Divorce-Proofing Your Marriage

No matter how challenging your marriage is, you can find help. Discover potential marriage separators, and do what you can to avoid them in your relationship.

Mark 10:2–10 ESV² And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ³ He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” ⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, ⁸ and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ¹⁰ And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.Mark 10:2-10

#1. Developing Disconnect

• The more you get used to one another, the easier it is to take the marriage for granted.
• If there are forces trying to separate your marriage, you must apply effort to keep it intact.
• The strongest marriages are those  characterized by continual intentionality.

#2. Unmet Needs

• Differentiate between unmet expectations, unrealistic expectations, and unknown expectations.
• If you have a reasonable need that can be met in your marriage, communicate it clearly and wait for it patiently.
• The goal of marriage is to glorify God by meeting your spouse’s needs.

#3. Reordered Relationships

• You cannot keep a healthy marriage relationship if any other relationship is viewed as a threat.
• We all need family and friends, but we must maintain those relationships in the proper position.
• If any relationship is not supportive of your marriage, you cannot continue close proximity to that person.
• A marriage might be in trouble when someone knows something significant about you that your spouse doesn’t know.

#4. Stressful Schedule

• Work – Don’t fool yourself by saying that your provision negates the importance of your presence.
• Busyness – Your schedule needs to be reprioritized if the one who deserves your best often gets your worst.
• Hobby – A good thing can become a bad thing when it becomes the one thing to the neglect of the essential things.

#5. Immoral Issues

• Sometimes the most dangerous nuisances in your marriage are not the ones that are the most glaringly obvious.
• Sin separates your relationship with your God and your spouse.
• The greatest gift you can ever give your spouse is your increasing holiness.

#6. Unavoidable Hardships

• As you adjust through life, you must value your commitment over your compatibility.
• The strongest couples are the ones who refuse to allow the hardships that come against their marriage to come in between their marriage.
• Give allowance to one another to be in the pit but don’t allow one another to stay there.

What is the greatest threat to your marriage right now, and what are you doing to combat it?