When you stood before family and friends and pledged to marry your lovely Bride, the minister probably asked you something like this:
“Your Name Here, do you take this woman to be your wife; to live together in the holy covenant of marriage? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her so long as you both shall live? If so answer I do.”
You may have also been asked to say something like this:
“I, Your Name Here, take you Her Name Here, to be my wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.”
Now I am sure that at the moment you repeated those vows or consented to them by saying “I do” you really meant them. However, over the years the reality of those words has faded, now they are a mere memory tucked away somewhere in the deep recesses of your mind. Oh you still “live together” with her, and you still “love” her but you have slacked off on the “comfort,” “honor” and “keeping” parts…and to “cherish” her…not so much!
It’s not that you have intentionally neglected those things (although for some of you that’s true) rather, you just sort of forgot they were also a part of the deal. Trust me, I know how that goes. Life happens, and along the way you lose sight of who is supposed to be most important to you.
Just so we are clear on this, SHE is supposed to be most important to you!
· Not your job (although I know your need to make a living is important)…
· Not your extended family (although maintaining those relationships is usually a good thing)…
· Not your children (although they ARE important too)…
· Not your friends (although it is important to have good friends…”iron sharpens iron”)…
· Not your favorite team (although it’s okay to root for them once in awhile)…
· Not your hobbies (although recreation can be helpful and healthy)…
· Not your ministry or other community service activities (although helping others is often rewarding)…
Aside from your relationship with the Lord, your relationship with your bride should be your priority!
Okay, now you are thinking, “I understand that Jim, so where are you going with this?”
Well, I am not so sure that we men really understand “this”! I did, but I didn’t. Oh, I knew the vows. I read them each time I officiated a wedding ceremony. I had even repeated them to my own bride at one time. Yet somehow, I lost touch with the real meaning of them. I lived together with my bride, but I did not “live together” with my bride. I loved my bride, but I did not “love” my bride, and somewhere along the way I forgot what it meant to comfort, keep, honor, and cherish her. Ultimately, I paid dearly for that.
Men, I see now, what I didn’t see then. I see what our lack of honoring our vows does to the person who should be most important to us!
For whatever reason, whether it be some misguided machismo or some preoccupation with building a career or some fascination with a recreational pursuit or even some seemingly higher calling, we all too often forget the promise we made to love, honor and cherish.
I know I am bordering on a rant here, but it has been my experience over the last few years (and more so recently) as I have talked to female friends and divorcees, that we men have a lot to answer for when it comes to the state of our marriages and or the resulting divorces (and yes I know that it takes two people to make a relationship).
It seems to me that we men fail our vows in one of two ways. We fail to honor our wives and we fail to cherish our wives.
First, we fail to honor our wives when we become controlling, mean-spirited, and insensitive. I doubt men like this start out their marriage treating their bride that way, but somewhere in the process they just become a jerk. Their love is not really love because whatever they do for their bride (and they rarely do anything) has an ulterior motive, it is conditional. They wouldn’t know how to honor their bride if their life depended on it.
Second, we fail to cherish our wives when we become disinterested and neglectful. In this case, everything and everyone else becomes more important. Men like this are not overtly hostile, they are just not there…in body or in spirit. They are uncaring and uninterested in the most amazing thing in their life. They are too busy at work, or always on the golf course, or stuck on the couch watching sports…they have long forgotten how to adore their wife.
What’s sad to me is that I know men who are guilty of these very things right now. Their marriages are on the brink because they can’t find a way to honor and cherish their wife. Unfortunately, they will likely lose the best thing that ever happened to them because they are either unwilling or uninterested in changing their behavior. However, it is NEVER too late to start!
In the future, I hope to share some of the insights I have gained through my experience and recommend some steps that you can take to start honoring your vows once again.
Just to get you thinking in the right direction here’s something for you to think about.
Thanks for listening.
Talk to you soon,
Jim
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