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him. Not one word. I would just shut up and not say a word. But Dave loved me and showed me the agape love of God. I saw God’s unconditional love in him and if I wanted to receive it, I could benefit from it, but if I didn’t, it didn’t stop him from loving me. His stability amazed me. He did get angry with me sometimes, but somehow he was always able to demonstrate his love while disapproving of my actions. He was the closest thing I had ever seen to what I might have conjectured peace or love to be like.
    It is important for people who are married to a troubled person, or married to somebody who is having problems, or who isn’t saved, or whatever the case might be, to strive for stability in God. This can be a painful process but it is the direct path to eventual peace and joy. People must not let a troubled spouse’s behavior dictate their joy. They should strive to be stable and solid, so their behavior can witness to the other person.
    The only way I had ever seen anything handled as I was growing up was with anger, force, and manipulation. Disagreements were handled by controlling people with temper tantrums. In other words, “I’m mad at you and I’m going to stay mad at you until you do what I want you to.” And that was the way I fought for what I wanted. I grew up in a negative atmosphere where I was taught, “You cannot trust anybody. Anybody who even wants to do anything or even says they want to do something nice for you has some ulterior motive.”
    I’m using the example of the people who influenced my childhood, not to disrespect them, but to demonstrate that I believe people repeat what they were taught as children unless God does a work in them. Later, I will discuss how we learned to have healthy confrontations. But I was taught in the earlier years of my life to be negative.
    HAPPINESS IS YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY
    Six years into our marriage, Dave was beginning to tire of the fight. When I saw that Dave was no longer trying to give me “pep talks,” I realized it was my turn to do something about my unhappiness. If a spouse can make everything all right for someone, then Dave had been doing all the right things for our marital bliss. But I couldn’t be in harmony with him until I was in harmony with God.
    I wasn’t aware at the time how painful my unhappiness was for Dave. He reflects on that time of challenge with both fond and fretful memories. When I pushed him to the edge, he would go out alone and pray and cry. In the beginning he would try to share with me about things, saying, “You have to change or this has to change.” And nothing ever happened. It made me worse. So Dave realized that I couldn’t change from the outside in. It had to be from the inside out. From that time on, he realized that all he could do was pray when I was being sarcastic or belligerent. He would cry, “God, I can’t change this! Only You can get on the inside of her and change this.”
    It was at this time in our marriage that I began to read the Word of God with new interest and enthusiasm. The Word was beginning to make sense to me and draw me to desire more of God in my life. I know that people don’t like “pat answers” for life, but the Good News of the Gospel is very simple. I think that every person has to pick up the Bible and be willing to do what it says no matter what any other person does. And they have to do it as unto the Lord. Only then does an individual find the true path to happiness and wholeness.

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    BEFORE STARTING OVER, TRY THIS …
    Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding