When marriages hit rough spots, the men and women in them need wise and informed help. Through personal experience, Joe and Michelle Williams have learned what works and what doesn't in the tough times of marriage. Having experienced several divorces each before becoming Christians, Joe and Michelle write with insight and authority that can't be denied. Includes a Temperament test and survey to help readers evaluate their marriage, questions for self-evaluation, and group- or support-partner discussion questions.
Yes, YOUR MARRIAGE CAN BE SAVED
12 Truths for Rescuing your RelationshipBy JOE WILLIAMS MICHELLE WILLIAMSTyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2007 Joe and Michelle Williams
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-58997-381-7Contents
Introduction.......................................................11. Prayer and Church Attendance Are Not Enough.....................72. You Need to Build a Safe Support System.........................173. God Will Answer Your Prayers, His Way...........................314. Identify Secret Motives.........................................495. Spouses May Change After Marriage...............................656. Anger Can Be Handled God's Way..................................877. Even Little White Lies Are Big Trouble..........................1098. You Can Develop Healthy Boundaries..............................1339. Make Changes-Even with an Unwilling Spouse......................15710. Listen to the Right Counsel....................................17911. Battle Outside Opposition......................................19912. Reconciling-God's Way..........................................219Notes..............................................................231
Chapter One
Prayer and Church Attendance Are Not Enough
Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. -John 4:13-14, NASB
We've just celebrated our 25th year of marriage. Our five children and ten grandchildren celebrated with us. We have so much to be thankful for: the joy we feel serving side by side in ministry; the comfort of knowing that no matter how upset we might get with each other, we will never threaten separation or divorce; and, most important, the mutual love we share for one another with Christ as the center of our marriage. We are best friends and we have fun together-but it hasn't always been that way.
* * *
When Michelle and I married in January 1982, neither of us thought it was necessary to seek premarital counseling. We thought the mistakes from our past marriages and divorces would equip us for dealing with anything we might encounter in our relationship. But it turned out that being a stepdad to Michelle's three daughters (two of them teenagers) was more difficult than I ever could have imagined. In fact, Michelle and I were married less than a month when we had our first big argument over parenting issues. I walked out the door of our house and into a local bar and returned home after having more than a few drinks. Neither Michelle nor I discussed the incident for fear of starting the argument all over again. Instead, we buried it-a bad habit we continued for years to come.
Soon after we married, Michelle got pregnant, and we thought having a child together might help our marriage. We were wrong. Not only did our troubles continue, but we separated for three months when our son, Mick, was less than a year old. When we got back together, we made a promise not to separate again and things seemed great between us. But our "honeymoon period" was short-lived, and soon we were right back to our same old pattern: arguing and making up, but never resolving anything. I would often go to a bar and drink too much when we argued, and this destructive cycle continued for about three years. Then, one night after going to a bar, I returned home to find that Michelle and the kids were gone. When I located them at her mom's house the next day, she said she wasn't coming home unless I moved out. I tried to get her to change her mind, but she was adamant. So, I decided to pack a few things and go to my hometown of Santa Maria, California, to stay with family and wait for Michelle to cool off so we could work on getting back together.
* * *
I (Michelle) was so fed up with our arguments and Joe's drinking that I was relieved when he went to Santa Maria. I started living as if I were single again and refused to talk to him each time he called. Then, a few weeks later, I ran into an old high school friend, and she invited me to attend church with her. Joe and I had taken the kids to church a few times, but had never attended regularly. I accepted her invitation, and even though I didn't give up my "single" lifestyle, I started going to church every week.
One Sunday morning a few weeks later, the pastor invited people to the altar who wanted to receive Christ. The pastor also explained the importance of Christians who had been living outside of God's will to rededicate their lives to Him. I knew God was speaking to my heart and telling me to change my ways once and for all. Although I had prayed to receive Christ and was baptized in 1975 during a week-long Christian crusade, I never got involved in a church or studied the Bible. As a result, my relationship with the Lord didn't grow, and I continued to look for significance from the love of men rather than God. That Sunday I repented of my ways and prayed to rededicate my life to God. The woman I prayed with encouraged me to attend a weekly class on the foundations of the Christian faith.
Not long afterward, Joe called from Santa Maria. "Michelle," he said, "I miss you and the kids. I want you to sell our business and move here to Santa Maria with me."
