Watch as Michael Smalley answers this user’s question on what to do about her husband’s financial issues and lack of support.

God has given you the ability to choose. Next to the gift of His Son Jesus, this is the most precious gift you possess. It’s what separates you from all other forms of life on this planet. Making choices allows you to tap into strengths you never thought you had and exercise the power to change whatever needs changing in your life. Whatever grief or anger or pain you may feel about your marriage, you have the power within you to do something about it. You are not a victim. You are free to choose to act, to change. God has given you a huge reservoir of talent, creativity, knowledge, self-worth, energy, and love. You have the freedom to change your negative responses to your mate’s behavior and draw on these God-given assets to do the right and helpful thing. Making this choice can introduce a redemptive force for positive change in your marriage.
For marriage choices it narrows down to two critical things every married individual must exercise: unconditional love and personal responsibility. Unconditional love means you accept and cherish your mate as he or she is. Personal responsibility means you take charge of correcting your own faults instead of your mate’s. That, in a nutshell, is it. Intimacy, happiness, growth, communication and all the other vital aspects of a good marriage grow out of these two choices. If both partners recognize this fact, there will be no victims in the marriage. Each person’s happiness will rest entirely in his or her own hands. And the end result is the safety and security that every marriage must have in order to thrive.
Do you believe this? Really believe this? Since it’s my contention that all behavior is a result of what we believe, this is a crucial question. Do you believe that you can take personal responsibility for the success of your marriage? If you don’t, then you must believe the opposite—that your spouse or circumstances are in control of what happens to you. You must believe that you are a victim. Therefore you must react and put the blame on your mate when the marriage does not meet your expectations. This is a tragedy, because when you blame your mate you not only divest yourself of your responsibility, you also reduce the choices you have to change the relationship. You forfeit the ability to control your own destiny.
So if you want your marriage to be the most exciting and rewarding journey of your life, the question to ask is not whether your mate is doing enough to make the marriage work, but rather: Are you loving your mate unconditionally by taking responsibility for your role in the relationship? A good way to turn this intention into a commitment is to make a promise of it. Promise to look at yourself first, to take responsibility for your own part of the marriage, and to stop trying to change your mate. Such a promise puts legs on unconditional love. It says you are willing to put your personal dreams and needs on hold for a while and make what’s best for the relationship a priority.

