Marriage Advice You Shouldn’t Ignore

Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. – Proverbs 8:33

Are you better at giving advice or taking it? I have to admit that I am more likely to dole out (extremely helpful) advice to others than I am to receive and apply their counsel to my own life. La Rochefoucauld was right: “It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.”

A Case for Counsel

Nevertheless, the benefit of seeking and applying wise counsel is clearly taught in Scripture. Proverbs 15:22 explains that “Without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisers, they succeed.” The truth in this verse is obvious enough to be considered common sense. You likely grasped the concept intuitively even before you read about it in the Bible. Whether or not you have approached life based on the guidance your intuitive wisdom is another story.

If Scripture and common sense aren’t enough to verify this truth, life experience drives the lesson home with devastating clarity. You’ve probably had experiences in which you either benefited from following the counsel of others or suffered as a result of neglecting to do so.

Have you ever charged ahead blindly on a project, assuming you knew all you needed to know and ignoring the advice of those around you? How did that work out for you? The authoritative teaching of scripture confirms what we perceive intuitively and experience in reality: Good counsel adds insight to our perspective and helps us prosper if we follow it.

Shared Wisdom

As a licensed therapist, I am called on to provide people with more than just good advice. I work with clients to develop effective treatment plans and employ the latest research and techniques in the field to achieve optimal outcomes in addressing a variety of mental/emotional challenges.

However, I have found that within the structured context of professional therapy, there is still room for good old-fashioned collective wisdom to play a role. For many centuries, moral lessons and virtues were passed down through the generations using stories and oral traditions.

The benefits of this teaching style are at least twofold: First, oral traditions can be easily committed to memory and shared with anyone, regardless of their level of education or social status. Second, oral traditions allow future generations to profit from lessons learned in the past.

One practice I have adopted in couples counseling is to gather insights about the factors that lead to a stronger, healthier marriage from couples who have been married for a significant amount of time.

Some of these couples have struggled through adversity and weathered storms together, strengthening their bond and commitment to one another. It is always inspiring to see how these couples have turned heartbreaking trials and conflict into vital lessons for positive growth.

I then take these gathered insights and share them with my younger couples, many of whom are either newly married or approaching marriage. I call this list “Wisdom for Marriage from Those Who Know.”

It has been fascinating to observe how the hard-earned advice of my seasoned couples speaks invaluable practical truth into the lives of my younger couples. The wisdom shared is profound, and yet so simple and approachable that it is easily grasped and memorized.

Marriage Advice: 5 Helpful Insights

In this article, I want to share five of the insights from my “Wisdom for Marriage” list along with brief descriptions of the potential benefits of following them as well as the potential risks of ignoring them. My hope is that some of the wisdom in these insights will prove helpful to your marriage. That is, of course, if you’re willing to take marriage advice.

1. Keep learning about each other Remember when you first started dating your partner? You savored the opportunity to learn about what makes him or her tick. You went to great lengths to discover his or her likes, dislikes, hopes, and fears. You wanted to become an expert on your beloved. Unfortunately, the charm of learning new things about one another tends to fade over time as you settle into the routines of life.

Benefits of following this advice:

If you make it a point to see your partner as fascinating and dynamic, you will cherish your marriage as a lifelong adventure. If you realize that you could never exhaust all there is to learn about your spouse, you will find yourself on a romantic expedition yielding treasures over every horizon.

The couple who learns about one another is interested in one another. If you continue to learn about each other, you will continue to want to know each other more intimately.

Risks of ignoring this advice:

If you stop discovering new things about each other, you may come to view your marriage as dull and lifeless. It may seem to you as though there is nothing left to talk about, and that you have already learned all there is to know about one another.

You may even come to resent your spouse for not being more interesting to you. In a worst-case scenario, you might look outside the marriage for people who interest and excite you the way your spouse used to.

2. Support one another’s passions and dreams

All of us have dreams. Whether you dream of becoming a CEO of a major corporation or learning to ride a bike, your dreams are some of the most precious and closely-guarded parts of yourself. It is so affirming to finally find another person who values, honors, and supports your dreams!

Similarly, the things you are gifted in and passionate about are your unique offerings to the world. It is vitally important to have the support and appreciation of your spouse in these areas, even if their own passions and dreams are dramatically different.

Benefits of following this advice:

If you support your spouse’s dreams and passions, you put your emphatic stamp of approval on his or her value as a unique individual. It’s like saying, “I like what you bring to the table”, and “Your goals are important and worthwhile.” This leads to increased mutual respect, admiration, and high regard for one another.

By stepping outside of your own particular interests to show support, you demonstrate meaningful love and devotion to your beloved. Your spouse’s dreams and passions reflect his or her meaning in life. By supporting them, you validate your spouse’s deepest callings, longings, and motivations.

Risks of ignoring this advice:

You don’t have to agree with or share your partner’s dreams to support them, but if you act disinterested in their passions and dreams, you could communicate an unintended rejection of them as a unique individual. Telling your passions and dreams to another is to be vulnerable, and you only expose ourselves that way with those who feel safe to you.

