Every time we make photo copies from photo copies of an original, the image gets worse, but if that’s all we have, we get used to it.  I think as men, we’ve gotten used to our own blurry copy of what it means to be men.  You see I think there are at least “Eight Things Men Do To Ruin Their Marriage before They’re Married.”

And for many of us men, we’ve never learned about or seen modeled the skill set that makes us good husbands or future husbands to our wives.  We assume that simply because we’ve grown up we’re going to do well in our interpersonal relationships with women.  But there are a few key skills that most men don’t possess that if learned would create better relationships.

Skill # 1: don’t stop pursuing and romancing your wife once you’re married.  If you continue to win her heart over the years even though its already been given to you, your relationship will improve.

Skill # 2: be relational with your wife.  Plan “hang out” time either with or without an agenda.  By making time available with her you communicate her priority in your life.

Skill #3: communicate with her, all the time.  Share your life with her; give her both the details and how those events make you feel.

Since so many men lack these skills, it wouldn’t take much for you or me to set ourselves apart simply by learning and applying these simple skills.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

“Before I settle down, I want to live it up a little”  “I’m not ready to be tied down anywhere or to anyone right now.”  These are two very common approaches to the young single life.  But could there be any inherent difficulty that these attitudes produce, which will cause problems in the future when one does want to settle down?  I think there are at least “Eight Things Men Do To Ruin Their Marriage before They’re Married”

If “not being tied down to any one person” means enjoying multiple intimate relationships, then yes there will be problems for that person when they do chose to settle down.  Because settling down means choosing to be committed to one person for the rest of your life.

All healthy relationships are built upon that commitment. Notice what our past does if we’ve had multiple partners.  It undermines our ability to establish commitment with our partner.  When a couple gets married, the assumption is that each person has been chosen out from among all others.  But the more partners we’ve had, we don’t communicate, “you’re the one”, we communicate, “you’re one of them”, or “you’re the current one”.

Our commitment becomes conditional.  As if we’re saying, “I’m always committed to whomever I’m currently committed to, and right now you’re it.”  Who knew that right now many men, who are not even thinking about a future life as a married person, could be making choices that actually make their future marriage stronger simply by saying no to multiple intimate relationships?  Conversely, a lot of men are ruining their future relationships as they accumulate intimate partners.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

Boys will be boys, the familiar saying goes, but what if what we typically do as boys isn’t so great?  I think there are at least “Eight Things Men Do To Ruin Their Marriage before They’re Married”

One of the most common ways, boys will be boys, is by looking at pornography.  Few things destroy relationships and marriages like pornography.  Now someone might think, “Of course a Chaplain is going to say pornography is bad, Chaplains think viewing pornography is a sin.”  Or someone else might add, “Pornographic material is protected by the 1^st Amendment and each person has a right to chose whether or not they’ll view pornography.

Well my objections to pornography are about the damage it will do to the relationships that matter to us.  Men, when we spend time looking at sexually explicit material, the first person that gets hurt is the woman we’re dating or married to.  When she learns we’re enjoying looking at other women, it causes her wonder what is wrong with her.

This produces insecurity in her, and that undermines the foundation of our relationship.  Finally, we create in our mind a false impression of what an ideal woman should be like.  Our girl friend or wife now has to compete with a fabrication of our imagination.  No relationship does well under those conditions.  If you don’t want to ruin the relationships that matter to you then here’s a good reason why boys shouldn’t be boys.  Don’t get hooked on pornography.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

A common question goes through the minds of men and women when they are seriously dating someone.  Eventually they start asking themselves if the person they are dating is “the right one”  “Have I found Mr. Right?”  “Is she the right one for me?”  But I think there are at least “Eight Things Men Do To Ruin Their Marriage before They’re Married.” And having the mindset of finding the right person causes a problem

You see for men, this mindset is very common.  We want to find a great woman to marry, someone who is beautiful, caring, organized etc.  But we need to realize that when we brag about how lucky we are because we’ve married up, we insult that woman because she was dumb enough to marry down. 

Instead of focusing on finding the right person, we need to focus on becoming the right person.  If we emphasize becoming a better person, we actually make ourselves more attractive to the so-called “right one”.  As humans, we’re multi-dimensional beings.  We’re intellectual, social, physical and spiritual.  And as we do well in each of these areas we become better individuals and ultimately make us more attractive to others? 

Typically we only develop those areas we’re already good at and we neglect the other areas.  So if you’re currently growing intellectually and physically, than try focusing on developing your spiritual life and social relationships.  Seek to develop in every area of your life.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

Whenever two independent and competent adults decide to get married one of the adjustments they face is learning how to become dependant on their spouse. That’s exactly what makes for a great marriage relationship. Its no longer two independent people but two dependant people. When we’re dependant on one another, we communicate that we need each other and our need for another person must go well beyond the things they do to make our lives function better.

If a couple never makes this adjustment from good roommate to committed soul mate, the result may be a gradual drifting apart of the relationship. Couples who experience frequent separations, even for short periods, have to fight this issue each time one spouse goes away for awhile. Out of necessity, one spouse is left behind to take care of everything and function independently. But when the other spouse returns, it’s often difficult to switch back to being dependant on each other. And the couples who struggle probably never switched back. Instead of a married couple, they have two roommates with a lot in common, living separate lives under the same roof. The best relationships are built on interdependence not independence.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

Half of all US marriages end in divorce. That’s one of the reasons many couples live together before getting married.  The thinking is, ‘before we get married, let’s live together to see if we’re compatible and if we are, we’ll get married; if not we can move on’.  But I think there are at least “Eight Things Men Do To Ruin Their Marriage before They’re Married”

And this idea of living together to see if things will work out ruins relationships.  Its inherently contradictory – an act of commitment is coupled with an escape clause.

