Mark & Mary Alice

Another Question from Love Songs:

What, with your experience with couples, do you feel is the most important key to a long happy marriage?

Unconditional love.

Long marriages are not always happy. This is a reality because life is not always happy. Living life as partners means you love on the good days and you love on the not-so-good days. You love when you don’t “feel like” loving. You love when your love is not reciprocated. You love when the future looks good and you love when it looks like there is no future.

It’s no accident that the marriage vows are about promising unconditional love. For the last several years, Mark has been using marriage vows based on 1 Corinthians 13. He wrote these vows for a special ceremony at NewSpring that took place back in 2004. Over 30 couples were on the platform as we recited these vows to our spouses in chorus. Since that day, almost every couple Mark has married has requested these vows. If you read 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Living Translation, you’ll recognize these words.

By the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, I will be patient and kind to you. Because I love you, I won’t demand my own way, or hold past faults against you. I will be loyal to you, always faithful from my heart. I will always believe the best about you. I will always defend you. My love for you will never end.

One of the questions that came in during the Love Songs series:

You said we as women are called to respect! Your husband is a godly man following biblical values! But you as the women find it hard to show respect! How?

First of all, we women need to remember that our “nature” is not to respect, it is to control (see Genesis 3). One of the first strategies to gain control, is to assume a superior position. I believe that is why so many women systematically dismantle their husband’s self-esteem. She is quick to point out each of his faults and failures and trumpet her own successes. A woman may say — even to herself — that she is providing constructive criticism to make her husband and their marriage better, but in reality this behavior is very destructive to both.

Back to the question, “How do you respect?” My answer would be that you choose to respect. Make a decision to stop looking for faults, stop all criticism (contructive or not) and start building up each attribute or action you see in your husband that you admire. Look hard for every positive thing and express admiration and gratitude sincerely and often.

Mary Alice