Adjustments in Marriage

Marriage provides multiple opportunities to make adjustments in a person's life. Changes will always happen, it can be changed in the growth of children, moving, a new job, or even an illness. When circumstances change, the couple will have to make adjustments to keep the marriage on the right track. In reality, being two imperfect people building a life together requires both of you to make adjustments over the years. 

Growing marriages will always demonstrate the ability to adjust to one another. And the key, really, is not to be selfish. Learning to be less selfish is one of life's greatest lessons, and perhaps one of the greatest lessons God wants to teach us throughout married life. 

During the marriage and during the love relationship, we must think about what our partner needs most. The Bible says: “Do not look after your own interests alone, but also seek to take an interest in others.” (Philippians 2:4). Unfortunately, many times, the longer people stay married, the less often they begin to think about their spouse's needs. The Bible says that we should care about the needs of others more than our own; that is particularly true about our homes.

To adjust to the spouse, we must submit to each other. That simply means giving up what you really want to meet your partner's needs. Ephesians 5:21 says, "Submit to one another in the fear of God." Some men think that their wife is the one who should adjust to their lives and needs because they are the leader of the house. But being that leader means that husbands must lead the people in their house on the right path, right to their wife.

Making adjustments to the little things will help keep your marriage unbreakable. This may mean arriving a little later or leaving a place a little earlier; perhaps it means going to bed a little earlier or a little later; maybe it's going to see the movie or go to the restaurant that your partner wants to go to. Maybe it's listening when your partner needs to be heard and not just when you want to listen. It is in those small daily actions to adjust and meet the needs of the other that genuine love is expressed. 

The proof of love for your spouse is not in what you say about love, it is in how you show that love. Treat your partner as Jesus Christ would. If you make that one decision, your view of marriage will change completely. 

The definition of mature love is treating the other person as Jesus would. Jesus is our best example when it comes to love. "By this, we have known love, that he laid down his life for us" (I John 3:16). People who are married will spend the rest of their lives and eternity together so if they try to see their spouse in the same way that Christ does, their married life will be incalculably better, lasting, and eternal.