WARNING SIGNS OF COLDNESS IN YOUR MARRIAGE:

No couple wakes up one morning to discover that their marriage is broken and in trouble. There are warning signs long before a marriage falls apart that if addressed early could save the marriage from unnecessary struggle and hurt.
Allow me to mention a few of these warning signs:

You share the same house but fail to share your hearts deepest emotions. There is nothing more effective in keeping a couple intimate than open honest expression of the soul. Couples drift apart emotionally long before they drift apart physically. When you are holding back from your spouse you are holding back your deepest emotions of joy, dreams, struggles, and hurt. You are heading in the opposite direction of true intimacy with your spouse. Learning to be a safe listener to your spouse will keep honest and the deepest emotions flowing . A safe listener listens with their whole person, not just with their ears. A safe listener never laughs, scorns, mocks, or make light of what is being shared. A safe listener is engaged, asks questions, listens with empathy, and seeks to understand. Trouble is certain when a spouse finds a safer listener somewhere else than at home.

You are making decisions without first consulting with each other. Strong marriages consist of couples that respect each other’s opinion and input therefore make it a firm habit to consult each other before making decisions that affect their marriage, finances, and future. There is nothing that says, “You are not important to me” more than not being asked to be involved in decision making. The spouse who can make decisions without consulting their spouse has not become “one” with his/her spouse. An independent attitude in marriage is an open door for trouble sooner or later. 

You are keeping score and record of who does more. This is a big warning sign. Keeping score and mental record of who does more, who tolerates more, who offends more is a sure recipe for trouble. In keeping score, your focus is wrong. Keeping score is not only negative focus and thinking, but is usually the fruit of failing to communicate effectively your feelings. Where there is a score board, there is little open communication.

You have found someone else easier to talk to. Nothing good can ever come out of finding someone else easier to talk to than your spouse. This warning sign means that you are already in trouble. Without stable and unwavering character from the one you find it easier to talk too, an affair is in the making because you are already cheating on your spouse.

You find yourself pushing each other’s buttons on purpose. No one knows each other’s weaknesses or buttons as married couples do. Taking advantage of each other’s buttons by deliberately pushing them just to make each other angry or to hurt each other creates distrust and resentment. Couples who keep their marriage strong learn to protect each other and avoid pushing each other’s buttons. 

You are mentally and emotionally taking vacations away from each other. This warning sign follows failing to share with each other your deepest emotions and follows finding someone else easier to talk too. Therefore, by the time this sign shows up in a marriage, many other signs have already been ignored or overlooked. Remember, before divorce papers are served, mental and emotional divorce occurred long ago. Failing to recognize this warning sign is extremely costly. 

You are no longer dating each other. There is simply no way to build a marriage without life-long dating. Your marriage is either in the process of growing better or growing apart. Just as a garden must have water and sunshine to thrive, so a marriage must continue to date to thrive. Absolutely no excuse over rides the need to continue to date each other long after the wedding day.

You are withholding communication. Communication is as fresh air in marriage. Failing to communicate is like jogging on top of Pike’s Peak some 15,000 feet above sea level. It is exhausting, painful and draining.

You are looking out for yourself more and more. This is a warning sign that your marriage is no longer functioning as a marriage. Whenever you stop functioning as a married person, your marriage falls apart. Marriage is where two people care more for each other than themselves. This is the oil that keeps marriage running smoothly. Don’t miss any warning signs in your marriage.

WHEN LOVE IS GONE, WHERE DOES IT GO:

Many married couples are trapped in loveless marriages and are only sticking together either for the sake of the children or for financial reasons, a survey has found.

The study of more than 2,000 people revealed that one-quarter of husbands and wives admit they are not "in love" with their partner.

And the same number admitted they only stay together for the sake of the children and would consider separating once the children leave home. One-third wished it had worked out with someone else instead, while one in five admitted that they have been unfaithful.

Another research also revealed that one in six wish they had not got married in the first place. But almost half still said that getting married was the best thing they ever did and three-quarters said they would still wholeheartedly advise young people to get married.

For unhappy couples, arguments over money, sex and spousal control were given as the main reasons cited for the breakdown in relationships. Finance was the number one reason, the survey found. One in five said they would end their marriage if they could guarantee they would be comfortable financially.

However, husbands and wives gave different reasons for staying in a loveless marriage. The number one reason to stay for women was that they would be unable to sustain themselves financially in the event of a split. Men said the negative impact a divorce would have on the family was their main reason for not leaving.

A newly wedded wife became disappointed in her husband who she thought was a much stronger and committed Christian. Soon after the wedding, the wife discovered that he wasn’t being the spiritual leader she dreamed and hoped for in a husband. Her response was to belittle him making him feel he was not very spiritual but a failure as a Christian husband. She could have responded correctly in prayer trusting God to change her husband and asking God what she could do, how and where she needed to change to help her husband become established as the spiritual leader she desired him to be. Instead, she became the problem, all the while blaming her husband. Within a year, she divorced him. She responded her way into divorce. She could have done just the opposite.

