Manners In Marriage

How are your marital manners?

It is so easy to be insensitive to the very many ways we are rude to our spouse. Jesus said that the key problem in marriage is hardness of heart (Mt 19:8). Yet, being rude to our mate is a very common and central way we strengthen hard-heartedness. Being hard-hearted, like being rude, means we are insensitive, unyielding, stubborn, unaffectionate, harsh, cold, or callous. It involves a dullness in spiritual perception where we fail to live the way the Lord wants us to live. It grieves the Lord when we are ill-mannered toward our spouse because we are not acting in love. Instead, we are being thoughtless, inconsiderate, unkind, and disrespectful.

Our acts of rudeness are repeated day in and day out. Some may be recognized while many are not. All of them contribute to our spouse being less responsive to us, like a calloused area that has lost some of its sensitivity. Failure to be well-mannered with our beloved erodes their conviction that we love, respect, and want to help them. It creates distance, cools passion, and undermines commitment.

This book addresses the great need to recognize many of the ways we are rude and gives us ideas for how to display better manners toward our spouse. It is vital that we improve our manners in marriage. Small changes can eventually have great results.