Assertiveness in Marriage
By Angie Lewis  
Heaven Ministries

Anyone can be assertive but it involves practice. We can’t just one day say, “Hey I’m going to be assertive today.”  We have to realize the times when we need to be assertive and practice it.

In marriage there are many times when we need to be assertive with our spouse. We may need to let them know how we FEEL for instance. Being assertive is good for marriage. I’ll tell you why.

1.     It lets our spouse know how we feel

2.     It tells our spouse that we have self confidence in what we do

3.     It allows us to have what we need and want

4.     We become more self assured in everything we do

Assertiveness isn't being aggressive, rude or violent. Assertiveness is expressing our self properly by telling others what we want and who we are.

I’m going to show you how to be assertive with your spouse without being overbearing and aggressive. We don’t want to get overbearing, but we do want them to know how we are feeling.

People-pleasing types have a difficult time being assertive because they won't speak up for themselves. They want their spouse and friends to be happy, but later feel resentful and needy because of it. 

We cannot be happy in marriage if we’re ALWAYS trying to make our spouse happy! Can we?

When we apply assertive thinking into our life and marriage we realize how much more content we are with our self and others because we are pleasing our self instead of everyone else. Resentment? What’s that?

When we are self-assured and know what it is we want and need, we become who we are and we show others who we are. We can still please others and be assertive, and so we shouldn’t become selfish over it, and only consider our feelings. We need to find balance that brings us, as well as our spouse, and anyone else in the home, the happiness we all deserve.

I know that many couples struggle in their marriage and it's because of something a spouse did or didn’t do. These couples are unhappy and on the verge of divorce.  But you see, if they would stop focusing on what their spouse did or didn’t do, and start focusing on what THEY can do about it, they would begin to "grow out" from the problems they carry from within.  

Divorce has now become the easy way out. But this is a selfish and unrealistic way to perceive happiness. Happiness is something that you cannot find through others. To gain it, you must go after it. You cannot sit around hoping your partner will change, so you can be happy. You need to do something about it from your end.  That is where assertiveness comes in.

Somehow we expect our partners to know how we are feeling and expect them to cater to our every need. But this isn't right.  We can’t expect our spouse to know how we’re feeling. We need to speak up and tell them, and we can start by being assertive with what we have to say.

If someone doesn't know "who they are" or what they want out of life, they will never truly be happy-no matter who they are married to.  The grass looks better on the other side of the fence, but it's a mirage. 

We please our self by being assertive, and when we do assert our self we FEEL more loving. Love will flow freely from our heart and this is real love. Real love doesn’t have any conditions or stipulations that need met, because we have already taken care of what we want for our selves by being assertive!

This is the kind of love that we all want, but no one ever seems to get. When we are happy and peaceful with who we are, we certainly don’t need to be sponging off our spouse for happiness. We can give them more room to be who it is they are too. And now, instead of both spouses’ being unhappy and miserable in the marriage, they both can be happy together!

Ironically, the more we please our self, the better marriage partner we become. With our own needs fulfilled, we will have so much more to give.

Husbands prefer their wives to be assertive with them. They actually want to please their wives. They want their wives to be happy. But all too often husbands don't know what it is their wife needs because she doesn't speak up for her self assertively!

She wants to please everyone all the time, but afterwards, she complains about it, but it's too late by then. Sound familiar?

The problem starts when a “people pleaser” spouse has given to their limit, and ends up unfulfilled and discontented. Sometimes the need for fulfillment comes in the form of desperation, and causes all sorts of problem in the marriage. Bing! The grass SEEMS very green on the other side of the fence again. Now what?

The real problem is, couples aren't being assertive enough to tell each other what it is they want. Expectations become so huge that when they aren’t fulfilled, disappointment and resentment steps in.

Someone in the marriage needs to break this pattern before things get out of hand. Don't expect your spouse to do this. Hang-up the pride and start respecting who you married. Choose to love. You can start by being assertive about what you really want.

If we don’t get the respect or love from our spouse that we think we’re entitled to, we start to cling to them for it, by any means possible. We might complain, nag, yell, scream, clam up, and become resentful.  

The truth is, the more we cling to our spouse for happiness and try and control them through our neediness, the more they will back off from us, and the more desperate we will become. This is why I stress so often in my articles that to find happiness, we FIRST need to find it from within our self. 

To get respect, FIRST we need to be respectful, to be loved, we first need to be loving. If we find this too difficult to do, then we back away for a while until it becomes easier for us to do. It is God’s will that we respect, and honor the person we married. Don't beg for happiness. 

We can seek peace and contentment through the spiritual self. We all have a spirit that God has given us. This spirit within us is all we need to bring happiness and peace into our lives. That means we should stop looking to what the culture does for their marriage and seek out what God wants for us.

“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” 1 Corinthians 2:12

By utilizing the Spirit of God for marriage we will be given the understanding to know everything we need to know to be happy, peaceful, and content-filled in marriage.

  Copyright 2006 ~ Heaven Mini stries
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