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Here's how you can grow closer to each other.
By Roland Legge — Written on Aug 16, 2019
When you want to strengthen your marriage, then you should look to your relationship with God, first and foremost. This relationship can define and change a lot of the ways you see and interact with your spouse on a daily basis.
By building a deeper spiritual connection, you're working on improving yourself and your relationship with your partner at the same time.
God desires you and your partner to be your best as individuals and as a couple.
A good relationship with God will improve your marriage because the spirit will help you to find your holy wisdom right within you.
You don’t have to attend a church to follow God. It does help to be part of a community to support and encourage you on your faith journey, though.
You do need to be careful that you don’t get caught in a group that's trying to manipulate you. A healthy group will always allow you to ask questions, have doubts, and think for yourself.
Building a relationship with the holy will help you to discover the divine within you. The more you can experience the divine within you, the more you can see it in your life partner.
Here are 15 reasons why a good relationship with God will improve your marriage:
1. You are made in the image of God
You are holy. You are perfectly imperfect. You have great value for just being you. Your partner and everyone else are made in the image of God.
A healthy marriage requires both of you to recognize that you are part of something greater.
Placing God in the middle of your relationship helps you to know you are not alone in your relationship.
2. It opens you to the mystery of life
You can never define God because the creator is a mystery. God is like love, and no words can ever adequately describe love.
Staying open to the mystery helps you to remain open to the holy within you and your partner.
God created you with the ability to experience the spirit within you through your three energy centers. It is wired right into you.
When you can be open to your centers, your thoughts, emotions, and sensations, you'll become more attuned to the spirit. As you become conscious of the holy weaving through you, you'll experience a greater depth in your relationship.
3. You'll love yourself more
The spirit helps you to love yourself. God wants you to know that you are loved unconditionally, just for being yourself.
When you love yourself, you make sure you are getting your needs met. You take responsibility for your own behavior. You don’t expect anyone else to make you happy other than yourself. You feel blessed to be alive.
When you love yourself, you open the door to loving your partner unconditionally. You are better able to see the holy in your partner despite their imperfections.
4. You'll love other people more
Part of the great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. The love of your neighbors invites you to respect people who are different than you. It calls you to love people who annoy you. God calls you to see the good in people who have different beliefs than you do.
God is calling you to love beyond all your differences: The color of your skin, your points of view, religious beliefs, or annoying habits.
Love of your neighbor is a call to you to honor, respect, and love your partner in life. It's to see the good in your partner.
When you can love your partner for who they are rather than who you want them to be, your relationship has a better chance of thriving. A marriage free of manipulation is a relationship that can focus on building up rather than tearing down.
5. You'll experience deeper gratitude
Radical gratitude puts you in a different frame of mind. Learning to focus on what you have rather than what you don’t have changes the way you see the world.
When you can feel gratitude for your partner, you are going to see your partner in a different light. God reminds you over and over, all the reasons you chose this person to be your life partner.
It is hard to be negative, mean, and controlling when you are thankful. When you both have gratitude for what you each bring to the relationship you're going to be able to work through most conflicts that come your way.
Why? Because you are thankful for the fantastic person you married.
6. You'll get inspired for random acts of kindness
The more you practice random acts of kindness in your life the more likely you are going to do it with your partner.
Kindness to your partner opens your hearts. Acts of caring show them how much you love them. Kind words and actions show that you can see beyond their imperfections and mistakes.
Kindness invites you to lower the tensions in your relationship. It gives you a language to speak that will build up your relationship.
7. You'll open your heart
God calls you to open your heart. An open heart helps you to be aware of your own needs and the needs of your partners.
An open heart helps you to be more attentive to your partner through being more aware of their emotions.
A receptive heart helps open the pathways for communication that can help you to relate at a deep level.
8. You'll take responsibility for your behavior
God calls on you to take full responsibility for your conduct. The spirit reminds you through faith that you are the only person who can make you happy.
You can blame only yourself for the poor choices you've made in life.
Even then there is no point in you going into a depression about your mistakes. It is to learn from them and move on.
9. You'll understand the power of forgiveness
Forgiveness helps you to start fresh again whether it is small or big. For small misunderstandings, it can happen quickly. But for more significant violations, the process can take years.
If you hold on to the anger from previous life experiences, it is going to poison your relationship with your partner. Forgiveness frees you up to be fully present in your current relationship.
Forgiveness requires you to intentionally work through issues when one or both of you have been hurt. When speaking, use “I statements” to take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Be clear about what the issue is.
Forgiveness is a process that takes time and patience. It takes intention and a willingness to not only look at your partner but to look at yourself.
10. You'll see the holy in your partner
God helps you to see the sacred in your partner. When you can recognize the sacred in your husband or wife, it becomes much more difficult to put them down.
It becomes more difficult to be mean to them. It becomes more challenging to raise your voice against them.
Seeing the holy in each other encourages you to treat each other with respect, kindness, generosity, and love.
11. You and your spouse will learn to support each other
Over time there needs to be a willingness to support each other in becoming your best selves.
There may be times when one is giving more than the other, but it cannot stay this way over time. It always needs to get balanced out.
Mutuality requires good communication to enable you to make shared decisions that respect and honor you both.
12. You'll become more generous
God calls you to live with a generous spirit. A willingness to fully share yourself with your love can take it to a deeper level.
A generous spirit leads you to be generous in your time with your loved one. It encourages you to share your financial wealth, skills, material items with the one you like.
A generous spirit will leave space for forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding.
13. You'll strengthen your covenant with God
For God, a healthy relationship requires a bond. Covenant is more than a contract. It’s a deep commitment before God and each other to be in a mutual relationship to bring the best out in each other.
Covenant requires a deep commitment by all parties including God to do your best to keep your relationship healthy and active.
It’s an agreement that requires effort. It’s taking the proper actions when either one starts to see a problem in the relationship.
It includes the willingness to get help whether that be through a priest, minister, mullah, rabbi or professional coach or counselor to help you get back on track again.
14. You'll see how prayer can improve your marriage
Prayer is always essential to ground yourself in the love of God. Praying together has the potential to deepen your relationship.
It reminds you that you're not alone in your relationship.
15. You'll be less afraid of being vulnerable
For healthy relationships to prosper, you need to learn to be vulnerable. When you are sensitive, you are opening yourself to be changed by God and by the love of your partner.
Vulnerability helps you to be honest about yourself. It helps you to know when you have been wrong.
Vulnerability helps you to find the courage to share your dreams and vision.
A good relationship with God has the potential to improve your marriage. It is all about getting connected with the divine within you and around you.
God will not fix your problems. But God will journey with you through all the ups and downs of life.
More for You:
Roland Legge is an Identity Coach here to help you build a healthy relationship with the one you love. You can join his private newsletter list for Free Monthly Advice and get Your Free Enneagram Test and sign up for a Free 30 Minute Discovery Call with him in his Acuity Scheduling Calendar.
This article was originally published at REL Consultants. Reprinted with permission from the author.