WRONG RESPONSES QUENCH LOVE: 

Your response to life each day determines what kind of days you have. Bad days are simply days in which you are responding to life wrongly. The power of choice is yours!

As long as you are focused upon the faults and behavior of your spouse, “You Will Remain the Problem.” Marriage counseling will always fail when the couple is out to change each other.

God will never talk to you about your spouse without first talking to you about YOU. Jesus actually implied this when He explained that if we have a problem with someone else (such as our spouse) in whom we see a spake in their eye that needs removing, first, before you address your spouse’s spake, seek to remove the log in your own eye. Biblical counsel sounds like this… “you” pray and “you” bless those who despitefully use you… “you” love your enemies… “you” do good to those who hurt you… “you” turn the other cheek. In other words, godly counseling addresses your response to being wronged before it ever considers the person who has wronged you.

Godly and wise marriage counseling is always about improving and correcting your own behavior and your own actions – not your spouse. Until you set out to change you, “you” will remain the problem. If “you” do not change, the problem will resurface again and again. 

 
By default, we are born into this world crying about our needs and wants. Many are well into their adult years and are still crying about their own rights, needs, wants, and feelings. The whole world to them revolves around them. But the joy of marriage will never be realized until you learn to love your spouse more than you love yourself.

But what if my spouse really is the problem? Remember, your spouse cannot be a problem to you if you are responding in love, compassion, and empathy. A wrong response to any issue with your spouse makes you the problem. Problems are created by wrong responses to issues or circumstances that arise within marriage.

Example: “My spouse never spends quality time with me. My spouse is always so busy and then comes home only to fall asleep on the couch.” This is definitely not good and can be a real issue. However, a problem will only arise when such an issue is addressed wrongly, and by the way, failing to address the issue early is indeed wrong and will create future problems that can be extremely hurtful.

Early effective communication expressing your need, desire and love for quality time with your spouse is an absolute must. This early communication will be void of months and years of bent up frustration and loneliness that more often is communicated in anger and resentment. Loving, thoughtful and creative responses to issues and negative circumstances will avoid creating unnecessary problems and conflict.

Allow me to say once again, when you respond to an issue or negative circumstance the wrong way, you become the problem, not the issue or circumstance. Any response from you to an issue in your marriage where your response includes anger, cursing, belittling, mocking, judging, and defensiveness makes YOU the problem. In troubled and failing marriages, you will discover a spouse that only sees and focuses upon the splinter in their mate’s eye. This is all they talk about. The splinter is all they see. The log in their own eye is rarely, if ever, considered. Without even knowing it, they become the problem.

WHY YOUR HUSBAND WILL NOT LIKE TO COME TO CHURCH:

Part Four of "When Love Is Gone, Where Does It Go?"

1 Peter 3:7 “HUSBANDS, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving HONOUR to the wife”. 

Eph 5:21-22 “submitting to one another in the fear of God. Wives, SUBMIT to your own husbands, as to the Lord”.

These two passages point to two commands “TO HONOUR”, which means to respect the privacy of your marriage and submit to your partner in everything just the same way you submit to the Lord. Both husband and wife have the same promise. If we do what God commands, our spouses will be pointed to God. When we are not getting along with our spouses, only one of us need to take a first step and adopt God’s respective command in order to reap the benefit of God’s promise.

So why should women honour their husbands? Men rate honour higher than love. Men desire respect, not love. God designed women to affirm the men in their lives. Women, let the Lord speak to you now. Your husband may have missed nine out of ten things, but affirm and speak well of him on that one thing that he did well, and as the Bible teaches, he will be changed without you preaching to him. In 1 Peter 1:3, Apostle Peter encourage wives to “be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the BEHAVIOUR of their wives. 

Women, the challenge for you is to HONOUR your husband who is not perfect. Many times husbands will not come to church because the wife who is a Christian will reveal her marriage problems to the church in prayer meeting after prayer meeting. This only mines the field and serves to dishonour your husband. It’s not everybody who attend Church is born again. Some will use your situation and turn back on you. Their words of criticism and mockery might backfire and reach the hearing of your husband. This will damage his reputation and make him feel dishonoured. 

Secondly, you dishonour your husband when you share your marital problems with your friends or family members. Once the man is aware of it, he feels stupid before them. So, I want you to ask yourself, “Am I condemning my husband before others or honouring him by affirming his good part?” Prov 31:23 said about the virtuous woman, “Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land”. Is your husband well spoken of at your church, before your friends and family members? Or he is dishonoured and regarded as a stupid, useless man? 

