriage is always a combined effort. But one person can go an extra mile to save the marriage even if the other is not working as hard.
Here are the steps that you can follow to fix a loveless marriage:
1. Identify the main cause of Conflict
There are many actions that cause a marriage to become loveless but of course all of them point to one problem; insufficient sacrifice.
Analyze your marriage and see which area is not receiving sufficient sacrifice. Are you straining financially? Is it insufficient intimate time? Is it the sharing of responsibilities in the house?
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It may seem as if all these issues are the problem but then only one of them is the cause of the loss of love in your marriage.
2. Find a Suitable Way to Sacrifice More in the Area of Conflict
Once you identify the main cause of conflict, decide as an individual to take more sacrifice in that area. Your partner may not be as interested in taking the sacrifice as you but then if you want to save your marriage, you have to take the sacrifice.
If your marriage is straining financially, you can go out of your way to find ways to stabilize the financial situation without involving your partner.
If the problem is insufficient intimate time, spend your time learning how you can reignite the intimacy you once had with your partner.
As I said earlier, marriage requires constant sacrifice. You may feel the sacrifice is not worth it but then any sacrifice taken for genuine love is always worth it.
Remember Jesus paid for salvation with His life yet there are people who still reject His love and perish. It is painful for Jesus to see people perish after the heavy price He paid but then Jesus has peace because He knows He gave His best.
You may do all the sacrificing but still lose your marriage. Even if that is the case, trust me you will walk away from that marriage a peaceful person knowing that you did your best and God will reward you for the effort you put in to save your marriage.
God rewarded Jesus for the sacrifice He made to save men even though most men end up in hell.
3. Set a Period of Sacrifice
When Jesus, who is the bridegroom of the church, was working to save men, He did it for a period of about thirty three years. Whoever didn’t listen to Jesus within those thirty three years was left to hear the gospel from the Disciples of Christ.
Whoever does not turn to Jesus within the period he has on earth, he ends up in hell. As much as Jesus loves, there is a time limit to when a person can experience His love.
Likewise, when you set yourself to sacrifice and save your marriage, choose a suitable amount of time. Set yourself to tolerate the pain you will experience within the given time period. If the period elapses when love is yet to be restored in your marriage, you can quit.
The Bible in the book of Ecclesiastes agrees that there is time to search and time to give up. But before you give up, make sure you have given love a good chance.
Conclusion
God never created you to stay in a loveless marriage. We end up in loveless marriages because of our foolishness and ignorance.
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However, being in a loveless marriage doesn’t mean all hope is lost. You still have a chance to turn things around.
If you fail to save your marriage, remember there is time to search and time to give up.
May God guide you!