Marriage Series: Step One
Loving Complaints Require Self Examination
Step One: What is your motivation? It’s hard to be honest about this one. Often, our primary goal is to let our spouse know how wrong they were. We’ve been hurt and simply want to issue a strong reprimand.
We give them some of the pain they caused us back to them in the form of anger. We may also want to punish them for what they’ve done. We want them to know how wrong they were so they won’t hurt us again. Right?
While these are understandable human motivations, they are not founded in love, and leave out the heart of our spouse and they will never lead to a closer more loving relationship. I think the goal should be restoration and mutual growth.
This goal changes everything.
