Is marriage worth it?
- Thread starter darktipper
- Start date
I just had a conversation again bout this and now people are starting to see why I am asking is marriage really worth it.... We talked about how other couples in the family operates (ever relationship is different I know) and I noticed how selfish a spouse can be when emergency situations pop up. The unneeded yelling. Fighting over money...etc. I know God said it is not good to be alone but sometimes this day and age being alone is not so bad after all in my experiences. I think talking to walls and having a dog will be enough
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It's better to live on a housetop than with a quarrelsome woman.
It's better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome woman.
The key is to find a woman who isn't quarrelsome, and not to be quarrelsome yourself. I have a theory that just about all women are quarrelsome at one time or another, and that not being quarrelsome is a matter of degree. Various hormonal issues, can make women struggle with this. So can hunger and sleepiness which can effect men as well.
If you can find a woman who is a believer who is loving, not selfish, not quarrelsome, will submit to and respect her husband, and you can love her like Christ loves the church, care for her, and not embitter her, then your experience may different from what you describe.
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Finding that is like trying to win the lottery. You may find it but you may not be attracted to her physically.
Recently I am hearing more tales or marital fights with family members. While I on the other hand have no one and don't have to raise my blood pressure over something petty....
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sdmsanjose
Regular Member
Quit hiding by using self degrading positions. Your opinion of yourself as a failure in almost everything is overly pessimistic. Your extreme negative attitude signals an unbalance in some area of your life.
Your current attitude is not good for marriage or your singleness. Get some help and stop the self degrading and self pity.
God does not want any person having such attitude. You can have a much better life if you are willing to get help and help yourself.
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If you want that, drop the pessimism and pray for faith with it. My wife is beautiful and has a great personality and loves the Lord. She's got the complete package. Yes, it can happen.
And I used to be single and sit around wondering when I'd really meet someone I could connect with who had certain characteristics, and whether it would really happen. But I started praying and relying on the Lord and he brought me my wife.
Pray for yourself for the Lord to help you with that pessimism. It's not conducive to an overcoming life of faith. And it isn't good for whoever the Lord may provide for you to marry to be subjected to either.
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I think it completely depends on you. Everyone is individual. If you are a social person who finds joy in the company of others and you find that special someone you want to spend your life with, then marriage is for you. If you are more of a loner; if people annoy you more often than not; or if the thought of spending the rest of your life with your girlfriend doesnt thrill you; then stay single.
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This is always a very good question, and the answer will depend on many factors. However, please be advised, when Paul says that the believer cannot care solely for the Lord, but must divide his attention to his wife, he means exactly that. The Lord's care is primarily spiritual, whereas the wife's care is manifestly carnal. It will make a difference on your spiritual life, believe me.
Paul also says,"seek not a wife." That is not a command, but an admonition. No Christian is forbidden to marry, but only in the Lord, and not without careful, prayerful consideration. You WILL be manifestly stressed in the flesh if you choose to marry. There are benefits, of course, but it WILL keep you earth-bound in many things.
Sadly, I would have to confess that my married life has not gone well. I prayed, waited, fasted, sought, cried, mourned. Finally, I began demanding. Seriously, When that failed, I began looking for a woman on online mail-order bride sites. God closed all these down, but it was a serious reflection on the attitude of my heart.
I am not really marriage material - at least not with my present wife. I definitely believe she is the one God chose for me, but I also believe it would have been better for me to continue to wait rather than do what I did. Yes, the Lord has been gracious and has blessed in many ways. But because of my personality, (introverted, socially withdrawn,) it has not really gone well.
"The two shall become one flesh." This is a mystery, but you will find two minds, two hearts, two lives becoming one. You will feel what she feels, and she will be involved with what you are involved with. The two definitely become one.
However, if the one enters marriage with strong preconceptions, there can be a lot of problems down the road. My wife had a dominant mother and a graciously accommodating father. Consequently, I am supposed to be as accommodating, but that is not my preference. I do not believe that a man is supposed to be the help for the woman, but rather the other way around. For the sake of peace, my FIL accommodated my MIL. This is not something I can successfully do, because whatever I do actually do, is always insufficient according to my wife's preferences.
So, I'm rather down and perpetually sad about this these days. (Please all, spare your militant admonitions for another day. I'm not able to bear them.) Also, she is a practical doer, and I am a cerebral thinker. My basis is words, whereas her basis is works. To her, I am a carnal fraud, and to me, she is a self-righteous Pharisee.
Even if God picks your mate, SUCH WILL HAVE TROUBLE IN THE FLESH. The problem, of course, is that you cannot perceive or understand what this trouble actually will be. (BUT, because you are "more spiritual" than most, you will overcome by faith rather than by sight.)
Perhaps, but friend, YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE IN THE FLESH. And the more spiritual you are the more that trouble will confound you, because it is CARNAL troubles, AS WELL AS spiritual trouble. You will not have the availability to spend with the Lord, and consequently, you will be highly challenged to be as spiritual as you are now.
