Men and women are the essential ingredients in keeping a marriage alive. Let us look at one half of marriage while we discuss three essential things that men need to know about marriage.
1. Don’t be a consumer in your marriage, be an investor – Our society is an advertiser-saturated, consumer society. It is childish to expect to be served everything. You need to be an investor in your marriage and not a consumer, taker or complainer. You must be responsible, initiating, courageous, generous, healing, peacemaking and more. It would do you wonders to model yourself after Jesus. Ask yourself this question every day, “Would I want to marry myself?”. If the answer is no, then you know that you need to work on yourself. You shouldn’t stop working on yourself either if the answer is yes. You must be a giver in your relationship without expecting anything in return.
2. Value your wife above everything – This doesn’t mean that you should give up all of your personal goals in life. It just means that when you get married, your wife should be very high up on your list of priorities in life. Your wife needs to be above all of your pursuits, possessions, and distractions regardless of whether she is kind, loving or respectful. Once a commitment is made, you are expected to honor it. You need to initiate love rather than wait or demand it.
3. Remember that marriages typically have a one or two-year “honeymoon era” – The honeymoon era is a period where euphoria makes the marriage easier. When the euphoria wears off, it doesn’t mean that they’ve married the wrong person or aren’t in love anymore. It just means that you are a normal human being. As a man, you should work harder after the honeymoon era on your marriage. A marriage succeeds when both you and your wife work hard on it. Marriages are work, but they are very rewarding.