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8 Steps for Redeeming Your

Marriage Relationship by Marty Trammell & Rich Rollins

One plus one never equaled one in our math classrooms, A focused commitment. Christ’s forgiveness and His
so why do we think it will in our living room? The “two example move us to forgive and sacrifice in response to
shall become one” Bible passage from Ephesians 5 His love. There are times when I (Rich) take my attention
sounds romantic at the wedding, but when the tests off my wife, but as long as I don’t take my focus off
come, it feels like a 50-page story problem waiting to Jesus, He will remind me to pay attention to my relation-
flunk us from our first semester of calculus. Why is it so ship with LouAnna.
hard to learn the new math?
An extreme commitment. It’s unlikely that the wounds
The sooner we realize that marriage is a cause of associated with the lack of control, respect, and
conflict (not just a part of it) the sooner we’ll be able to authentic love in a marriage can heal without intense
do the addition. Think about the last “discussion” you devotion. The greatest love stories ever known (including
had with your spouse. Sure, it might have been caused the greatest—the love of Jesus) have demonstrated total
by expectations or crushed character, but it might have devotion. Lovers don’t meet each other halfway. They
been that the two of you are in the most poignant of all give everything they have to give.
relationships. (The relation part of the word means the
A growing commitment. Christian commitment is similar
two of you. The ship part means you can experience a
to WD-40, that all-purpose household lubricant. Once we
wreck at any moment!)
spray it on, it starts eating away at the rusty areas of our
As you “discussed,” you pointed out options, arranged lives, freeing us up to experience more of the wonder so
supporting materials and finally decided the potential tightly fastened on our Creator’s love.
wreck wasn’t worth all the effort (after all, there was a
One of the misconceptions of marriage is that when
slight possibility you could be wrong). That’s probably
people get married, they lose their individual identities.
why humorist Don Fraser could write “A happy home is
The opposite is true. “The goal in marriage is not to think
one in which each spouse grants the possibility that the
alike, but to think together,” says Robert C. Dodds.
other may be right, though neither believes it.”
When we marry, our new relationship becomes a catalyst
The next time you and your spouse find yourselves in
promoting growth and frees us to reach our potential.
a “discussion,” practice the following eight steps for
For the first time we have someone who is permanently
resolving relational conflicts in marriage. They are based
in our court, encouraging us to give our best.
on two primary causes: control issues and the missing
ingredients of respect and love. Step 2: Check the current
Each summer the Rollinses and Trammells raft the
Step 1: Understand the commitments of marriage
Deschutes River. We put the Trammell boys in one raft
Our commitment to the person of Jesus Christ is what
and the adults in another. Even though the river is a
makes a Christian marriage different from any other.
slow, meandering current through the beautiful Oregon
People become Christians by realizing they have sinned
forest—and even through the boys are old enough to take
and can never meet God’s standard (Romans 3:23). By
care of themselves—we breathe less easy when they
placing our faith in Him and His pardon of our sins, we
float out of sight.
have eternal life and can be called Christians.