The devil wants you to focus on what he has done wrong, but God is commanding us to do the opposite. Affirm what he has done right! Avoid sharing your marital problem with friends, church prayer meetings, but take the problems to God in prayers or meet a trained and experienced counsellor. Rom 13:7 “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour”.

BEFORE LOVE GROWS COLD:

Part Five of "When Love Is Gone, Where Does It Go?"
This is a quick reminder about the stages through which a relationship travels. Love grows and changes. The excitement that brings couples together in the first place is very different from the love that emerges fifteen or fifty years later in marriage. Love relationships go through three predictable stages. All are important and none can be avoided if love is to flourish.

Stage 1: Romantic Love
Love relationships usually begin with a strong physical and emotional attraction that produces a somewhat altered state of consciousness. Your brain is saturated with chemicals called endorphins, creating the sensations of intense pleasure that accompany infatuation. In this highly charged emotional state, you are apt to project images, expectations, and ideals of the perfect mate onto your partner. These projections often have little to do with who your partner really is, but it's hard to tell because both of you are on your best behavior. Reeling with romance and passion, you and your partner are highly responsive to each other. It is not until a little further down the path that you find out what a person is really like.

Stage 2: Power Struggle
As romantic love subside, healthy relationships go through a period of adjustment with continuing power struggles. It is common during this stage, for each partner to try to mold the other into the ideal mate. As part of this process, many couples bicker and fight. Some launch a "cold war" and start avoiding sensitive areas of conflict. If neither you nor your partner is ready to risk confrontation, your lives are likely to become more and more separate and devoid of intimacy and sharing. Even though you avoid open conflict, agreeing at some level not to argue and fight, the tension and pain remain. Here the problems go underground and come out when least expected.

Some couples use guilt and blame to try to control each other in an effort to recapture feelings associated with the earliest stage of their relationship. Both long for that period of romance when being together was new and exciting and the partner was attentive. If that sounds like you, remember that it’s normal to fall out of romantic love and to experience conflict. Furthermore, confrontation is healthy. It builds understanding when you get things out on the table. Learning to confront and resolve conflict at this stage helps your relationship mature. The challenge is to discover what can be changed in the relationship and what must be accepted.

It is never too late to learn the skills and to take the risks to effectively move through the power-struggle stage in order to achieve a stronger more satisfying relationship. It requires honesty with self, the willingness to confront and communicate with the partner, and letting go of control to experience what needs to surface. This includes facing your fears and allowing all your feelings to be explored. Feelings are not right or wrong. When denied, however, anger turns to rage and playing "ostrich" to avoid dealing with issues turns to depression. 

Steering through the power-struggle stage can take years if a couple does not look for help outside of their frame of reference. There are some definite things a couple can do to speed up the process. Join me tomorrow as we look at stage three.

Stage 3: Unconditional Acceptance

In its third stage (Unconditional Acceptance), a healthy relationship moves beyond regular power struggles and control issues to unconditional love and acceptance. However, during the transition from stage two to stage three, partners must still confront and resolve issues in the relationship, taking risks to make positive change wherever possible and accepting those conditions that cannot be changed. Even in stage three, it is healthy to discuss anything that upsets you. Differences are approached positively, not seen as things to brush over, hide, or suppress. Tolerance and forgiveness are part of the equation, because there are always two different individuals with points of view, interests, desires, goals, and rates of growth.

At this stage, each person is highly aware of various traits in the other. Some you like and others you dislike, but you learn to accept the ones that cannot be changed. This is a time when expectations are readjusted and both of you become more realistic. Part of the process involves grieving the loss of expectations that cannot be met, and forgiving your partner for not conforming to your ideals. Making peace with yourself over the loss of your idealistic fantasies can take years — it really depends on your level of self-awareness, your willingness to let go of control, and the degree to which you are able to tune into the relationship. This third stage, acceptance, also includes enjoying the partnership and supporting each other on the journey of life.

On the path to mature love, these three stages blend into one another. One does not stop and another begins. In fact occasionally, they all three take place simultaneously. For example, you can still create romance in the second and third stages. Remember the draw of the first stage, where there was the element of surprise and the unknown? To create some romance, change your routine and bring in the element of surprise and unpredictability. You might create a date night once a week, where you go out and do fun things together. Use your imagination. Likewise, during the third stage it is still important to bring up issues that get in the way of experiencing a good relationship. Communication is important in all stages, as is working on your own issues and building awareness.

Knowing these three stages helps people be realistic about relationships. Rather than giving up during the tough times of the second stage, it is helpful to know it is normal and there are things you can do to make the way easier. Good relationships take time, awareness, risking, and good communication skills, to name a few, and require lots of practice. Each relationship is unique and incomparable.

