How Badly do I Want My Marriage to Work?

by Aleta Kay

To continue from yesterday, how was I going to fix my marriage if Tom didn’t care? I needed help. I talked to Tom about marriage counseling. He said he didn’t have a problem; he wasn’t going. If I thought I needed help, go for it. I found a Christian counselor who was willing to work with our finances. He recommended a book by Frank Minirth and Paul Meier called, “Happiness is a Choice.”  I had to learn to like myself, the person I was, my character. I also dove into a book by Evelyn Christensen called, “Lord, Change Me.”  These two books helped me to see myself and how I treated other people. I had thought I was a “good” or “nice” person. Maybe so, but there was a lot of room for improvement.

One of the things that the Lord drilled into my head was repeated in four different verses in Proverbs: Proverbs 12: 4; 19:13; 21:9, 19. They say that a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but she that makes ashamed as is rottenness in his bones, and that it is better for a man to dwell in the corner of a rooftop than in a wide house with a brawling woman. I wanted to be a virtuous woman. I couldn’t change my husband. The only person I could change was me. I asked the Lord to make me the kind of wife Tom needed.

I read Proverbs 31:10 through the end of the chapter, I Peter 3:1-6, I Corinthians 13:4-8a, and Colossians chapter 3. I began taking Tom a cup of coffee in bed every morning. I gave my temper to the Lord and asked him to replace it with his peace and joy. It took three years to convince Tom that this time I really had changed. I didn’t demand anything from him, neither did I deny him anything. I was not going to give him any reason to look elsewhere for what he should only be getting from me. Slowly he began to tear down the wall he had built around his heart. He learned to trust and love me again. What joy! We have been married thirty eight years and are happier now than we could ever have imagined. Praise the Lord!