8 Steps for Redeeming Your Marriage Relationship 1 of 3 © 2008 FamilyLIfe • FamilyLife.com


Marriage is like being cast into a river. Our goal is to Step 4: End the stalemate
stay in touch. We never want to lose sight of each other. One of the common mistakes we make as couples is
Because the river flows insanely over the landscape of waiting. We know what we want in a relationship. We
our lives, we are never guaranteed that our marriages also intuitively know what our partner wants. We could
will flow the way most men hope or most women dream. give them what they want, but usually don’t until they
Staying in touch is the essence of a successful marriage. give us what we want. This stalemate produces more
Hold each other daily. Eat together whenever possible. quarrels and dissatisfaction, which produces a greater
Use these times to check the current. sense of estrangement. Common sense should tell us
that if we can’t control the other person and we can only
Step 3: Couple your prayer
control ourselves, we need to do something—something
Prayer is a necessary step in resolving conflict. We need other than wait for them to give us what we want or
wisdom and direction in every conflict, and God promises need.
to give it freely and without reservation. When we list
We see it all of the time as we meet with couples. The
prayer in this context, we are emphasizing praying as
husband is waiting to be respected before he will love his
a couple. Praying together not only accomplishes the
wife. The wife is waiting to be loved before she will treat
same goals as personal prayer, but it draws the couple
her husband with respect. The result is that no one gets
together in ways that no other activity can.
much of anything from the marriage. Somebody has to
Prayer is an intimate act before our Creator. When a give in. If that somebody is you and you are the wife, you
couple shares with God and each other their deepest should try reaching out to your husband. Treat him with
fears and thoughts about their marriage and the events special respect.
surrounding them, they add glue which further cements
If you are the husband, you need to reach out in tender-
their relationship. They gain heavenly support from the
ness and start loving her in a way she can understand.
God who invented marriage. They gain a mutual under-
Instead of acting like you are entitled, start deserving her
standing. Studies have indicated that in staying power,
respect. Become the lover. It is amazing what happens
praying separates the marriages that last from those that
when our wives start “feeling” love. All of a sudden they
do not.
begin to reciprocate.
Dr. Phillip C. McGraw writes in his bestselling book,
Step 5: Realize you can only change yourself
Relationship Rescue:
We are also reminded that we can change no one but
… an interesting statistic shared by David ourselves. The irony has always been that, as soon as
McLaughlin in his wonderful series entitled The we begin changing, those around us begin changing, too.
Role of the Man in the Family reflects that the Looking back, I (Rich) realize that I fell in love with my
divorce rate in America is at a minimum one out wife because of her differences as well as our similari-
of two marriages. But the reported divorce rate ties. I wanted a wife who was unique; I did not want
among couples that pray together is about one in another me. I wanted her to become all that she could be.
ten thousand. Pretty impressive statistic, even if I discovered that when I loved her, she began to feel free
you reduce it a thousandfold. to become that person. We still have conflict, but we have
stopped trying to change each other.
It is a pretty amazing statistic! We have discovered as
we have opportunities to meet with couples that those Step 6: Do it in love
who pray together have a greater strength and deeper
Several years ago, Dr. Gary Chapman described five
intimacy.
main love languages: “words of affirmation, quality time,

8 Steps for Redeeming Your Marriage Relationship 2 of 3 © 2008 FamilyLIfe • FamilyLife.com


receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.” If Step 8: Work on being friends
your love language is “giving gifts,” you might assume Mark Goulston said, “Take action when you fall out
that everyone is a gift-giver. But you may be married to of love.” Being best friends with your spouse is an
a person who expresses his or her love with “words of important facet of a rewarding relationship. The Apostle
affirmation.” They keep waiting for you to say something Paul exhorted his protégé, Titus, to instruct older women
nice and you keep waiting for a gift. Until you discover in the church to teach younger women how to love their
your love language, you may be saying, “I love you,” but husbands. The word he uses for “love” is the love of
the other person isn’t hearing it. Dr. Chapman gives us friendship. Paul wanted the women to be best friends
three steps to discovering our love language. with their husbands.

1. What does your spouse do or fail to do that Our (Rich’s and Marty’s) best friends are our wives.
hurts you most deeply? The opposite of what Whenever we hear someone say that we should treat
hurts you most is probably your love language. our family as friends and our friends as family, we think
that easy—they’re the same people! Being friends means
2. What have you most often requested of your
we have fun with each other, endure the truth from each
spouse? The thing you have most often
other, and find our comfort in each other. That way,
requested is likely the thing that would make
when the conflicts come, we can rest in the friendship
you feel most loved.
created by years of working on them.
3. In what way do you regularly express love to
By practicing these eight steps, we believe that every
your spouse? Your method of expressing love
couple can learn to add one plus one and come up with
may be an indication of what would make you
only one. We can use the new math. We can learn to
feel loved.
share the kind of oneness that annotates our anniversa-
The Apostle Paul’s description of love in 1 Corinthians ries with candlelight and whispers.
13:4-8 moves love from the abstract to the quantifiable. Adapted from Redeeming Relationships © 2007 Rich Rollins and
Patience is measurable. Kindness is measurable. Paul’s Marty Trammell. Used by Permission of Faith Walk Publishing,
description of love removes our excuses for saying “I Grand Haven, MI.

love you,” but never showing it in what we do. Many Rich Rollins is executive pastor of Valley Bible Church, a commu-
of our conflicts would be readily resolved if love were nity church in the San Francisco Bay area, as well as a healthcare
professional, college vice president, and church consultant.
added to the mixture.
Marty Trammell is chair of the English and Communications
Step 7: Stop remembering department of Corban College in Salem, Org., and on the pastoral
staff of Valley Baptist Church. He has over twenty years of
At some point, we need to stop opening up the photo
counseling experience.
albums of each other’s failures and move on. We do that
by forgiving. If all we do is stare at the negatives in the
photo album of our relationship, very little positive will
develop. We need to stop remembering what shouldn’t be
dwelt on.

8 Steps for Redeeming Your Marriage Relationship 3 of 3 © 2008 FamilyLIfe • FamilyLife.com

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