Most couples enter marriage hoping to achieve happiness. And for each of us, that vision of happiness takes a different form. Maybe you longed to be whole or competed; to have perfect kids, and a family that everyone looks up to; to live securely and comfortably; to have someone always there so you wouldn’t feel lonely, abandoned, rejected, or sad. Your goal may have been to satisfy your sexual desires; for your mate to be the lover who would love you the way you always wanted to be loved. In other words, you expected to find your “soul mate” in your husband or wife
It may surprise you to hear me say that your marriage is in big trouble when you pursue these goals. If happiness or finding your soul mate is the objective, you are more than likely setting yourself up for failure and possibly facing years of hurt and frustration. When the marriage does not fulfill your expectations you’ll wonder if there is something wrong with you or with your mate. Sadly, a person may often ask, “Did I marry the wrong person?”
Disappointment hits most couples shortly after the wedding because each partner begins to see faults and chinks in the armor of the other. That new husband or wife really needs some work. It appears that she is far from ready to meet all his needs and expectations. Instead of being sold out to her ideas of marriage, he came with his own goals—expecting her to be sold out to his. So your goal of finding happiness in your soul mate must be put aside until you change your spouse into the person you want him or her to be. You buy into the myth that will not die—that if your mate would change just a few key things, your marriage would be great.
And it’s happening all around us. Marriages in America are in a horrendous mess. Although 93% of Americans rate having a happy marriage as one of their most important objectives in life, and more than 70% believe that marriage involves a lifelong commitment that should be ended only under extreme circumstances, couples marrying for the first time in the US continue to face a 40 to 50 percent chance of divorcing, with approximately two-thirds of these divorces occurring within five to seven years of marriage. Equally disturbing is that many distressed couples never divorce, remaining in unsatisfying and/or conflicted relationships. At least one researcher suggests that fewer than half of the marriages that avoid divorce can be described as truly happy.
• Rutgers sociologists Dr. David Popenoe and Dr. Barbara Defoe Whitehead confirm these grim facts in their report on marriage titled, The State of Our Unions—The Social Health of Marriage in America, showing that key social indicators suggest a substantial weakening of the institution of marriage.
Thanks to Hollywood characters and celebrities who promote the benefits of single parenthood, being a married parent is no longer viewed as the ideal for raising a family.
Could it be that marriage has diminished to a relationship entered for the sole purpose of meeting the sexual and emotional needs of each partner? I believe that is at the heart of the problem. Today the goal in marriage is personal satisfaction. “Will my needs get met? What’s in it for me?” And the biggest question of all: “Will it be pleasurable for me?” If the marriage no longer meets the personal needs of partners, they move on to the next relationship. So what’s the solution? I’m convinced that once we understand and commit to God’s purpose in marriage instead using it for self-satisfaction, serious marriage problems will diminish greatly.
Though it seems paradoxical, this means if you want a satisfying marriage you’ve got to forget about happiness. I don’t mean that you should want to be unhappy. In fact, I don’t think that’s possible. Everyone wants to be happy. And because we want so much to be happy, we naturally make happiness our goal and set out to find the things we think will make us happy. The problem is that happiness never comes when you make it the goal. It’s like a desert mirage. It shimmers invitingly in the sunlight until you reach it, and then poof!—it vanishes. You can’t go to happiness; happiness must come to you. And it only comes as a by-product of achieving a higher goal.
Happiness doesn’t work as a goal, because meeting our terms for happiness depends on what happens around us. It requires just the right circumstances and the cooperation of other people. Unfortunately, those circumstances seldom align. That cooperation rarely happens. Furthermore, when a marriage is all about finding happiness, it creates dependency as we turn to our mate or require ideal circumstances to meet our expectations. And that dependency puts a heavy burden on the mate. It’s true that we do have something inside that is seeking completeness and fulfillment. We all yearn to connect to a source that can fulfill all our needs. But the problem comes when we misdirect that search toward the wrong object. Your mate is not that source. God, through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, can be the only source of happiness.

Common Myths About Love
By Gary Smalley

Most of us come into adulthood with a distorted vision of a healthy love relationship. Our models of love often come from family, songs, books, friends, and media, which depict love as fast blooming, overwhelming, intense, romantic, and requited. But these models display only one aspect of love, the beginning, which is heavily influenced by infatuation caused by chemistry. Good marriages contain many more elements than just chemistry, yet the lovers in these examples may never get us far enough into the story to see them. We don’t know whether the lovers stayed together long enough to determine if they were compatible or committed enough to stay the long term. We see an hour and a half of two people enduring misunderstanding and frustration, and then going romantically off into the sunset. We never get to see what happens next. We fail to see the hard work, commitment, patience and forgiveness that any quality relationship takes.
These images of love leave us with serious myths, such as:

• Passion equals love. Most people love something that is new.
• My lover should meet all my needs. This is impossible and the reverse is true. No human can meet your needs. Only God can do that.
• Once love dies, you can’t get it back. The emotion of love may get blasted by words and hurt but the commitment of love should be rock solid.
• Chemistry is all that matters. Chemistry should be the last thing you trust.
• Love conquers all. God love conquers all but our love is not consistent.
• When things get tough, it means you have the wrong partner. This is the most selfish kind of love. Giving love is not dependent on your partner’s response. Certainly people would have been the wrong partner for God but He loved us in spite of our flaws.
• My lover should make me happy. True happiness can only come from God. People are not capable of providing happiness.
• Once in love, you stay on a high forever. This myth puts incredible pressure on the other person. This is not genuine love.
• Love is a feeling, and you either have it, or you don’t. Love is a decision and you commit to honor and care for someone no matter what their response is to you.

