When I was about to be married, the women of my church threw me a shower, at which each of them gave me a favorite recipe to put in a cookbook for our new home. And though I still use Marion’s directions for teriyaki chicken, and though Sandy’s roasted veggies are still a favorite at our house, the real treasure in that cookbook isn’t the recipes. It’s the marriage advice each woman wrote down alongside her recipe.
Since this June has been all about marriage here at Regency Reflections, I thought I’d pass on the best of that advice – the advice that’s proved the most true in this first decade of my marriage. And since it comes from a woman who’s currently in the middle of her fourth decade of marriage – my mom, Betsy Barber – you can trust that it has more wisdom than anything I could come up with out of my short experience.
So, here they are, the words I see every time I turn to my mother’s recipe for the perfect pie crust:
For those of you who haven’t had thirty years practice interpreting my mom’s handwriting, here’s what it says:
1. Constant prayer
2. Frequent, joyful sex
3. Regular time spent together
4. Continual forgiveness, continual repentance.
5. Conscious support of his career and hobbies
6. Encourage 10X more often than any critique.
And there at the bottom, added in after the original composition, is my favorite part: “Remember – if it’s good for Adam, it is good for you.”
That’s the part that I hadn’t read anywhere else in my marriage prep, and it’s the part I still wish more people talked about when they talk to married couples: since you’re one flesh, what’s good for one of you – what builds one up, what encourages one, what heartens one – benefits the other. Anything that helps my husband helps me. If something makes him a better Christian, if anything gives him joy, if anything delights his heart, it’s to my benefit that he has it, because it means I’ll be married to a better, happier, godlier man.
And the same is true the other way around. If something encourages me, if something builds me up, it’s to Adam’s benefit to see that I get it, because then he enjoys a marriage to a happier, healthier, godlier wife.
I could go on about the other points on that list, but this blog entry is supposed to be kept at a reasonable length. Suffice it to say: all the points on that list are good . . . especially the second one. 
Question for You:
What’s your best piece of advice for a new bride?
Peace of Christ to you,
Good advice. Unfortunately, the joyful sex part is often omitted in advice given by Christians and the continual prayer and forgiveness by the secular.
I do like #6 encourage 10x more than criticize. How true. I have now been a widow for longer than I was married but do wish I had been given such a list when I was married.I had a wonderful husband.
Thank you, Nancy.
I don’t remember if anyone told me this outright or not, but the best thing for our marriage (we joyfully entered year #8 yesterday!) was realizing that we can’t treat it like a workbook. Growing up in the church, I heard sermon after sermon about gender roles, characteristics of a godly marriage, rules for how to communicate and all that stuff. While helpful for getting your bearings initially, I suppose, our marriage works because we ignore all the things we “should” be doing and the ways we “should” be acting. Our marriage is a delight because when I look at Nate, I see Nate, not a list of characteristics and actions that match the notes I took in youth group.
It falls in with your mom’s excellent advice, actually. What’s good for Adam is good for you, not because you should want Adam to be happy and fulfilled (though you should), but because marriage isn’t an institution – it’s you and him delighting in each other and growing together.
Maybe that’s the key, really. A marriage based on what you “should” do can’t ever be as happy as a marriage based on delighting in your spouse and him delighting in you. Seems pretty basic, but I know so many couples stuck in the first kind who don’t seem to understand there’s a better option.
I like this so much, Linds! While there are big, ever-true principles, they’re going to *look* different when applied in different, specific situations. (My favorite example of this is modesty. Modesty is a universal principle. Its application, though, looks different culture to culture.)
Amen. I especially love the fact that #6 is in different pen– it was so important to add, she couldn’t bother to look for the pen in which she wrote the first five.
I know! I have a cool mom.
These are so true. I think spending time together often gets sacrificed, especially once kids come along. If one of you has a job with odd and changing hours, it can be even moreso. I heard a minister giving advice to other ministry couples and he said date weekly and retreat quarterly. We try to follow that advice even if the date is watching a TV show together on the couch. It makes such a difference knowing that we’ll focus on each other at least one evening a week.
Such good words! Yeah, it’s hard to love each other unless you actually get to BE WITH one another.
I think the best piece of advice I could give any bride would come before the vows are exchanged… marry your best friend. Be courteous. Be thoughtful. Be willing to laugh at yourself. Share in each other’s hobbies, hopes and dreams. It may not be glamorous but it’s worked for us for 11 years. My husband engages me in his love for sports and NFL football. I go to stores he likes and watch the movies he prefers. He supports me in my writing aspirations. And all the while we’re losing sleep and changing diapers side-by-side, we still say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ on a regular basis. When you’re sick, exhausted, paying bills, caring for children first and yourselves second, being kind, being friends and above all, keeping Christ in the center of your marriage, you’ll be investing in the love of a lifetime.
I love this! Yes, and part of the virtue of friendship in marriage, I’ve found, is that you can work well together – I mean, actually *work*. There’s so much work in day-to-day life, and having someone who is courteous in the middle of hardship and fun to be with even when what you’re *doing* isn’t fun (diapers, ahoy!) makes all the difference in the world.