Marriage Encounter

This is a public service announcement...

Anyone who has been married for a few years should look into this. My husband and I had been married for 7 years and attended Marriage Encounter. It totally changed our marriage.

We went from constantly misunderstanding one another and arguing to having a relationship again. It taught us to forgive and to communicate with one another, to respect the qualities we love about one another and compromise on the small things, to know that as long as we both know that our greatest and best advocate is one another...

Over time, I realized I could apply Marriage Encounter to ALL the relationships in my life. No one is perfect. I certainly am not. Because I am not perfect, I don't have the right to expect perfection from my spouse. My job is simply to love him and support him. That doesn't mean I want him to always agree with me. I simply want him to acknowledge my feelings and the fact that I am entitled to feel like I do. Sometimes he will be wrong. Sometimes I will be wrong. The blessing is in being able to explain it so that your spouse understands the hurt and mourns that hurt with you. In the same way, sharing the joys is an even greater blessing when you can clearly explain how joyful you truly felt.

1 Corinthians 7:4
The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

Ephesians 5:28-34
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.