These are all lies, or at best, gross misunderstandings of the true nature of love. The chemistry plays out. You eventually come off the high of infatuation. But that does not mean that love is dead. Not at all. In fact, it may be just beginning. It looks dead only because our expectations lead us to misunderstand the way love grows. It grows over time and through our commitment. The better we understand what love really is, the better we adapt to lives changes and keep that love alive.

What is the Value of Your Mate?
By Gary Smalley

Honor is a way of accurately seeing the immense value of a person made in God’s image. God created each one of us as a one-of-a-kind person with unique gifts and a unique personality. He sees each of us as precious and valuable because he sees the innate worth he built into us.
When God brought to Adam the newly created Eve in all her naked glory, can you imagine what he thought? Wow! When God said he’d give me a companion, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anything like this. Man, what a treasure! Can you imagine the tingling thrill Adam must have felt the moment he first touched her?
Now, think back. Didn’t you feel the same way when you married your mate? Didn’t it feel as if you had discovered a cave filled with priceless gold, silver, diamonds, and sparkling gemstones? And it was true. When you married, you received a treasure of unfathomable worth. You will never be able to understand all the wonders God has given you in your marriage partner. Just the physical differences alone are unimaginable. The cells, organs, hormones, features, and shape all combine into a magnificent being who has value above that of the angels. As the scriptures say, “You are a marvelous creation, a spectacular wonder with splendor above the worth of all creation.” Adam was right to gape in wonder when he first saw Eve. You were right to gape in wonder when you married your mate. And maintaining that wonder is critically important, because it means you are still finding in your husband or wife reasons for honor.
Picture your mate as personally autographed by God. Wouldn’t you feel thrilled to be seen with someone who bore God’s personal autograph? Wouldn’t you want to have your picture taken with such a person and hang that picture in a prominent place on your wall? Once you start thinking like God and realize the supreme value of that other person in your life, your treatment of him or her will be much like bending your knee in the presence of a highly honored person or giving a standing ovation to a soloist after an outstanding concert. When you look for the good and the honorable in your mate, you will find it, because it is there. God instilled his glory into each one of us.
Adam and Eve’s value was enormous as shown by God’s creation and love for them, but sin changed all that because they “showed God by their actions” the age-old, basic sin of all mankind, “God, we don’t trust your ways any more; we’ll go our way and you go yours.” But by taking this action, they tarnished the glory that God had built into them in the same way that rust ruins the glistening sheen of steel. C.S. Lewis reminded us, however, that the original glory is still there, lying just beneath the surface of every human, waiting for the day it will again be brought into the open. He said that in all our everyday dealings with each other, we must “…remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. There are no ordinary people.” When we look at each other, it’s all too easy to see only the rust on the surface—the irritating habits, the failures, the broken promises—and forget that beneath the tarnish the true steel is still intact. All the glory that God created into us is still there, waiting for the moment when that coating of sin is scoured away. As we are transformed more and more into his image, we actually start looking more and more like him and reflecting his loving nature.
You can learn to see this inner, godlike glory that God’s own hand infused into your mate. It may not be easily visible at first, but when we look past the failures and weaknesses and affirm the immense value he created into every one of us, we see that honoring each other is appropriate. When I choose to look at the inner value of my wife, I’m simply looking at her as God looks at me. And I’m so very glad he sees me as he does. I would cringe to think that he sees only my weaknesses and judges me by my stumblings and bumblings. Instead he sees my potential, my innate worth, complete with all the godlikeness he instilled into me originally. Honor is so simple, really. All we need do is look at each other as God looks at us. When you develop that kind of honor for your mate, you help create a secure environment in which great relationships can flourish.
The Apostle Paul encouraged the early Christians to build their relationships on this kind of honor when he wrote, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor” (Romans 12:10).

