As a single woman, I was always very marriage-minded. I wouldn’t even date a guy who had a girlfriend because that was a relationship and I wasn’t going to be in the middle of that mess. I learned some hard lessons when I found out a guy I was seeing wasn’t quite as divorced as he led me to believe. His own family didn’t advocate for his marriage, however terrible they thought it to be. Instead of calling me to the carpet for my {unknown} behavior, they welcomed me into their home and into their family. I was the unwitting home wrecker. If they’d told me that I was his mistress, I would have walked away right then and there. Even though the guy I was seeing was married, I will always maintain that the responsibility of his friends and family was not to play along with the situation that he’d put us all in, but to defend his marriage until he’d actually ended it.
Loyal Married friends are Champions for Marriage
When I met my husband, he told me that he was separated from his wife. Legally, he was still married, so I backed off. To be transparent, I was trying to get a ring! He just needed a listening ear to cope with what he was dealing with. He wasn’t trying to pursue anything with me because of his status and his friends didn’t encourage it because they uphold the sanctity of covenant marriage, even though his was really bad.
Over the years that I’ve gotten to know and have become almost inseparable from these friends, I’ve learned how highly they hold marriage. They have remained our marriage mentors over the years. We were truly blessed to be able to find married couple friends like them…we actually have surrounded ourselves with quite a few couples like them!
If you’ve spent any time following this ministry, you know how I feel about Marriage Advocates. If you haven’t, here’s a brief summary: a cord of 3 strands is not easily broken. In the primary set of 3 cords, there is God, the husband, and the wife. The more strands you have, the stronger the cord.
Our married couple friends advocate for our marriage by:
- respecting the boundaries that we establish for ourselves;
- by not encouraging or enabling us to engage in behaviors that are contradictory to those of a married individual;
- they provide spiritual guidance and wisdom when we’re struggling with something within our marriage;
- they don’t try to get in between us or pit us against each other; and
- they understand they are not the person of most importance in our lives.
Inviting or allowing someone else to be involved in your marriage, even for the most positive of reasons, is not a natural inclination. But to have an extraordinary marriage, you’re going to need to take extraordinary measures. Even if you’re not in a place where you can agree that you should have Marriage Advocates, there is a much more important message that I need you to hear:
You have to advocate for yourself and keep the wrong people out of…and away from…your relationship.
One thing that most people don’t think about when beginning or sustaining a friendship is the true quality of that person’s character. Little disturbs me more than when a person calls someone their friend and the “friend” means them no good at all, especially in the realm of a relationship or marriage. At the root of it all, most people are scared of change, but you often learn that you have more seasonal friends than you realized, and they are readily revealed when you enter into a serious relationship/marriage.
Knowing a person’s intentions for your relationship will never be more important than when it comes to your marriage:
- If you have friends who are constantly encouraging you to go out clubbing instead of encouraging you to spend time with your spouse, they mean you and your marriage no good. A loyal married friend will understand the importance of quality time in the building and sustaining of your marriage.
- If you have a friend who supports you engaging in an extramarital affair, they mean you no good. You’re agreeing to walk together on the same path of destruction for your marriage. Even if they manage to support covenant breaking behavior for someone else, don’t be mistaken in thinking they wouldn’t support the same behavior when it comes to your marriage. Marriage is sacred for all, and should be treated accordingly, whether we dislike one spouse or the other.
- If you have a married friend who is doing some things they have absolutely no business doing and you tell yourself that it’s ok that they do it because it’s not affecting you, you’re not being a true friend nor are you advocating for their marriage…or your own future covenant. The easier it is for you to idly stand by and accept them as they go outside of their marriage…or even worse, you encourage this behavior…the easier it will be for you to tell yourself that it’s ok for you to wander outside of your own marriage.
Remember the warning in 1 Corinthians 15:33 – “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’.” Don’t be the bad company and don’t yoke yourself to them either.
The company that you keep will have a ripple effect throughout your life, your thoughts, your actions, and your destiny. Every choice that we make has an equal and opposite reaction. It’s completely up to you whether or not you are setting the course for that reaction to turn into a consequence or a reward.
If you’d want to read a little more about the argument for Marriage Advocates, read 3 Reasons Why You Should Have Strong Marriage Advocates and grab your free printables while you’re there!
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