Your Words

If you've read my previous posts, I've mentioned before the importance of guarding your marriage. It's amazing how easy it is for someone or something to infiltrate the boundaries that you have set. At work when you eat lunch with a friend and the topic is your significant other... watch what you say. The words that come out of your mouth can never be taken back. They stay out there for the other person to assume different things about. When I'm talking to a coworker about our lives, I find myself pausing before I speak, wondering how they could take what I'm about to say. If they could take it negatively about my husband, I don't say it. It doesn't matter how I mean what I'm saying. No matter how positively I mean something to be, the other person can take it negatively. When you are guarding your marriage, part of it is guarding your mouth.

I have the problem, as I have my whole life, that my brain thinks to quickly for my mouth to catch up, so I stutter. If I'm stuttering I know that I'm not thinking about what I'm going to say. That is dangerous. As one half of this partnership, I don't want to present my other half in a bad way. We have to be a united front. One wrongly said sentence can have the other person assuming things about your relationship. Those assumptions are then told to other people and then when they get back to you or possibly your spouse, what you said is horribly distorted. Those distortions can hurt your marriage. What your spouse hears about their own marriage can cause insecurities and hurt. 

Before you speak, think. Think about how it's going to come across, how the other person will hear it, what assumptions could be drawn from your words, and what hurt could be caused. It is always better to uplift your spouse than to talk about things that could be taken negatively. Point out their great qualities, it will remind you why you love them so much and it will only cause your spouse to find confidence in your relationship. Anything else, besides uplifting words, those are for between you and your spouse. Only. Also, before you speak those words to your spouse, make sure that they really need to be said. Your spouse will take to heart every negative word, every negative tone, every negative look. If you bring down your spouse, it is ten times as hard to build them back up and they will not be as strong as before. Love your spouse, not just in your heart, but in your words, tone, looks. Love them with everything you have.