The Key to Lasting Marital Change
By Gary Smalley

This is the key to real, lasting love in your marriage: change yourself first and accept your mate unconditionally just the way he or she is. Then as you work with God to become more like Him, watch how your mate will eventually try to emulate you. But don’t do this just to change your mate; do it for yourself and for your own personal relationship with God. By taking responsibility for your actions and changing even small behaviors, you demonstrate unconditional love and thus create an emotionally secure atmosphere in which your marriage can thrive. Pushing your spouse to change in order to make you feel safer is hardly the way of unconditional love. When you want to change your mate, 99.99% of the time there’s a selfish motive behind it. Expecting him or her to change to meet your expectations is putting self first, and if your mate does the same thing, then you have two selves in conflict, each fighting to fulfill his or her own needs. The only way to improve the relationship is to shine the spotlight on yourself and expose your own faults and weaknesses. Your mate may not want to deal with his or her problems, but you will be surprised at how great an impact your own example can have when you choose to deal with your own. You must not give in to hopelessness and helplessness even if you are convinced that your partner is the real problem. Even if that is true, by changing yourself, you can affect things dramatically and positively. I can hardly wait for you to reach chapter 6, because there I’ll show you the easiest and fastest way possible to change anything about yourself.
Here’s why you will influence change in your mate when you change yourself. As one person makes changes, those changes have a ripple effect on the other simply because your lives are connected and interact at many levels. Over time, you and your mate have shaped each other’s behavior by consciously and unconsciously rewarding some behaviors and punishing others. Habits of behavior have been established. Patterns of relating ingrained. In every marriage these patterns cause the relationship to achieve a certain kind of complementary balance. I don’t mean it’s necessarily a formal balance with equality of happiness and responsibility on both sides. One partner may be very aggressive and even overbearing, while the other responds by becoming very passive and compliant. By balance I mean that the two partner’s attributes and responses adjust to accommodate each other. And they maintain some kind of equilibrium that way. Therefore, if one partner changes, the relationship changes, because the other automatically moves to adjust and maintain the balance.
So, when you take it upon yourself to change, you automatically change the balance of the marriage, and your mate must also change in order to maintain equilibrium. Even the slightest change is like adding a weight to one side of the balance. Your partner will sense the imbalance, feel uncomfortable, and adjust. I’ll admit that now and then the partner’s adjustment is for the worse. But not usually. When you make a truly positive change, it’s highly likely that the corresponding change your partner makes will also be positive.
There are two kinds of changes you can make to improve a relationship: you can either increase pleasure or decrease pain. To put it in behaviorist’s terms, you can eliminate undesirable behaviors or increase desirable ones. The latter approach is not only more effective, it’s also easier. It’s much easier to do more of something a partner likes than to stop doing something he hates. And research indicates that this approach works better. Adding loving behaviors will reduce annoying ones.
Sometimes your mate may resist your new behavior. He or she might find even positive changes threatening simply because the balance has been upset. But if you persevere and remain consistent with your change, chances are excellent that your mate will eventually come around and change his or her behavior too, and most often in a positive direction. This is what I call the “principle of reciprocity.” When you do even simple random acts of kindness, such as back rubs, washing the dishes, giving flowers, or making a favorite dessert, your partner is likely to respond in a positive way. Your behavior influences your mate’s behavior, and your mate’s behavior rewards your behavior, making you want to reciprocate. It’s not a vicious circle; it’s a delicious circle.

I reconnected with an old friend today. This verse in Proverbs 15:1, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stirs up anger.” I was challenged to look back and see if we’ve made any progress in putting this message into practice. As I look back on the last 15 years of my marriage to Michael I see many times I’ve blown it and blown up at Michael, the kids or others. And there have been some victories as well when I have held my tongue, turned the other cheek, and responded with patience and gentleness.