Yet, the allure of a physical companion is very strong. I could not overcome it but rather insisted on having it happen to me. It was a very poor choice on my part, and impossible to reverse. Marriage is PERMANENT, like few things in life are. Do NOT be hasty to enter in, and cast a STRONG eye askance at it.
With a 50% divorce rate, neither you or your potential spouse are really on such strong footing, despite your current spirituality. Unbeknownst to you, you are exceedingly more selfish, carnal, worldly, and compromised than perhaps any generation previous. You simply cannot perceive how selfish you or your future spouse actually are. Plus, it is all too easy to get a divorce today, with most civil laws favoring women; who instigate over 75% of all divorces today.
Your children will be assaulted with values, beliefs, and behaviors that are getting worse and worse, and they WILL be profoundly affected by them. The world is teetering on a major crisis in the Middle East, and this country's economy is far worse than most understand. "This present distress" is about to get far worse, and I for one could not advocate beginning a new family because of this. (Any more than I would have advocated a Jewish couple get married in 1934 in Germany.)
There is lots more that can be said, but this is the gist of it. You simply do not know who you or your spouse will become once married and with several children down the road. Yes, you can trust in the Lord, but you WILL HAVE TROUBLE IN THE FLESH, no matter how much you trust Him. (And I am sure this very fact has stumbled MANY an erstwhile sincere believer, simply because he or she could not conceive just how difficult the trouble in the flesh would be.)
Get married IF YOU MUST. You do not sin if you do, but you WILL have trouble in your flesh. (And it doesn't really matter how earnest or convicted you may personally be, because you can be as committed and capable as you want, but if your partner is not, your trouble in the flesh just got magnified about a 1000 times worse.)
DON'T TEST GOD IN THIS. Marriage is a provision against fornication, nothing more. God doesn't not need Christians to procreate. Survey the pews of even the most Godly and committed of churches and you will find a HIGH PERCENTAGE of separated and divorced people. (And if the first marriage was bad, don't think the second gets any easier. That is another powerful lie from the Devil.) The spiritual landscape is more filled with unseen potholes and carnal temptations than ever before. (Unless you think the Internet is not an exceedingly powerful device for temptation.)
1 Corinthians 7:26-40
(26 ) I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, [I say], that [it is] good for a man so to be.
(27 ) Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
(28 ) But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
(29 ) But this I say, brethren, the time [is] short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
(30 ) And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
(31 ) And they that use this world, as not abusing [it]: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
(32 ) But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
(33 ) But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please [his] wife.
(34 ) There is difference [also] between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please [her] husband.
(35 ) And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.
(36 ) But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of [her] age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.
(37 ) Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
(38 ) So then he that giveth [her] in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth [her] not in marriage doeth better.
(39 ) The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
(40 ) But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.
You are forewarned, friend. Please heed this with the most soberest of considerations. Be willing to suffer for a little while and you will be far more prepared for the coming distress than if you were bound to a spouse.
JRN
Paul also says,"seek not a wife." That is not a command, but an admonition. No Christian is forbidden to marry, but only in the Lord, and not without careful, prayerful consideration. You WILL be manifestly stressed in the flesh if you choose to marry. There are benefits, of course, but it WILL keep you earth-bound in many things.
Sadly, I would have to confess that my married life has not gone well. I prayed, waited, fasted, sought, cried, mourned. Finally, I began demanding. Seriously, When that failed, I began looking for a woman on online mail-order bride sites. God closed all these down, but it was a serious reflection on the attitude of my heart.
I am not really marriage material - at least not with my present wife. I definitely believe she is the one God chose for me, but I also believe it would have been better for me to continue to wait rather than do what I did. Yes, the Lord has been gracious and has blessed in many ways. But because of my personality, (introverted, socially withdrawn,) it has not really gone well.
"The two shall become one flesh." This is a mystery, but you will find two minds, two hearts, two lives becoming one. You will feel what she feels, and she will be involved with what you are involved with. The two definitely become one.
However, if the one enters marriage with strong preconceptions, there can be a lot of problems down the road. My wife had a dominant mother and a graciously accommodating father. Consequently, I am supposed to be as accommodating, but that is not my preference. I do not believe that a man is supposed to be the help for the woman, but rather the other way around. For the sake of peace, my FIL accommodated my MIL. This is not something I can successfully do, because whatever I do actually do, is always insufficient according to my wife's preferences.
So, I'm rather down and perpetually sad about this these days. (Please all, spare your militant admonitions for another day. I'm not able to bear them.) Also, she is a practical doer, and I am a cerebral thinker. My basis is words, whereas her basis is works. To her, I am a carnal fraud, and to me, she is a self-righteous Pharisee.
Even if God picks your mate, SUCH WILL HAVE TROUBLE IN THE FLESH. The problem, of course, is that you cannot perceive or understand what this trouble actually will be. (BUT, because you are "more spiritual" than most, you will overcome by faith rather than by sight.)
Perhaps, but friend, YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE IN THE FLESH. And the more spiritual you are the more that trouble will confound you, because it is CARNAL troubles, AS WELL AS spiritual trouble. You will not have the availability to spend with the Lord, and consequently, you will be highly challenged to be as spiritual as you are now.
