How would it feel to have a fresh start in your marriage?

A blank canvas! Can you even imagine it?

The best marriage advice for wives and help for a fresh start in a complicated and struggling marriage. If you have intimacy struggles and need marriage encouragement and tips on how to start over and have a better marriage, or how to fix my marriag…

Some of us have forgotten that deep longing we use to have for a deep and beautiful love story.

The magic is gone and all that is left is disappointment.

Pent-up frustrations and anger win each day as the needle on the “love-meter” moves further and further into the negative. Sometimes it has been stuck in the negative for so long that things just feel hopeless.

I remember living that way and it is EXHAUSTING.

But during some of the hardest and messiest times, God started to open my eyes, and strip away everything that I thought I knew about my relationship with my man.

And the things that He showed me ushered in an entirely fresh start for us!

So I am here to tell you that you can start over- and to help you find the winning game plan for your new start!

But first I want to tell you this:

When I am counseling a woman, nothing spells trouble more than if she is telling me all of the hurtful and awful thing her spouse does, but refuses to talk about her own mistakes or what she could be doing better.

Humility.

In a nutshell, I believe that humility is the key ingredient to a healthy marriage that will last.

And it often only takes ONE spouse to focus on what they can be doing better, rather than on what their spouse should be doing better. The willingness to try something better and wiser, and patiently wait for a change.

(Let me pause right here and say that I AM not talking about instances of abuse. If you are in an abusive relationship please read this disclaimer.)

Right now, I’m calling on you to step up and be the bigger person in your marriage.

I’m calling on you, to ask God for help.

And from my own experience of a MIRACULOUS transformation in my own relationship, and from counseling dozens of women, here is what I believe is your winning game plan:

1. Let the natural attraction take back over. Forget the rest.

Chances are good that your relationship with your husband has become complicated.

All of the times he has let you down, caused you pain, or not prioritized the right thing is like another knot in a messy ball of string. And by now that ball of string has become so twisted and knotted, it seems impossible to untangle or unwind.

He knows this. He knows he has let you down beyond repair and undoing that knot feels impossible.

Many women hold this over their husband’s head and make him feel as though he is responsible for un-doing the knot, rebuilding trust and making things right. This drains the life right out of him and makes him feel like he starts every day in the negative- like a HUGE debt hanging over his head.

Men thrive on feeling like a hero to their woman- THAT is what gives him energy.

And when he feels like a failure, he will lose the motivation to rise up and prove himself, because he knows that you DO NOT see him as a hero, but only as someone who has let you down and hurt you.

The question is no longer about whether or not he deserves this, and what he did- but my question to you now is: do you want your marriage to be good, and do you want it to last?

If so, you need to give him a clean slate. You must cut up that ball of string and throw it away. Only you can do this because you are the one who is holding it.

(If this all sounds impossible, please hold on until step 2.)

But, right now I want to ask you:

Do you first remember what attracted you to your husband?

How maybe you couldn’t keep your hands off each other when you were first falling in love?

I’ve heard it said that the enemy does everything he can do get a couple to be intimate before they are married, and then everything he can to keep them apart after they are married.

It’s so true!

You better believe that they enemy is doing everything in his power to turn you and your husband away from eachother and keep you from being intimate.

(To see this concept illustrated better, watch the movie War Room! It is a beautiful and inspiring story of a woman who finally realizes she is fighting the enemy in her marriage, not her husband.)

So what I’m asking you to do is this:

Cut that ball of string up and throw it away!!!!!!!!!

Instead of making your husband “earn” your attraction, your love and your trust- just start giving those things to him freely on a daily basis.

Ask God for the strength to give your husband a clean slate even tonight when he walks through the door.

See him through the eyes of a woman who is madly in love with him.

Laugh with him, flirt with him- keep it light. Make love to him, then kiss him, thank him, smile at him and fall asleep.

This might sound silly but sometimes, while my husband is at work, I like to go into his closet, stick my face into all of his shirts and just breathe in his scent. I know that’s ridiculous, but I LOVE how my man smells. It is the same scent as back when we were initially falling in love and it is always something about him that just DOES IT for me! It cuts through all of the complicated thoughts, and just makes me feel like a woman in love with her man.

And I want my marriage to be simple, natural and playful in that way: just a woman in love with her man.

Do you have the courage to let go of all of the score cards and everything else and just be a woman in love with her man?

2. Replace whatever is sitting on the thrown of your heart with JESUS♥️

Jesus is the only man worthy to sit on the throne of your heart.

And when you are not spending time DAILY with him, something or someone else (or multiple somethings or someones) will become your God; your source of security, sustenance and happiness.

Maybe you don’t realize that you have made your spouse responsible for your happiness, instead of Christ.

This is one of the easiest and most common mistakes I see in marriages.

If this resonates with you, I have created a wonderful free resource called: Putting Your Man In God’s Hands, that I think will help you tremendously!

The bottom line is that rather than trying to control your man, it is TIME to release him into God’s hands, pray for him fervently, and watch God be the one to transform his HEART (rather than just his behavior.

Here is a scripture I prayed over my husband for years:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”- Ephesians 3:14-19

Prayer is SO powerful that I have literally watched these specific transformations in my husband take place before my eyes:

My husband’s spirit, mind and body have strengthened tremendously.
His reputation, position and favor with people has increased every year.
He is able to interact with other people based in love and care for the right things, rather than greed, shallowness, pride or perversion like his old self.
And lastly, he, more than ANYONE I know, can see the bigger picture and see other people’s intentions for what they are. I feel God has truly helped him to comprehend “with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth”- and is increasingly filling him “with the fullness of God.”

Prayer works better than anything else we could ever do for our husband.

If you are new to this, this a great book to help you pray for your man!

Let your daily time with Jesus be your primary place to vent, repent, say the deepest things of your heart, release all of your feelings and anger, and WATCH the transformation in your heart and marriage that takes place!

3. Be the lady.

It is so simple, and yet we try to be so much more.

What a relief for those of us who are use to always doing more, always trying harder and always trying to figure everything else.

You are not called to be the husband, the man, the leader and the one who figures everything out.

All you have to do is be the lady.

It’s simpler, lighter and more freeing than you can imagine.

But it is a learned art, for sure.

The best way we can begin to be the lady of our home is to start showing respect to our man verbally and with our actions. Nothing will make him want to step up as the man more than this.

But again, this does not come naturally, so if you are not sure where to start please check out this article here!

Respect was the biggest catalyst in shifting my own relationship.

Whenever it feels like your marriage is struggling or not where it should be, these three steps are an excellent reset button to get your heart, your mind and your marriage back on the right track.

Do them purposefully and consistently, and WATCH how it completely changes the nature of your marriage!!