Foundations for a Lasting Marriage

Have you ever looked for marriage advice on such questions as, "How can a couple have a successful marriage?  How can men and women communicate in a way that works? How do men and women use their differences to enhance their lives rather than drive each other crazy? How can a couple get good at making decisions together? How do you forgive your spouse when he's hurt you? How can a man and a woman develop strong careers and stay in love?"

When looking at what makes a secure and successful marriage, men and women need different things...

1.  Women Need Security

For most women, security is a more vibrant and common need than success. It isn’t we don’t want to succeed, it is simply that we view success as a means for providing security. The need to feel secure is the need we feel most often and it determines the quality of everything in our lives. Security is often difficult for men to understand because it is all consuming in our lives and it changes faces quickly. Security in our lives includes:

• Physical safety 
• Having enough money to meet the needs of our families 
• Being valued by the people we love the most 
• Having opportunities to express ourselves and our convictions 
• Having opportunities to be productive 
• Having a place to call home 
• Having time to take care of ourselves 
• Being pampered every once in a while 
• Knowing that my husband cares about the things that are important to me 
•  The freedom to be who I am today. 

Without a doubt, the last statement, “the freedom to be who I am today,” is at the heart of what it means to be secure

2.  Men Need Success

For most men, the opposite is true. Success is a more vibrant and common need than security. It isn’t we don’t want to be secure, it is simply that we will sacrifice security in order to do what we are best at in life. The need to feel successful is the need we feel most often and it determines the quality of everything in our lives. A man’s approach to success is often confusing to women because it isn’t always about being productive. It is about spending our time, money and energy on the areas of life we know we are good at. We are highly motivated to focus on these areas. At the same time, we are intensely disinterested in the areas of life we don’t think we are good at. Success in our lives, therefore, includes:

• Discovering what we do well and what we don’t do well 
• An emotional need to spend time doing what we do well 
• Evaluating our lives based on what we do well 
• Fierce commitment to doing what we do well 
• Hoping for relationships that “work” 
• Avoidance of the areas of life that don’t “work” 
• Pressure when we have to work on areas of life in which we lack confidence 
• A desire to make relationships as simple as possible to insure success 
• Confusion when things are not “working” the way we think they should 

The most comprehensive statement that describes a man’s need for success is that he will make a “fierce commitment to doing what he does well.”

I pray that the Godly marriage principles and resources found within the Just Between Us website will help you, as a couple, continue to lay the foundation for a lasting marriage.