Free Marriage Advice:
If you are looking to your spouse to prove that you are lovable, you are looking to the wrong person.
When we look to humans to fill a God-shaped hole, we will always be disappointed. Humans were never intended to “fix” us. Only God can satisfy the deepest longings in our souls.
The danger of tasking your spouse with the job of proving that you are worthy of love is that it puts unhealthy pressure on the marriage.
Fights over jobs and finances become heightened as the stakes are higher for the spouse who is really seeing jobs and finances as referendums on their worthiness to be loved.
Fights over frequency of sexual intercourse become more intense as one spouse is not just viewing this through the lens of sexual desire but also through the lens of whether he or she is worthy of being loved.
I do not know if this dynamic is or was at work in your marriage. Whatever the case, I would encourage everyone to set it to rest for their own or future marriage’s success.
God has declared us forever lovable as demonstrated by Jesus dying for us demonstrating His love forever (see Romans 5:8).
Our need to be deemed worthy of love cannot be satisfied by another merely mortal person. We need to take our worthiness of love as a given.
Given to us by the Creator of the Universe who is madly, crazily, recklessly in love with you!
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*A version of this post ran previously. “Happy” Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday.
Excellent! As St. Augustine said , God made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.
Looking to another human being to prove to us we’re lovable is a sign of a restless heart and we can never find peace like that!