"You've got to be kidding!" I told him. "I'll never do that. There's no way I'm going to live with you again. I know you're still drinking when you get angry, and I'm not going to walk on eggshells in my own home. If you miss the kids, then you can move back here, but I'm not moving six hours away." I concluded the conversation with the big clincher: "Besides, I've started attending church regularly, and I've found out that we are 'unequally yoked.' So, I don't have to reconcile with you."
Unequally yoked was a term someone shared with me from the passage in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about Christians not partnering with unbelievers, and I was happy to misuse it as biblical confirmation that I didn't have to reconcile with Joe. Even though I had stopped dating other men and made a recommitment to follow Jesus, I was still doing things my way rather than God's, and I was determined to live life without Joe. I enjoyed the peace in our home now that we were apart.
Joe was pretty frustrated when we hung up, but a week or so later, he came back to Modesto and moved in with one of his friends. The following Sunday he showed up at the same church I was now attending. When the pastor gave the invitation to receive Christ, Joe walked forward. He's just trying to trick me into going back with him by pretending to become a Christian, I thought angrily.
* * *
I (Joe) didn't want another divorce and hoped to save our marriage by moving back to Modesto. My parents went through a bitter divorce when I was young, and my dad never modeled how to be a godly husband or father. It seemed I was following in his footsteps. When I relocated to Modesto prior to meeting Michelle, my son Jason, from my first marriage, was a teenager. After Michelle and I got married, I saw Jason only a couple of times a year and, as a result, I was not the dad he needed me to be. I knew that if I didn't start living life differently, the same thing was going to happen in my relationship with my son Mick.
When I walked forward to receive Christ that Sunday, I meant it. I made a commitment to change and I wanted to become a godly husband and father. The following week, I went to the same foundations class Michelle was attending, but that made her angry.
"Joe, this is my church! Get your own," she said one night. She even refused to use my last name and, instead, used her middle name. She also sat across the room in the foundations class and acted as if she didn't even know me. Regardless of her reactions, I continued to show up at church and attend the class. I was baptized a few weeks later.
I think Michelle finally got worn out from trying to stay mad at me. One night after class, she asked me if I would consider meeting with the pastor and his wife to discuss our marriage situation. Because she wasn't using my last name and refused to sit with me, they never connected us as husband and wife. We all had a good laugh when they realized I was the husband Michelle had been complaining about all those months. A short time later, we renewed our vows-as Christians-in front of the whole church.
Church and Prayer Produce Solid Marriages, Right?
In the fall of 1987, about eight months after we renewed our vows, I sat beside Joe as we waited for the leader of an evangelism class at our church to give us instructions. We thought that taking the class and serving God as a couple might make our marriage stronger. People at church had told us when we reconciled that as long as we prayed together, attended church as a family, and served in ministry together, we would avoid separating again.
The leader began, "Please condense your Christian testimony into a two-minute presentation for the purpose of sharing it with unbelievers. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences: Before I was a Christian, I ______________________. And now that I am a Christian, I______________________."
As I sat in class that evening, thinking about how my life had changed since rededicating it to Christ the previous year, I came to a troubling realization: My life had not really changed that much at all. Despite our best attempts to make it appear otherwise, our marriage was, once again, in crisis. As Joe sat beside me effortlessly filling in the blanks on his paper, I wondered what in the world he could possibly be writing. Did he think we were happy just because we told people we were? Did he really think he had changed since becoming a Christian several months earlier? Hadn't he noticed that although we were regularly attending church and praying together, we still hadn't learned how to express our frustrations without deeply hurting one another? I wondered whether all the other couples in the class and in our church were as happily married behind the scenes as they seemed to appear on the outside. Or, like us, were they simply covering up a lifetime of hurts with polite smiles and hearty handshakes? (In fact, within that year, two of the couples in the class divorced, and two years later the pastor leading the class left ministry altogether because of a crisis in his marriage.)
The weeks that followed turned into a battle of wills between Joe and me.
"Joe, we need to go to counseling or to one of those weekend retreats that help couples get to the root of their marital problems," I demanded most every time we got into one of our heated arguments, which often ended without resolution.
"No, it's too expensive! Besides, we usually end up fighting over what the counselor says anyway!" he would shout back, digging his heels in even deeper.
