In my first article I mentioned that marriage requires a selfless mindset. The root of most divorces, when you get down to it, is selfishness. The individuals are unwilling to give up their way of thinking or are too stubborn to be a little uncomfortable for the greater sake of their spouse. Marriage requires a sacrifice of your time and emotions. Many people say that marriage is a 50/50 thing when it comes to effort.

While that may be true, it shouldn’t just stop at the 50. It’s not like you have a sacrifice meter that once you hit your 50 percent out of 100 you're done for the day. Spouses should be striving to out serve each other. I’m not talking about out serving for the sake of bragging rights, but out serving for the sake of your spouse. You should serve your spouse with the intent of learning more about them. You should complement your spouse’s personality with your acts of service. Find their love language — what makes them feel loved — and serve them whole heartedly, with grumbling. Sometimes, serving doesn’t have to be overly complicated.

Serving your spouse can mean that you simple forfeited your emotions about something in order to help them with theirs. As humans we are emotional people, so controlling them goes completely against everything our flesh wants to do. But when we don’t control them, situations can escalate unnecessarily and feelings can get hurt fast. As a spouse we are biblically called to “speak with wisdom” (Proverbs 31:26), but reacting with wisdom also falls into that category. Sacrificing our emotions is part of knowing how to complement your spouse.

That may sound a little strange, but sacrificing your emotions is a huge part of marriage. Sometimes, you might really want to be mad at a situation, but you can’t because you have to be the one that stays calm and steadies the other. Or maybe, you might really want to break down and cry at something that you know is emotional for both of you, but your spouse needs you to be there to lean on. Once you're married, it’s no longer “I,” it’s “we.” You have to start thinking of what’s best for the two of you and not just about what you want.

Your actions and reactions have ripple effects on your spouse and self control becomes ever more important because emotions are contagious. If your spouse has steam coming out of their ears they are so mad, the best reaction from you is probably not to do the same, but to be the one that calms them down and brings them back to reality. My husband has more of a tendency to get a little more angry about situations than I do, so I’ve had to make myself be even more reserved about things that make me upset just so that I can help him. But that’s what is so awesome about God— he isn’t kidding when he says that he’ll give you a helpmate. He hand picks your spouse specifically for you so that you can complement each other. Everything I’m not, my husband is. Everything he’s not, I am.

It really blows my mind to think about how much thought God put into creating spouses. He knew the second he made my husband, two years before I was even born, exactly what I needed. When He made my husband, he was thinking of me. That’s why we can go together like butter and biscuits.