Save Your Marriage – Challenges to Commitment
Modern couples have a whirlwind of duties to juggle: they may work full-time, have children to raise, and have social commitments to community service organizations, committees, or clubs. By the time you throw in commitments to family, social engagements with friends, personal hobbies, gym time, and the rest, there is very little time for one another and your marriage life suffers.
Saving your Marriage – Here are some commitments that test a marriage relationship:
Workaholism: This occurs when overtime, job commitments, travel, and pressure make the work relationship (rather than the marital relationship) the primary identity-giving relationship in a person’s life, giving them their chief sense of satisfaction and purpose. If you would rather be at work than at home, or spend your leisure time with your workmates rather than your spouse, your marriage is on rocky terrain.
Children: As much joy and pleasure children can bring to a marriage, they also test the marital bonds by creating stressful situations. Children can pit parent against parent. Their behavior can cause a tense family environment that neither partner wants to come home to. The child-rearing years can also be dangerous for couples because the focus switches from the pleasure of being a couple and marriage intimacy to raising the children.
Other people: Usually a needy friend, parent, or family member, who requires large amounts of one partner’s time. This often occurs when parents of one or both spouses are getting older and in need of extra assistance. Marriage problems may occur if spouses let anyone get between them.
Any crisis where one partner is completely responsible for the resolution of the problem, with no input or assistance from the other partner. If a married couple distinguishes between “your” problem and “my” problem, they eliminate the crucial sense of teamwork that keeps a marriage together. If you are facing a crisis–even if it’s yours alone–you must involve your spouse.
Addictions: An addiction occurs when a person spends all their time at one thing and uses it to avoid facing real-world commitments and duties. For example, your spouse may spend all of his or her spare time at the bar, on the computer, or in the garage tinkering. These activities are not a problem until they become an escape mechanism to avoid spending time with you or engaging in conversation.