If I’m honest I can’t say that every time Michael gave me a gentle answer I turned from my wrath. So does it mean that this scripture doesn’t apply to me or us? I know that’s not the right answer but that’s how I feel. As a Christ follower, I am confronted with my own questioning and doubt in this area of my life. And as we hear from so many of you I hear your frustration of wanting and doing the right thing- like turning away anger with a gentle response. So what gives?

When I don’t know the answers to my questions I go back to a prayer I have prayed since high school. “God give me wisdom and understanding.” Solomon was the wisest and richest man that supposedly ever lived. He seemed like a great person to pattern my life after. He was rich and he made wise choices. Asking for wisdom is like a buy one get three free coupon. I ask for wisdom but what I get has multiple positive outcomes.

Gaining wisdom helps me gain perspective. Do you remember the Matrix movie? Remember Orpheus asking Neal if he wanted to take the red pill or the blue pill? Neal chose to see the alternate dimension that was a reality he wasn’t aware of before. I like to think of wisdom as choosing to see the multiple layers of the human condition that is happening all around. I want to know why so I can understand and possibly react in a way that might help that person make a better choice. Some of you may be married to someone like me who flies off the handle- I’m not physically abusive but my words can pierce like an arrow. I am learning how to deal with my tongue and can see the freedom of taking responsibility for my tone, my harshness, my unrealistic expectations, etc. that drive people away from me.

It is in my nature to want to fight, to pursue, and to finish what I start. I’m not a quitter and in the past I felt like if I stopped an argument I was giving up—so I left my Michael verbally bloodied and bruised. I’m not saying he didn’t throw a few verbal punishes my way, but I was the professional at anger, and still am, unfortunately. So what has made a difference? Michael’s gentle answers, firm boundaries, and the conviction of the Holy Spirit have set me up to succeed. If you know someone who struggles with a temper like me- I want you to feel the freedom to stand up for yourself. If the person you love is a Christ follower then by confronting the person in love you are keeping them from sinning against you.

I suggest you start taking some time to think and pray about what to say. Second, pick the right time and place. And then when you are ready, humbly approach the person by saying something like, “I recognize our relationship has been difficult and there are some things I want to do differently. ___________ Fill in the blank with something personal you want to change that doesn’t blame, shame, or criticize your spouse. “I don’t want to allow things to build up and for me to become more resentful. I want to commit to handling myself better.” Then, and only then, share your need for change in the dynamic of your relationship. You might say something like, “I need us to commit to allowing each other to take a time-out when either one of us feels like the conversation isn’t going well. I will commit to coming back to the topic at a specified time, but I cannot allow us to demean each other like we have in the past. It is not good for you or me to get out of hand like we have.” (The “we” statements will help the other person not feel totally at fault- remember it’s not about assigning blame it’s about setting a boundary)

If your spouse shuts down and seems to punish you when you share hurtful feelings then approaching the situation with prayer, good timing, and vulnerability looks a little different. When I do it right I say things like this to Michael when I know he is shut down, “It seems like you are really upset right now. I want to let you know when you are ready to talk I will be open to hearing your feelings and needs.” Then I walk away and leave the ball in his court. He has tested me for a while but if I don’t act mad or upset he usually opens up and let’s me know what is bothering him. If days were to go by and I could still tell he was shut down then I would call in back up, like our small group or a trusted mentor.

I recently visited with a couple where the man shut down because he felt that by not engaging, he was being loving because he wasn’t adding to the chaos of the argument. If this is the case please try to understand that not engaging might be sending the message of not caring. His intention may very well be to care enough to not allow chaos to rein or to hurt the relationship more than what it was currently experiencing. But it might just send the wrong signal and end up hurting the relationship anyways. I like to call this behavior the “peace at all cost” type.

The war rages underneath the pleasant and many times not so pleasant surface. If you identify with this scenario know those around you feel the tension and the jabs you take at each other. Your kids rarely miss jabs.

