Week 26: Vulnerability in Marriage

Read Time: 2.7 min

If you were to evaluate a healthy and happy marriage, you would find several key ingredients: mutual respect, trust, and support. Yet, another key ingredient that is sometimes overlooked in marriage is vulnerability. Vulnerability is the willingness to share feelings as well as talk about facts.

When there is vulnerability within your marriage, you are able to be open with your spouse about your faults, dreams, and the personal doubts and aspirations you have concerning yourself and for your marriage.

Just as trust and respect should be ground rules for marriage, so should vulnerability. Because when you nurture vulnerability in your marriage, it helps create an atmosphere of tenderness, understanding and intimacy. Being vulnerable with your spouse says that you trust them and value their feedback. Being vulnerable is an emotional gift from one spouse to the other.

However, what you must guard against when your spouse is being vulnerable is any tendency to use what has been revealed in confidence as a weapon to make a point or win an argument. If you engage in this kind of behavior, the transparency and candor will disappear, and you will create a marriage of secrets. And when there are secrets between you and your spouse, they
will eat away at the fabric of your marriage.

Being vulnerable with your spouse is a vital and delicate tool to building a healthy and happy marriage. And because vulnerability is the language of intimacy, it is a key ingredient if you and your spouse desire to establish an authentic, truth-honoring marriage.

…when you nurture vulnerability in your marriage, it helps create an atmosphere of tenderness, understanding and intimacy.

Some Things To Do For The Week

Day 2: Reflect on the message and scripture reading; journal if you like
Day 3: Pray for or meditate on what you think you need
Day 4: Discuss the message and scripture with your spouse
Day 5: Plan how you can best respond to the message
Day 6: Rest; don’t think about the message or the scripture; listen in the stillness
Day 7: Recommit yourself to your marriage

Applicable scripture listed under Discussion References.