If you fail to show interest and support for your spouse’s passions and dreams, you risk damaging the trust they placed in you by opening up in the first place. You risk revealing yourself to be unsafe.

3. Celebrate your marriage and each other

Did your parents make a big deal out of your birthdays when you were young? I hope so! If they did, they were trying to communicate something important to your young heart and mind: “You matter.”

Low self-esteem and low regard for marriage are both endemic in our society today. Celebrating your marriage shouldn’t end at your wedding. Also, marriage itself provides many unique opportunities for spouses to celebrate one another as people who matter.

Benefits of following this advice:

If you make it a point to celebrate your marriage, it will become clear that your marriage is worth celebrating, and marriage will be more enjoyable as a result. Of course, there are many times in life when marriage is not easy or fun, but these times only make celebration sweeter and more meaningful.

Farmers celebrate at an abundant harvest because of the drought they had to endure in prior years. Soldiers celebrate peace because the battle was so brutal. Athletes celebrate victory because it took every ounce of their strength.

Celebrate marriage because it requires all of you (as well as making you painfully aware of your absolute dependence on God). And yes, because it is often very hard. Nothing worth celebrating comes without a fight.

Similarly, if you celebrate one another, you will constantly be reminding each other what magnificent, glorious reflectors of the Divine Image you were created to be. You will make it nearly impossible for your spouse to feel insignificant.

Risks of ignoring this advice:

If you don’t regularly find ways to celebrate your marriage (special anniversaries, unique rituals, festive traditions, etc.), it could potentially come to feel oppressive and burdensome. Marriage takes effort and self-denial, both of which are taxing and demanding.

Celebration is a declaration that the sacrificial love required for marriage is donated freely and motivated by joy. If you don’t celebrate marriage, you reduce it to mere duty and obligation. You are bound to your spouse before God, but if you don’t celebrate your marriage it can feel like slavery rather than voluntary participation in one of God’s great callings.

Similarly, if you don’t celebrate each other you risk falling into the trap of self-focus and pride. Over time, you may start to view your spouse as less worthy of affirmation than yourself, which leads to a false sense of grandiosity that is fatal to intimacy.

4. Be willing to overlook small faults in each other

In marriage, it is important not to make mountains out of molehills when it comes to faults you notice in each other. Realize that you will find things about each other than bother you. You will notice legitimate character flaws in one another over time.

There are enough forces working against you in marriage without calling attention to every little defect in one another. Couples who learn to minimize one another’s negative qualities and maximize one another’s positive qualities tend to last longer in marriage and enjoy higher relational intimacy.

Benefits of following this advice:

If you overlook small faults in your partner, you will spend less time thinking negatively about him or her. You will approach one another with a spirit of acceptance rather than a spirit of criticism. You will learn to see the best in each other and constantly be on the lookout for things to admire and cherish about one another.

Your attitude toward marriage will be more optimistic as you deliberately focus on the positive in your spouse. You will also become a more humble and grateful person as you let your partner’s small faults and mistakes go without causing a scene. And as an added bonus, your partner will be more likely to overlook your many faults as well.

Risks of ignoring this advice:

If you pounce on every fault in your partner as you notice them, you will create a hostile environment within your marriage. You make your spouse “walk on eggshells” around you, constantly in fear of making a mistake and being immediately condemned. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t lovingly confront your spouse with the truth if there is a significant ongoing issue they are struggling with.

This advice refers to the many small ways we all slip up every day. If you can’t overlook your partner occasionally stepping on your toes, how can you expect to endure the substantial challenges that marriage will present?

5. Practice your faith together

Finally, Christian couples cannot expect to benefit from God’s full power and plan for marriage without engaging in the shared practice of their faith. Each partner certainly needs his or her own personal faith to begin with, but in marriage “the two become one” in every possible way, including their journey of faith.

Benefits of following this advice:

If you take the time to practice your Christian faith together through prayer, study, worship, fellowship, service, and other disciplines, you and your spouse will serve to “sharpen” one another (Proverbs 27:17) in your faith.

Not only that, but your marriage itself will be strengthened, like the “cord of three strands” described in Ecclesiastes 4:12. The practical way to weave your two strands together with God at the center is to practice your faith together regularly.

Risks of ignoring this advice:

If you neglect to practice your faith together with your spouse, you run the risk of creating distance between the two of you in the one area that is supposed to unite all of us as believers, namely, our love for God and one another (Colossians 3:14).

For example, many times one partner will pursue the growth of his or her faith more fervently than the other. Unless efforts are made to mutually pursue spiritual growth, a spirit of resentment, envy, shame, or pride can find its way into your marriage and corrupt your relationship from the inside.

The Next Step

If any of the marriage advice in this article has made you think about ways you could grow or improve in your own marriage, professional counseling is a great way to take the next step. In Christian marriage counseling, you can gain a deeper understanding of your spouse and the dynamics of your relationship, which in turn can help bring you closer to the flourishing marriage God designed for you. If that idea appeals to you, don’t hesitate to reach out to me or another Christian counselor on this site today to get the process started.