Caring for Your Marriage: 8 Questions, 8 Answers

What you'll find here

This Q&A session followed the sermon on marriage in the series WHAT A FAMILY! Eight concrete questions were asked, and the speakers answered them without dodging. You'll find the raw material here, organized into questions and answers, so you can read it, come back to it, and apply it wherever you are, whether you're married, engaged, single, or simply thinking it through.

What's in this article

1. If my spouse takes advantage of my sacrifices, should I keep serving?
2. When reciprocity is out of balance, how do I bring it up?
3. Is submission in marriage tied to the fall?
4. What does living out this submission actually look like?
5. I'm single: do these qualities even apply to me?
6. Who should unmarried women submit to?
7. Personality differences: sin or just character?
8. How do you juggle every role without losing sight of what matters?

1. If my spouse takes advantage of my sacrifices, should I keep putting them first without expecting anything back?

The short answer is yes. But it's worth unpacking.

In Ephesians 5, Paul says marriage pictures the relationship between Christ and his Church. So ask yourself: does Christ constantly remind you of what you owe him for what he's done? Does he say, "Don't forget, I paid for your sins, so pick up your socks, do the dishes, refill my coffee, wash the car"? No. That's not how it works.

The challenge in marriage is to say, "I'll do the dishes, not because I love doing dishes, but because I love my wife." Or "because I love my husband." You serve out of love, not for something in return.

One of the speakers also shared his own experience: at one point in his marriage, he thought he was the one doing everything and that his spouse was the problem. In reality, he needed to understand God's grace better. Everything he had was by grace. That understanding changed the way he served and gave him back the joy of serving.

2. When reciprocity is genuinely out of balance, how do you bring it up without judging?

Sometimes a real imbalance sets in and you feel taken advantage of. Should you just stay quiet? No. But the way you approach it changes everything.

If the gospel has shaped your mindset, it will change the way you speak to your spouse. You're not stepping into a courtroom to judge the other person. You're aiming at their spiritual growth. You speak without anger, without selfishness. And when the other person sees that, it opens hearts and ears. You're together, aiming at the same thing.

A helpful reminder: in 1 Corinthians 13, love isn't easily provoked and doesn't keep a record of wrongs. You can address things, but not with the goal of taking justice into your own hands.

3. Is a wife's submission to her husband only tied to the fall?

The question raised was: if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, would this idea of submission still exist?

The answer: sin didn't create the hierarchy, it corrupted it. There's a created order in the first marriage, before the fall. What we see in Genesis 3, after the fall, isn't the appearance of a hierarchy: it's its breakdown. "Your desire will be for your husband" (the woman will try to gain the upper hand, to manipulate. "He will rule over you"), the man will use his authority to crush, to rule badly, for his own benefit.

And if you look at God himself, you find a reality that helps: in the Trinity, the Son submits to the Father, but without sin, without division, in perfect peace and love. That's the model that sheds light on marriage, not some heavy-handed caricature.

4. Practically speaking, what does living out this submission look like day to day?

One of the speakers shared her testimony. It hasn't always been easy, especially around career choices and moving to settle in France. She turned to 1 Peter 3:5-6:

"For this is how the holy women before, who hoped in God also adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose children you now are, if you do well, and are not put in fear by any terror."

Two things helped her: praying through this passage, and choosing to "do well without being troubled by fear." She didn't hide that it was hard, or that it took a lot of conversation in the marriage. But prayer and the concrete choice to do good bore fruit.

Another speaker pointed to 1 Timothy 2: men are called to take the initiative in prayer and spiritual leadership. When the wife does the work God asks of her, it also helps the husband step into his own responsibility, instead of handing it off to her.

On this note, a story about Tim and Kathy Keller was shared. They were considering moving to the center of New York City after living in a quiet suburb. Tim told Kathy, "If you don't want to, we won't go." Kathy answered him, "You're not going to do that to me. You're not going to put the choice that's yours to make on my shoulders, making me think you're taking care of me. In reality, you're transferring your guilt onto me." That kind of honesty, within the give and take of marriage, helps each spouse carry their own part.

5. If I'm single, do these qualities of an ideal spouse even apply to me?

Yes, absolutely. One speaker, who got married at 37, had plenty of time to think it through beforehand. Here's what he's taken from it.

You're called to imitate Christ. In Mark 8:34, Jesus calls you to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. In Mark 10:45, he says he came not to be served, but to serve. It's not the ring on your finger that makes you humble, a servant, full of wisdom. That's something you cultivate starting right now.

If a young woman looks at you and thinks, "He'd make a good husband: he's not proud, he helps, he shows up for people, he's confident without being arrogant, he's full of wisdom," it's because you've been working on those traits while single. That kind of preparation starts early and serves you your whole life.

This also shapes how you approach dating. Don't settle for just seeing someone at the movies or over dinner. Watch them in community, with other people. That's where you see real character.

6. Do unmarried women need to submit to anyone besides God?

First, some perspective: no one is completely free. We like to say we're born free, but that's not true. Babies are the most dependent creatures there are.

You have all kinds of authorities over you: God, your parents, the church community, the setting you live in. So the question isn't "am I free or am I under someone," but "which healthy authorities am I responding to?"

7. How do you handle differences in personality: sin or simply differences?

A first, slightly teasing, practical tip: try to get to know each other at least a little before you marry, to avoid surprises like, "wait, you hate soccer?"

More seriously, the process starts with you. Ask the Lord, through his Spirit, to show you what you need to change: bad habits, unnecessary preferences. Then invite your spouse to pray for you. The sanctification described in Ephesians isn't reserved for married people; it's the whole Church that the Lord sanctifies.

Then, learn to see the small things within the bigger picture of who your spouse is. Your spouse is meticulous and it bugs you that they notice everything? Maybe thanks to them, you've never left for vacation with the water running and the lights on. Look at the whole picture.

Also take your spouse's history into account. Your lives before marriage were different. What's never been an issue for you can be a real weight for them. A concrete example: in your family, opening a bottle of wine on the weekend is normal; in theirs, alcohol brings back childhood pain. That's not a small, harmless habit. You need to be able to talk about it.

Finally, a crucial shift in goal: it's not about seeing the other person change to become what you want, but so that they look more like Christ. That completely changes what's at stake.

8. How do you manage the pile-up of roles, husband, father, employee, brother in Christ, without losing sight of God's purpose?

The word is simple: priority. It's probably the most misused word in the world. We use it in the plural, when a priority, by definition, is meant to single out what matters most.

Here's a ranking one of the speakers suggested for a married man with children:

1. Your personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.
2. Your wife's relationship with the Lord Jesus.
3. Raising your children in the knowledge of the Lord.
4. Your service to your brothers and sisters in the local church.
5. Your role at work and everything else.

This helps you answer concretely when your boss asks you to stay late. Is the right thing tonight to stay? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it's to say, "Sorry, I'm leaving at 6 tonight, I need to read my kids a bedtime story." Without this ranking, you push every dial to 100 percent and you burn out.

Hebrews 10:24-25 was also brought up: "Let's consider one another, to provoke to love and good works." Your brothers and sisters in Christ need you. That community perspective is part of your priorities; it's not an optional extra.

Key takeaways

• You serve out of love, not for something in return. Christ never reminds you of what you owe him. That grace frees you to put your spouse first.
• Address the imbalance, but not like a courtroom. Aim at your spouse's spiritual growth, without anger or selfishness. That opens hearts.
• The hierarchy in marriage wasn't born out of sin. It belongs to the created order. Sin corrupted it; it didn't invent it.
• Don't leave your character at the door of marriage. Serve, humble yourself, prepare yourself starting today, whether you're single or married.
• One priority, singular. Without a clear ranking, you burn out. Christ first, then your spouse, your children, the church, everything else.

Personal application

1. When you serve your spouse this week, what's driving your heart: love, or expecting something back?
2. Is there a point of tension you've been holding onto for months because you dread bringing it up "like a courtroom"? What would change if you aimed first at the other person's spiritual growth?
3. If you're single, which trait of Christ's character are you actively cultivating right now? Which one are you neglecting?
4. Take ten minutes to write down your current priorities, in order. Does the way you spent last week actually reflect them?
5. Which part of your spouse's history deserves to be listened to again, more carefully?

Verses cited

• Ephesians 5 · Marriage as a picture of the relationship between Christ and his Church.
• Genesis 3 · Desire and domination: the marriage hierarchy corrupted by the fall.
• 1 Peter 3:5-6 · Sarah, Abraham, and the choice to do good without being troubled.
• 1 Timothy 2 · Men called to take the initiative in prayer.
• Mark 8:34 · Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Jesus.
• Mark 10:45 · The Son of Man came to serve, not to be served.
• Hebrews 10:24-25 · Encouraging one another toward love and good works.
• 1 Corinthians 13 · Love does not seek its own way and is not easily provoked.

FAQ

Does submission mean the wife has no say in the couple's decisions?

No. The testimony shared and the story about Tim and Kathy Keller show the opposite: the wife speaks up, expresses herself, corrects (sometimes firmly), and the husband listens. What the Bible rejects is manipulation on one side and crushing domination on the other. What it offers instead is perfect peace and love, like in the Trinity.

If my spouse refuses to change, should I just keep serving forever without saying anything?

Serving without expecting anything back, yes. Staying silent forever, no. The approach is to speak up, but with a gospel mindset, aiming at the other person's spiritual growth rather than putting them on trial. How you say it shapes how it's received.

I'm single. Do I really need to apply this teaching on marriage to myself?

Yes, on two levels. First, the call to imitate Christ (self-denial, service, humility) doesn't depend on being married; it comes from Mark 8 and 10. Second, character is built before the covenant: it's while you're single that you start becoming the person you'll be in marriage.