What’s missing in many relationships is not compatibility but commitment.  When we live together we communicate, “I’ve chosen you from among all others” but we qualify that commitment with, “but let’s see if this relationship works out”, and that undermines the relationship.

Usually the beneficiaries of these relationships are we men.  We get most of our primary needs met of home life, companionship, and sex.  But some of the primary needs of women often go unmet.  Relational security is a primary need for many women and any relationship with an escape clause built into it doesn’t foster security.

Two things usually occur in these relationships, they either painfully break up early on or they end long after the woman has failed in her efforts to produce a greater sense of security.  But it wasn’t the lack of effort that ended the relationship; it was the unstable foundation, which it was built upon.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

How long does it take to teach a child how to make their bed?  Over 20 years of saying ‘did you make your bed’?  I’m not much of a bed maker.  My wife makes our bed most mornings and I think I fall into the trap that many men do.  You see, I think there are at least “Eight Things Men Do To Ruin Their Marriage before They’re Married” And one of the ways is treating your wife or future wife like your Mom.

There was a time years ago when men’s and women’s roles in a marriage were more clearly defined.  A man’s workplace was the office; a woman’s workplace was the home.  Organizationally, it wasn’t a bad option.  Since our lives are both public and domestic, someone had to earn money and someone had to run the household.

In many relationships today, these roles are not clearly defined.  However, they need to be and for most of us the roles become divided among both people.  The problem we men have is we never have the conversation with women that clearly divide these responsibilities.  Most often we take it for granted that our meals will be cooked, our beds will be made and our toilets will be cleaned.  After all isn’t that what Mom did?

But if we treat our wives or future wives like that, they’ll actually be carrying more than their share of the weight of the relationship and that will only lead to more trouble in the relationship sooner or later.

Chaplain Gregg Peters with the Valor Movement

A few years ago, my wife and I had the privilege of visiting Nairobi, Kenya, to conduct a Seminar for military married couples.  It was a wonderful time to interact with Kenyan couples and learn about their culture.  Not long after being in this Third World country, I learned about their official motto:  Harambee (pronounced “hah-RAHM-beh”).  It literally means, “let us all pull together”.

Following Kenya’s independence in 1963, the first Prime Minister and later first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, adopted “Harmbee” as a concept of pulling the country together to build a new nation.  During my short visit to Kenya, I witnessed a number of communities up close, including slum areas. It was sobering to see that in their struggle to survive, primarily those living in impoverished conditions, they appeared to be applying Harambee to their everyday lives:  showing commitment, intentionality, and cooperation in working together.

It occurred to me that this concept could easily apply to married couples as well.  After all, marriage is not an individual sport.  We need to be intentional, focused, and committed in our relationship with one another and to the Lord.  And we should be pulling together, as a team, in one direction, with common spiritual purposes and goals.

So how do you stack up here?  How are you “pulling together” with your spouse?

How are you demonstrating that you’re deeply committed and intentional in your love for your spouse?  And how are you “pulling together” in your daily walk with God and your involvement in a Christian community?

Imagine a man walking down a dirt road who sees a woman he cares about sitting in the middle of a mud puddle. For men a typical response in this situation is to “fix the problem”. “Here are several ways to get out of the mud puddle.” After doing that we may continue to “fix the problem” by discussing the ways she could have avoided the mud puddle in the first place. “Next time, don’t walk down this street.” Or “make sure you watch were you’re going”.

Perhaps men wrongly think that the obvious wasn’t so obvious to her. But remember, we’re different. Many times, before a woman wants the problem fixed, she wants to describe what the “mud puddle” or problem feels like. So men, here is the tip. Next time we find a woman we care about in the middle of a so-called mud puddle, climb in! Get along side her and see what the mud feels like. She does want the problem fixed but first she wants to know if we understand how this situation affects her life.

Ok what might a real-life mud puddle be? Lets say the car breaks down on her way to a job interview so she’s late and doesn’t get the job. Before we say things like, “there’ll be other jobs”, or “it wasn’t meant to be”, or “I would have done this…” get into the mud puddle, and try to understand how that event effected her day. Once we’ve done that we can focus on fixing the problem.

Chaplain Gregg Peters for the Valor Movement

P. S. I’m indebted to the Family Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ for providing me perspective on my interpersonal relationships and my marriage.

This has been very helpful to us especially during those times when problems come up around us. Its very easy for us to see a problem, like not having enough money to pay a bill, and start to argue amongst ourselves about how we got into the problem in the first place. “If you hadn’t done this, we wouldn’t be in this situation”.

Its at this point I need to remember, “we’re on the same team, we wear the same jersey”. The problems we face should only come from the outside not from the inside, which makes us fight against each other. This simple analogy of same team, same jersey, has helped me tremendously.

What comes to your mind when you see two teams playing and one team starts to argue amongst itself? That’s the team that’s probably going to loose. The same thing is true in a relationship, once we start fighting against each other, we’re going to loose and the real problems that we face won’t be solved. Remember, you’re on the same team; you’re wearing the same jerseys.

Chaplain Gregg Peters for the Valor Movment

P. S. I’m indebted to the Family Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ for providing me perspective on my interpersonal relationships and my marriage.