Advice for Newlyweds: Marriage is Service

Beginnings are great things. When you are starting something, the road before you is open, rich with possibilities, and full of promise. Things can unfold in ways that fulfill your wildest dreams, and your imagination is the limit. Beginnings are the first glimpses into what’s possible, and they represent the first steps toward our imagined and hoped-for future. That’s one reason beginnings are so beautiful. Advice for newlyweds is helpful at the beginning of your marriage.

There’s a Scripture that says the end is better than the beginning. It says, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride” (Ecclesiastes 7:8, NIV). There is a lot of wisdom there for anyone to glean, and it can be constructive for newlyweds as they start their journey in marriage.

Advice for Newlyweds: A New Beginning

A new marriage is a new beginning. The couple arrives at that new beginning in different ways, and they may arrive at that marriage carrying unique scars from previous relationships and life experiences. However they come into their new situation, it truly is a new beginning, a fresh start that enables them to do things differently and avoid making the same mistakes. It’s an opportunity to build happy memories and experience new things.

When most people get married, they are deeply in love with each other. Often, what that means is that they are on good terms, and they are eager to serve one another. Serving each other means things such as helping when your partner’s car breaks down or sitting up to keep them company while they work through an important term paper. These are auspicious beginnings indeed, and they bode well for a relationship.

Challenges in Relationships

All relationships have their share of challenges, and those challenges may rear their head early in the relationship. These challenges can be as diverse as issues with communication, financial challenges, dealing with in-laws and boundary issues, finding work in an area that works for you both, feeling connected to family and friends while having room to grow as a couple, grief, and so on.

Challenges will come, but these aren’t necessarily going to overwhelm the couple. By working together, being intentional, and persevering, most challenges can be managed effectively. Newlyweds need to recognize that they will face challenges, and that these challenges aren’t something to be shied away from. Rather, they should face them head-on and address them as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

Advice for Newlyweds: Serve One Another Well

There is a lot of good advice that could be given to newlyweds. For instance, it’s important to try to go to bed having resolved any differences. Some issues cannot be resolved in a day. The best you can do in those circumstances may be to simply agree to put a pin in the discussion until later as a healthy compromise. The heart behind it, however, is to try and address issues sooner rather than later, not letting them linger.

A key piece of advice for newlyweds is that they should try by all means to serve each other well. Service will look different between marriages, and even in the same marriage. The main thing is that you’re not looking out for your own interests but for each other’s. You’re putting each other first, humbly valuing “others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4, NIV).

One of the big reasons that marriages break down is that selfishness and laziness creep in, choking the relationship. When a couple stops serving each other joyfully things fall apart. Often, during dating people are more than happy to show up for each other, to go the extra mile to put a smile on their partner’s face. As time progresses, however, laziness and familiarity can get in the way of seeking ways to make the other person happy.

When couples stop serving each other and begin looking out for their own interests, it can lead to all sorts of problems, such as looking outside the marriage for needs to be met. It can lead to conflict because you’re not getting what you want from each other, and you want to be served first before you serve them. Such a stalemate is hard to overcome unless someone decides to give up their own selfish desires in order to serve the other.

Beginnings can be amazing, and they are full of potential. Working through challenges to run the race well and get to the end is hard and humbling work. Many couples can admit to being surprised at having fights they never thought they would have with each other. The hard edges of reality require patient humility to deal with, and part of that is being willing to repent and make the first move to reconcile.

Serving one another well in marriage may include a variety of things, including doing things for the other person like picking up their slack with chores and responsibilities; keeping each other accountable; loving the other person according to their needs and personality, and not according to what’s convenient or preferable; hanging out with people and doing activities you wouldn’t normally gravitate toward, and so on.

Marriage is about serving one another and doing so not primarily for the other person’s sake (though that is not absent), but because it glorifies God. We may think the other to be entirely underserving of love or forgiveness, but that’s how all of us are before God, and He deals graciously with us (Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13, Romans 5:6-8).

This isn’t the same thing as permissiveness, because love cherishes truth and holds the beloved accountable (1 Corinthians 13:4-7), but it is love despite the other person’s faults, and with a full acknowledgment of our own.

Humility is a crucial virtue in marriage because one of the primary reasons couples drift apart is because of sinful pride. If neither party is willing to budge, to move toward each other to reconcile the brokenness or hurt caused, the wound will likely fester and be even harder to remedy later. In all things, humility is vital.

Newlyweds Strengthening Their Relationship

From the beginning of a marriage, newlyweds should be aware that they are not above any particular struggle. It may be tempting to look at other people around them, such as friends, parents, siblings, or couples on television or social media, and say “Wow! They’re the worst! Thank goodness we’re not like that!”

While it may be true that your relationship isn’t like that – and this is humbling – those other people didn’t set out believing that their relationship would turn out the way it did. Life happens in slow turns and degrees, and you can find yourself making small, cumulative compromises that leave you precisely where you never wanted to be. A marriage may be filled with winding turns that end in infidelity, conflict, divorce, or other challenges.

A healthy marriage is marked by consistent and joyful service between spouses, but that doesn’t happen on its own. Couples need to be intentional in reaching out, connecting, remaining curious about one another, and learning how best to love each other and meet each other’s needs. They need to grow in their ability to communicate complex emotions and thoughts without blaming or shaming one another.

Christian Couples Counseling in San Diego

One avenue for couples to do this begins even before the marriage, through premarital counseling in San Diego, California. This form of counseling helps couples become aware of the potential pressure points in their relationship, and it equips them to know how to talk through those challenges. After getting married, working with a Christian marriage counselor in San Diego can help a couple stay on top of issues, honing their communication and conflict resolution skills.

Some things are better addressed before they become full-blown concerns, and that is one of the benefits of going for Christian marriage counseling as a regular practice. There’s immense benefit from marriage counseling when the marriage is under strain, and a couple shouldn’t think things are so far gone that it isn’t worth trying. Newlyweds in San Diego can embark on their journey knowing that there are resources available to address marital concerns.

By getting advice for newlyweds through Christian counseling in San Diego, a newly married couple can intentionally create space to discuss any challenges, explore possible options, learn the skills to communicate effectively with each other, and resolve issues amicably.

A couple can learn how to be more attentive to each other’s needs, and how best to move toward each other in humble mutual service. If you’re a young couple, reach out to us at San Diego Christian Counseling for guidance in building a resilient marriage.