Sandy Sandmeyer says:

My husband and I decided from the time we decided to get married that it was forever. Divorce was not allowed and not acceptable. Hard times come and we’ve worked through them, even if it meant talking to a counselor. That made our marriage much stronger. Now that we’ve hit a challenging time, we are better together because we are so strong together.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Talk, talk, talk, and when you don’t know what to do talk.

Chris Spradlin says:

Strong post Chad! the only thought I have to add is don’t let your kids “trump” your marriage. The divorce stats are astounding when it comes to marriages falling apart when the kids leave.

Moe says:

This is a powerful post Chad. I specially like “Perfection I don’t know. Only forgiveness, both forgiving and being forgiven.
Persevering I do know. Healing I know as well.”

So many people feel like they should get divorced because they are not the perfect husband or wife. Nonsense. If you have to power to forgive and be forgiven, the relationship will work out.

Thanks for the reminder.

Melissa Rorabaugh says:

My husband, who is in ministry, and I have established hedges… but we put our hedges up a pretty good distance from our boundary. For example, if our boundary is the avoidance of improper relationships with a member of the opposite sex, then our hedge is established around riding in cars alone with a member of the opposite sex (far from our actual boundary).

We did this not only to protect our testimonies, but to protect my heart. He is so sensitive to my needs as the woman God created me to be …

This is a covenant marriage for us. Like Sandy said, this is for keeps.

Great post – thank you for sharing.

Russty Brazil says:

Love this post, Chad! So many important points.

I got married at a young age to my good friend, but years later we struggled to grow up and raise a family together. We often discussed divorcing even though we both still loved each other and our kids. God finally put it on our hearts that we needed to see that divorce wasn’t the answer nor an option for us. So as a couple we agreed that divorce is not an option, so we need to learn how to talk things out when times are hard. And support one another. We’ve learned how to protect our marriage and set us up to win as a couple rather then failing as individuals.

When we removed divorcing as an option it opened up our hearts to learn how to really achieve a happy long term marriage with help from God, counseling, and wonderful supportive family and friends. Every day now I celebrate our love and our wonderful marriage. I’ve had multiply friends tell us that we give them hope for their marriage and what a true loving friendship can be. God can be the glue in your marriage and give you hope when times are hard if you allow Him to speak into your life.