Yet, the allure of a physical companion is very strong. I could not overcome it but rather insisted on having it happen to me. It was a very poor choice on my part, and impossible to reverse. Marriage is PERMANENT, like few things in life are. Do NOT be hasty to enter in, and cast a STRONG eye askance at it.
With a 50% divorce rate, neither you or your potential spouse are really on such strong footing, despite your current spirituality. Unbeknownst to you, you are exceedingly more selfish, carnal, worldly, and compromised than perhaps any generation previous. You simply cannot perceive how selfish you or your future spouse actually are. Plus, it is all too easy to get a divorce today, with most civil laws favoring women; who instigate over 75% of all divorces today.
Your children will be assaulted with values, beliefs, and behaviors that are getting worse and worse, and they WILL be profoundly affected by them. The world is teetering on a major crisis in the Middle East, and this country's economy is far worse than most understand. "This present distress" is about to get far worse, and I for one could not advocate beginning a new family because of this. (Any more than I would have advocated a Jewish couple get married in 1934 in Germany.)
There is lots more that can be said, but this is the gist of it. You simply do not know who you or your spouse will become once married and with several children down the road. Yes, you can trust in the Lord, but you WILL HAVE TROUBLE IN THE FLESH, no matter how much you trust Him. (And I am sure this very fact has stumbled MANY an erstwhile sincere believer, simply because he or she could not conceive just how difficult the trouble in the flesh would be.)
Get married IF YOU MUST. You do not sin if you do, but you WILL have trouble in your flesh. (And it doesn't really matter how earnest or convicted you may personally be, because you can be as committed and capable as you want, but if your partner is not, your trouble in the flesh just got magnified about a 1000 times worse.)
DON'T TEST GOD IN THIS. Marriage is a provision against fornication, nothing more. God doesn't not need Christians to procreate. Survey the pews of even the most Godly and committed of churches and you will find a HIGH PERCENTAGE of separated and divorced people. (And if the first marriage was bad, don't think the second gets any easier. That is another powerful lie from the Devil.) The spiritual landscape is more filled with unseen potholes and carnal temptations than ever before. (Unless you think the Internet is not an exceedingly powerful device for temptation.)
1 Corinthians 7:26-40
(26 ) I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, [I say], that [it is] good for a man so to be.
(27 ) Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
(28 ) But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
(29 ) But this I say, brethren, the time [is] short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
(30 ) And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
(31 ) And they that use this world, as not abusing [it]: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
(32 ) But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
(33 ) But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please [his] wife.
(34 ) There is difference [also] between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please [her] husband.
(35 ) And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.
(36 ) But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of [her] age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.
(37 ) Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
(38 ) So then he that giveth [her] in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth [her] not in marriage doeth better.
(39 ) The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
(40 ) But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.
You are forewarned, friend. Please heed this with the most soberest of considerations. Be willing to suffer for a little while and you will be far more prepared for the coming distress than if you were bound to a spouse.
JRN
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I don't give this "go get 'em" advice very often, I'm not exactly a cheerleader kind of lady. So listen to your big sister, and trust your Dad. Who knows what kind of crazy good He has in store for you? The only guarantee you have is that it won't be quite what you were expecting.
Yes, marriage can be a blessing, but it can just as easily become a curse, (as 50% of all marriages are ending in divorce, even in the church.) You're not helping anything by encouraging something that could be a disaster. A successful marriage is a lot harder than that, and it will take away from the totality of his devotion to the Lord.
(1 Corinthians 7:38 ) So then he that giveth [her] in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth [her] not in marriage doeth better.
(1 Corinthians 7:39 ) The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
(1 Corinthians 7:40 ) But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.
Getting back to the Bible starts here.
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Leggomyegolas
I can haz popcorn?
There are women who are homebodies also. They're kindof hard to find though, since they're always at home.
The best advice I can give about how to find a good woman is to stop looking for her. Go about your single life, pursue hobbies, have fun. Sooner or later, you'll meet a woman somewhere related to what you're doing for fun, and so you'll already have at least 1 thing in common. If she turns out to be "the one for you," then JACKPOT! If not, then oh well, you haven't lost anything.
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WalksWithChrist
Seeking God's Will
This is the best advice I've seen on this thread.
If I were you I don't think I'd worry about marriage either in the short term. But I would spend some real time figuring out what makes you "fail" and how to counter that tendency. It's something I've done a lot of myself and continue to do. It's worth it.
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CounselorForChrist
Senior Veteran
I am about to be married but I can tell you from learning about marriage that marriage is not for anyone who can be selfish, can't share, has anger issues...etc. Marriage is not perfect and people need to realize that and be willing to forgive. Never go to bed angry! My mother says if you are going to fight, fight naked this way the fight won't last very long. LOL ^.^
Overall marriage is work and alot people don't realize how hard it is. But for all this work its worth the rewards!
Overall marriage is work and alot people don't realize how hard it is. But for all this work its worth the rewards!
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