WHAT TO AVOID BEFORE YOUR LOVE GROW COLD:
His wife mentioned that their love had been dead for several years. He admits that their love had grown cold.

I hear this lot. After a separation or divorce, the comment that I hear is, “it had been over for years”. Are you feeling the same about your marriage? The key is to do something about it before it gets out of control. I think that every couple can let themselves grown into a rut. Every partner can begin to feel cheated (not cheated on). He/she can feel that perhaps the mate is selfish and uncaring towards his/her needs. So how do couples avoid this?

Communicate - If you feel resentment toward your spouse, do not hold it inside. It will eventually cause you to grown hard if you do not let it out. Tell your spouse what you are feeling. Talk about how things can be changed to better compliment both of you.

Listen - If your spouse comments that he/she needs more time with you do not make excuses- find the time. If your spouse mentions she would love to take a cooking class, do not blow it off- enrol her. If your spouse mentions that he would like to begin working out in the gym, do not tell him he is perfect the way he is (even though it is a nice compliment)- support him. Tell him you too will join and you can work out together. You can learn a lot about your spouse just from listening and picking up on clues. 

Be considerate and thankful - While your spouse really might not mind putting the kids to bed every night while you study, it still would not hurt him/her to hear “thank-you”. If your spouse is giving more than taking, be mindful and make mention of how much you appreciate it. Always return the favor as soon as you get the chance. Ask your spouse what he/she would like to do. What are his/her dreams?

BEING POSITIVE WITH YOUR SPOUSE:

Part Eight (A) of "When Love Is Gone, Where Does It Go?"

Having a positive attitude in life is powerful “only” if you’re positive about the right information. Being positive yet lacking the right information can still produce negative results. With a positive attitude, many determine not “to give up” on their marriage but because they lack the right information their positive attitude fails to produce desired results. This is a common reason for years of struggle among couples whose attitude is positive in wanting their marriage to work but lack the right information. If I give you an address to find in Lagos, but with a map of Abuja, it would not matter how positive you were concerning finding the address, you will experience much frustration and confusion because you are being led by the wrong information.

Allow me to suggest to you two things to be positive about concerning your marriage.

First, be positive that as you think in your heart about your spouse and marriage so will be your marriage. You cannot have a troubled marriage without a troubled thought-life. Be positive about the truth that your love for your spouse cannot grow cold without first your love growing cold in your thought-life. How does one remain positive about this truth? Be positive that as you think in your heart so are you. Being positive about this truth is working this truth for your good. Refuse to allow even the smallest thought to dwell within your heart that is unproductive and negative about your spouse.

Mastering your thought-life with positive truth means that you understand that whatever issues arise within your relationship, you can control what and how you think and what you say and how you say it. You are not a puppet on a string being forced to say and do whatever comes to your mind. What you do and say in any given circumstance must be allowed by how you are thinking at the moment. Be positive that as you think in your heart, so you speak and act, so positively think loving, caring, gentle and encouraging thoughts.

Unhappiness cannot exist in marriage without first dominating your thought-life with negative thinking and self-talk.

LOVES DOES NOT FALL AWAY…IT IS “THOUGHT AWAY”

Be positive that as you think in your heart, your emotions and feelings will follow. How can one be positive about this truth? Positively know that your feelings follow your thinking. Therefore, if you desire to be passionately in love with your spouse, think passionate loving thoughts about your spouse – on purpose and with purpose. Be positive that such thinking will indeed produce feelings of love. You cannot feel positive about anything you think negatively about, and likewise, you cannot keep falling in love with your spouse if you fail to keep loving your spouse with your entire mind. There is no such thing as falling out of love. That is a lie. No one falls out of love.

Loves does not fall away…it is “thought” away. Love cannot enter your heart nor can it leave your heart without the cooperation of your thought-life. It is helpful to understand that a person’s thought-life consists not only of thoughts but:

A. How one sees their mate and marriage on the inside of their heart and
B. How one talks to themselves within their heart about their spouse.

How you see life and your marriage is determined by how you think in your heart. How you talk to yourself about life and your marriage is determined by how you think in your heart. Love rises or falls according to your thought-life. This truth can become transforming information that can positively change your life forever if you positively embrace and act upon it.

If you are serious about falling in love with your spouse over and over again, then I highly recommend doing the following. Journal your thoughts and feelings. Do not assume you know what you think at the core of your heart. Your inner thoughts are hidden within your feelings on the inside. Your inner feelings determine how you see and respond to life. If you feel or sense a lack of love and romance for your spouse, these feelings are following your thinking in your heart. Therefore, with purpose and intention make yourself think wonderful, loving and passionate thoughts about your spouse and marriage. You are in complete control of how you think and because feelings follow thinking, you can control how you feel about your spouse. You create what you feel with your thoughts.