The Most Important Thing

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Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
55,248
25,719
113
#21
- marriage takes a lot of work, forgiveness, grace.

The endeavors with the greatest challenges, has the greatest rewards.​

- Excellent listening skills. Hearing what each other is saying, the freedom
to express it, and total acceptance of each other's perspectives and feelings.

- The most important thing? Love, trust, patience.

- I would say love and respect.

While it's certainly true that a man needs love, and a woman needs respect, I believe
at our core the man MUST receive respect, and the woman MUST receive love.

If neither, or one, is not getting that core need from their spouse, they will seek it elsewhere.​

- I believe resentment kills a relationship faster than just about anything else.

- Forgiveness.

Couples (married or not) will hurt each other. Forgiveness is the root of our
relationship with God, and is the "grease" for our relationships with other people.

- Honesty and Communication.
Fact is ppl ain't always easy and u gotta figure
out ways to deal or work around differences.

- I believe that every marriage and every relationship should have this, above everything else, Christ centered at the forefront of the relationship/marriage. With Christ comes everything else, forgiveness, patience, love, peace, joy. Good listening skills and communication is right up there with it, but when both people have a strong love for Christ, their love for each other will blossom.

- Being a good cook

- Remember WHY Jesus said the greatest commandment was love? "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Jesus didn't just say loving God and loving your neighbor was more important, he said everything else depends on it. If you love your neighbor like you love yourself you're not going to cheat your neighbor, because that would hurt as much as cheating yourself. You don't have to be told to give to the poor any more, because you WANT to help them. If you have love for your neighbor, all the other laws are things you just naturally follow, without even needing a law book.

- Seems an easy answer. Love. Because love contains so many other positive things within it including patience, respect, cheerful obedience, kindness, selflessness, giving and more.

^^ Excellent answers here. I will add, shared values, and compatible relationship goals.

 
D

DCrawshawJr

Guest
#22
I chewed this topic over for a while as I worked today. I gotta say there are a lot of factors in a relationship, and none of them seems to be more important than any of the others, because if you take one out the whole thing can fall apart.

But it seems to me one thing can cause all the other elements to either be present or absent. Remember WHY Jesus said the greatest commandment was love? "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Jesus didn't just say loving God and loving your neighbor was more important, he said everything else depends on it. If you love your neighbor like you love yourself you're not going to cheat your neighbor, because that would hurt as much as cheating yourself. You don't have to be told to give to the poor any more, because you WANT to help them. If you have love for your neighbor, all the other laws are things you just naturally follow, without even needing a law book.

Now mind you, I have never been married myself. From what I've observed of others though, all the elements necessary for a relationship come from love, and they can all only be truly present as a function of love. He doesn't fill her gas tank because "Well if I don't she'll nag me about it," he does it because he doesn't want her to have to worry about it. She doesn't overlook a small annoyance because "I can save that for later in an argument," she overlooks it because she loves him more than she is annoyed.

If love is not in a relationship then there has to be some other motive to make them respect each other - usually "If I don't treat her right she will leave me, and I don't want that!" And some elements will naturally be left out, because you can't legislate everything in a relationship - it just doesn't work that way. But if a man and woman truly love each other they don't have to follow a list of rules for how to make a relationship work, because all the elements come naturally as an expression of love.

Caveat: Like I said, I ain't never been married before and all that I just said might be totally wrong. But I've observed a lot of relationships and the preceding is what seems to work.
This.

Love. And honest effort is the proof.
 

Oncefallen

Idiot in Chief
Staff member
Jan 15, 2011
6,029
3,240
113
#24

- I would say love and respect.

While it's certainly true that a man needs love, and a woman needs respect, I believe
at our core the man MUST receive respect, and the woman MUST receive love.

If neither, or one, is not getting that core need from their spouse, they will seek it elsewhere.



Someone has been reading Emerson Eggerichs.