So to finish this post, I think the thing that has changed the most in me is my self-justification of my anger. I no longer blame others for my poor response. I recognize the absolute dishonor and sin that it is. There’s something about agreeing with God and allowing Him to use my sin to draw me into a more humble attitude. I no longer want to tolerate my anger as just “how I am.” I am a child of a King, dearly loved, and called by my Father to love others fully and completely. And allowing my defensive, critical, and blaming attitude does not produce the righteous life God desires.

I have been set free to love others- even when I’m cranky- I really do have a choice and the more I recognize it the more freedom I have through Christ to live free from the bondage of my anger or expectations of others. My slavery probably looks different than many of yours but my deliverer doesn’t. I love this verse “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery Gal. 5:1.

If you really want to learn how to resolve conflict and to improve your marital satisfaction, then check out our Embrace series instant download.  You get our full seminar for couples on audio, powerpoint files, handouts, and a great workbook that you can print out as many times as you want! Click here to purchase today for only $49.95!

If you feel stuck and in a miserable marriage because some sort of tragedy has happened (like finding out about an affair), then watch and see what Amy Smalley has to say to encourage you!

Gary goes through some very simple things you can do to make sure these holidays are fun and enjoyable.

First things first, all the reporters, TV anchors, and sports enthusiasts who are saying that Tiger Woods must come out and say what happened are ridonculous (my new favorite word from Coach Gruden on Monday Night Football!). Why is Tiger being silent, we do not know and I would love for people to stop assuming the worst. Am I being naive? Who cares! Tiger has not proven to be untrustworthy in the past, so why assume there is some horrible thing behind what happened the other night during his minor car accident.

In fact, I’ve known a few A-list and B-list celebrities in my life, and I can assure you that the rumors by TMZ and other tabloid entities are typically totally off base and full of lies. It disgusts me that the tabloid press is not held accountable for blatant lies.

I do not know if Tiger needs marital advice, but if you ever find yourself in a situation described by the media right now for Tiger, then take the following 3 pointers to help create the possibility for restoration in your marriage:

1. Be honest. Never assume that lying will help ease the pain for your spouse. Lying always makes whatever happened even worse. Just be honest and upfront if you’ve had an affair. If you have not had an affair, but your spouse is accusing you of one, then simply validate his or her feelings. Let your spouse know that you understand why he is accusing you of the affair, and then ask what you can do to help him understand the truth of the situation. Getting defensively nasty will only confirm your spouse’s beliefs.
2. Be humble. Now this is a word that can be difficult to do, especially if you are feeling falsely accused of something. But humility is always a great attitude to help people calm down and see things more realistically. One of the definitions of humbleness is to be “courteously respectful”. You are wanting to restore the relationship, so do not get prideful and resistant to validating your spouse’s fair or unfair accusations. Relax. If you are innocent, then you will be proven innocent. The more defensive you get the more guilty you appear. Humble people are kind, relaxed, and understanding. You will need a lot of those kinds of attitudes to repair the relationship.
3. Be patient. I do not know how long it will take for your spouse to open up, and neither do you. So be ready to patiently wait. Sometimes we just need hang on and give our spouse the space to heal and open up. Do not try and rush healing because you do not want to hurt any more. Trust that your spouse will open up and give your spouse the freedom and respect to heal.

Follow these three pointers and you will give your marriage the best chance to be restored.

[UPDATE]

Here’s the statement Tiger Woods released on his website www.tigerwoods.com earlier today:

I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family. Those feelings should be shared by us alone.

Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives. The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious. Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.

But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy. I realize there are some who don’t share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family. Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions.

Whatever regrets I have about letting my family down have been shared with and felt by us alone. I have given this a lot of reflection and thought and I believe that there is a point at which I must stick to that principle even though it’s difficult.

I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves. For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology.