Your Home For God, How-to-Be-A-Happy-Couple

Idealistic expectations, fostered by media, coupled with destructive comparison, has killed many marriages. At the very least, comparison robs a marriage of joy! The happiest couples I know aren’t beautiful, successful, or really great at being a husband or wife. A happy couple just loves, overlooking the bad, affirming the good, and enjoying one another!

Your Home For God, How-to-Be-A-Happy-Couple

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Happy Couples Don’t Have Perfect Marriages

Happy couples aren’t happy because they have a perfect marriage! As I’ve gotten older, and have known friends and observed their marriages over decades, I’ve come to realize that there is no perfect marriage, and no perfect man. And, I’ve thanked the Lord over and over that I have this man and my marriage and not my friend’s, no matter how good it looks on the outside! Not because it’s bad, but because every marriage requires adjustment to another person, compromise, and work! 

I have gotten accustomed to the way things are in my marriage and home, and I’ve grown used to our idiosyncrasies, our brand of “weird,” what my husband likes and doesn’t, or won’t put up with! It’s been a comfort to me to learn over the years that every man has his little idiosyncrasies! Every couple has had to learn to live with each other’s likes and dislikes, their strong opinions on one thing or another, what they absolutely will not tolerate, or must have at all costs. Every marriage has these!

Your Home For God, Can-a-Marriage-Be-Good-Without-God

One husband will not sleep with a fan on, and another will not sleep with it off! One man insists that his wife get permission for every dime she spends, while another husband gives his wife the responsibility for all the financial decisions. One couple does all the grocery shopping together, and cooks together, while another man does all the grocery shopping himself. Still another man never steps foot in the kitchen! None is right or wrong! As a wife, we must reverence our own husband, and it takes dying to self on both spouse’s parts to learn to live with one another in a loving manner!

“A happy couple just loves, overlooking the bad, affirming the good, and enjoying one another.” Wendy Gunn


I got married when I was 21. I thought I knew so much! I had many ideas of what being a wife looked like. Being a romantic, hadn’t I watched all of the movies, and read all the books on how to live happily ever after? I knew many married couples in our church and family, including my own parents, who’d been happily married for many years.

Can a Marriage Be Good Without God?

It is true that I had seen some marriages fail. That was one of the things that God used to bring me to Himself, and helped me to become a Christian. For if people who seemed so perfect for one another had a failed marriage, then perhaps it was something I needed to prepare for, evaluate, and work at, in order to marry the right person and have a good marriage. Perhaps there was more to being a happy couple than meeting the man of my dreams, falling in love at first sight, and living happily ever after, as the movies implied! And maybe I needed God. 

I went into marriage with so many presuppositions and presumptions. Wrong expectations. (Are any expectations right?) 

Your Home For God, Are-You-Preparing-Your-Children-For-Marriage-In-The-Right-Way

I was a baby Christian, but didn’t realize it! My husband and I had prepared, more than most couples do, for marriage, but I question whether we prepared in all the ways we should have! We participated in premarital counseling with our pastor for 12 weeks prior to our wedding, took multiple personality and temperament tests to see whether and where we were compatible or not, and spent hours upon hours talking to one another, asking deep questions, seeking to understand and know one another. We had become good friends before we ever fell in love.

We had dated for two years before marrying. From the world’s point of view, and I agreed, we were as ready as we could be! It was a surprise to me, then, when I experienced an identity crisis, and difficulties adapting to married life, and this man, in the early days of marriage.

I had set up some standard of perfection in my mind, I am quite sure, of what a wife should be. I don’t know exactly what I based it on, but I think it was a combination of things. As I said, I grew up watching movies–the world’s version of what a happy couple looked like. Those were in my mind. Also, there was the Word of God that I had studied and the truth that I had learned. There were also the Godly examples of happy couples in my church and in my husband’s family. I had put together a mistaken idea of what a happy couple looked like and what my role as a wife should be.

I Had No Clue What Made A Happy Couple

In the beginning of our married life, I was quite clueless, and I was unaware of any help that the Church was offering, if there was any. Perhaps if we older Christian women would take the commands in Titus 2 seriously, a lot of young wives would not have so many problems.

While my husband and I had prepared, I believe I had not prepared to be a wife, mother, and manager of my home or been taught the skills I needed. I wasn’t at all interested, I have to quickly admit, in defense of my mother, but I was wholly unprepared in domestic skills, which would have helped immensely in my early marriage!

Where do young brides go to learn how to be a Godly wife nowadays? What do they compare themselves to? Do young women and wives have a true and Biblical view of what a Godly wife is and how to have a strong, Godly family? We have so much more comparison or opportunity for it these days with Social Media, unfortunately. That is where people can and do put out their very best images, on their very best days, and present to the world an image that is not true or accurate too much of the time. Comparison results in either pride or despair, as we feel so inferior so much of the time. 

I know that for me, I can’t be on Instagram too much–just sayin’–because it makes me feel like a failure. I have heard that people who spend the most time on Instagram are 18- to 24-year-old women. I think that would probably include a lot of young brides or wives, and maybe includes you. You have to determine what tempts you to have a discontented heart, what causes you to compare, and what to decrease or eliminate from your life.

Being a wife, just like being a person, is an individual thing and looks different from marriage to marriage, because God has instructed us to reverence our own husband, and be his helpmeet, not someone else’s, and each husband is very different from all the others.

Your Home For God, Where-do-Wives-Go-For-Help-In-How-to-Be-a-Good-Wife

We don’t realize what a big adjustment it is to live with another person and aren’t unselfish and loving. We grow up in one home, immersed in how that home runs, used to their rules, the likes and dislikes of the “king” of that castle, and everything about that family! Then, we move in with another man, and have to learn his likes and dislikes, his rules, and establish our own way, together with him, of running the home. All this, while taking on a new identity and role. 

It is only done by God’s grace, in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we have been accustomed to being led by the Holy Spirit, dying to our flesh, taking up our cross, as we lived under our parents’ authority and in that family, it will be easier to adapt and do so in our marriage. Moms, are you listening? This is another reason why your training of, example to, and prayer for your children is so important. It impacts their future marriages.

For me, all the changes that happen when one gets married–and there were so many for me in the beginning–besides learning how to be a wife, were overwhelming.

I believe God, through His Spirit and the Word of God, desires to instruct a young wife, or an old wife, how to be a Godly wife, and it helps so much when an older, wiser Christian woman comes alongside to help you, to talk things over with you, and to pray with and for you, and study the Bible with you. I wish I’d had someone like that!

A big mistake wives make is comparing themselves to other wives. You know that when a wife compares herself to another woman she often compares her worst to their best?

Are You Preparing Your Children For Marriage The Right Way

I know that I forgot that I was young, inexperienced in domestic skills and had a lot to learn! My husband was quite a bit older (7-½ years older) than me, and he had lived alone for many years already. He is an engineer, has the gift of teaching and serving, and has the temperament of an engineer which displays itself in finding a way to do something that he thinks is the best way, and then never wanting to change–ever!

My husband is extremely gifted, knowledgeable, skilled at handyman skills, skilled in auto mechanics, woodworking, can do re-upholstery and much, much more. At the time of our marriage, I had only been out of the house for a couple of years, and hadn’t “found” myself yet, you might say.

“You know that when a wife compares herself to another woman she often compares her worst to their best.” Wendy Gunn


As I said in a previous post, I spent my growing up years trying to copy my sister, and thought I was like my mom and her, and didn’t find out until after I was in my late 20’s or early 30’s that I am actually very much like my dad, and not as much like them, and like very different things from my mom and sister! My interests, skills, and the way God made me are totally different from what I was trying to be as a girl growing up. Surprise! I didn’t really know who I was yet, when we got married. I looked at others, attended some Bible studies, and tried to figure it all out.

Your Home For God, Can-a-Marriage-Be-Good-Without-God

The simple fact was that I had years of learning and growing to do, and there really wasn’t any shortcut! My husband and I both, however, could have made things easier if we’d been more dedicated and mature Christians, had surrendered more completely to Christ, and if we had pursued Godliness more wholeheartedly, confessing our sins to one another, forgiving one another, and selflessly serving each other, with love and respect.

Where Do Wives Go To Learn How To Be A Happy Couple

The Word of God is the best textbook for how to be a good wife and how to have a successful marriage. Without anything else but the Bible and the Holy Spirit, you can learn and grow, and have all the help you need. But, God has not put us in a bubble. Instead, He instructs us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and over and over He refers to “one another” in His Word.

“I ask whether you pray because diligence in prayer is the secret of eminent holiness.”

Wendy Gunn

Having a wise, Godly older woman to talk to and pray with is a wonderful help to a young wife, to support her in her endeavors to build a happy, Godly home, and in becoming that happy couple she longs to be with her husband. There are Godly books she can read and Bible studies she can go through.

Your Home For God, Are-You-Preparing-Your-Children-For-Marriage-In-The-Right-Way

Most importantly, it is a must for any wife to pray fervently and ask God to help her to become like Christ and help her become a Godly wife. Growing in Christ-likeness, in obedience to Him, and knowing the Bible better, will go a long way in helping any wife to treat her husband with loving-kindness and respect, and to be able to focus on her own marriage, rather than looking at others’ marriages with comparison, or envy.

Have a Great Day Making Your Home For God!

Wendy Gunn at Your Home For God helps Christian women raise Godly kids, find & fulfill their purpose and achieve God's goals for their life.

I help Christian moms raise their kids according to Biblical principles, get organized to manage life, achieve their unique God-given goals and dreams, and fulfill God’s purpose for them to make a difference in the world through my workshops, courses, and coaching founded on Biblical principles. You are already successful in many areas. I can help you in those that you’re not. Dream big dreams, and see God transform and use your life in amazing ways! Let’s work together for your success!

In Your Home For God’s Store, discover resources to help you get organized, raise Godly kids, and have the support and encouragement to know who you are, know what God wants you to do to fulfill His purpose for your life, and achieve His unique goals for you!

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