The familiar feeling of hopelessness was beginning to return. The thought of facing a third separation was overwhelming. Because we were now both Christians, we imposed expectations on ourselves that weren't there the first two times we separated. To make matters worse, we had renewed our vows in front of the entire church only a few months earlier, and our pastor often used us as an example of how God could heal a marriage and bring hope to any situation that seemed utterly hopeless. To admit we were in crisis again meant we might cause despair for those who looked to us for hope in their own situations.
In an effort to grow closer with each other and other couples, we joined a home fellowship group. One night, the leaders of the group asked if anyone needed special prayer. Without thinking I blurted out, "Yes, we do! Joe and I are struggling again in our marriage." I felt a sense of relief as the truth came out, but what happened next took me by surprise.
We were asked to sit in the middle of the room so that everyone could pray over us. Neither of us had ever been "prayed over" before, but I was willing to try anything at that point. Everyone was so loving as they each asked God to heal and bless our marriage and to help us resolve our differences; I didn't have the heart to tell them their prayers were not working. Instead, when one of the members asked us how things were going the following week, I lied. "Thank you so much for praying over us. Yes, your prayers worked and things are so much better between us."
* * *
I was as frustrated as Michelle when our marriage troubles resurfaced. From the start of our marriage, we fought over everything: money, parenting, my family, her family-you name it, we fought about it. Our natural tendencies of dealing with conflict only made matters worse.
I tended to stuff what I really felt and during the years leading up to the renewal of our vows, I would lose control with the aid of alcohol. Michelle could take it for only so long before she would explode in rage when keeping the peace in our home became more than she could handle. I had expected things to change after we became Christians and renewed our vows in the church, especially because I'd stopped drinking. But when our arguments started escalating again a few months later, it was hard to know where to turn.
Finally, Michelle convinced me to go with her for a weekly counseling appointment with one of the pastors at our church. But unfortunately, after the third week of counseling we started fighting over new things: what one of us said or didn't say during the session; whether or not we completed the assignment the pastor gave us; or even whose side the pastor was on regarding issues we brought up during the appointment!
I finally told Michelle I wasn't going back. Refusing to attend definitely didn't help our situation. One night during an argument, I packed my bags and left. I wanted to visit my family in Santa Maria and take a break from all the fighting.
When I took off that night, I didn't intend for our separation to be permanent. But when I tried to go back home a couple of weeks later, Michelle said the only way she would let me stay was if we went into counseling again. I didn't want to do that. Since neither of us would back down, I decided to get an apartment. I figured we would settle our differences in a month or two, once we both cooled off.
I had no idea it would take two years.
* * *
While it is true that attending church and praying together are good for couples, it is a misconception that doing so will prevent separation or divorce. The truth is that churches across America are filled with couples who have made a commitment to Christ, attend church and pray together, and whose marriages are in crisis. If you have made a commitment to Jesus and consider yourself a Christian, there is no guarantee that your marriage will be crisis free. However, if you will allow Jesus to walk beside you during your crisis, He will provide everything you need to get through it.
The Well of "Living Water"
In John chapter 4, Jesus addressed a woman at a well in Samaria. She had been married five times and was living with her lover. Jesus drew her to Himself during their conversation because He knew she was trying to fill the emptiness in her life with love from men rather than God. Jesus promised to give her His living water, and she left the well that day never thirsting for love again.
Because of our pasts, the pastor who helped us renew our vows lovingly refers to us as "the man and the woman at the well." But the Samaritan woman's story is applicable to all of us. Jesus wants to draw everyone to a place where they will come to Him to satisfy their thirst with the Holy Spirit. In spite of different pasts and experiences, we all share a common thirst that entices us to the well of living water. Why some choose to drink and others walk away is a mystery to us, but we know that Jesus brings everyone to His well-His way. Could God be bringing you to the well through a crisis in your marriage?
Group or Support-Partner Discussion Questions
1. Were you raised in a home with religious values? How did that shape who you are today?
2. Did you have a good relationship with your parents while growing up? What about now?
3. Did your parents model a good marriage? Explain.
4. How do you tend to handle stress in a crisis situation?
5. Look up and discuss John 14:1-3.
6. What is one thing that you are grateful for in your spouse?
7. What is one thing that you need prayer for?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Yes, YOUR MARRIAGE CAN BE SAVEDby JOE WILLIAMS MICHELLE WILLIAMS Copyright © 2007 by Joe and Michelle Williams. Excerpted by permission.
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