The Practical Side to Commitment for Husbands & Wives
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, January 9, 2012
Periodically, in this blog I have shared tips for spouses – husbands & wives – to improve the quality of their marriage. Typically, those entries have been from other reputable sources, not merely my opinion, nor something from a popular consumer magazine that presents the relationship “flavor of the day.”
Love, it has been said, is a commitment – it is neither exclusively, nor merely a good feeling based upon a mutual attraction, sexual or otherwise. Because love is a commitment, there are certain things that one should do to honor and demonstrate the commitment. Oftentimes as well, those commitments have been unspoken – although they may occupy significant real estate silently in our imaginations. It is precisely those times that the unspoken should be spoken.
With an eye toward speaking the unspoken, I share with you the following.
List of 20 Absolute Face-to-Face Commitments
By Paul D. Refior
Copyright 1994, 1998 and 2005
You will certainly agree that marriage is infinitely more than a list of do’s and don’ts.
Yet one of the problems these days is that so many couples fail or refuse to acknowledge important do’s and don’ts, and these couples do not make or fulfill important commitments and promises.
Do you want a happy and God-honoring marriage? Then I suggest that you make the following commitments before the Lord and that you verbally express these commitments to your spouse (yes, eyeball to eyeball, out loud, and over again regularly).
1. I will always choose to love you.
2. I will always be absolutely honest with you.
3. I will never divorce you.
4. I will never abandon you.
5. I will never have sex with anyone but you.
6. I will never touch any person besides you in a sexual or romantic way.
7. I will pray for you every day.
8. I will never hit you, slap you, punch you, or in any way touch you violently or with the intention of causing you pain.
9. I will never yell at you, talk harshly to you, or say anything to you with an intention of hurting you or cutting you down. I will never call you a demeaning name.
10. I will always support you and nurture you.
11. I will always keep you and our relationship as being more important and of higher priority than any relationship with anyone else; and I will not cause you to suffer competition for my time and attention with any other friend or associate of mine.
12. I will remain open for you to constructively alert me of mistakes I am making or wrongs I have committed.
13. I will do everything I can to assist you in developing your talents, gifts and abilities and in reaching your highest potential.
14. I will immediately and always come to your defense.
15. I will do everything I can to make and keep our home as a safe harbor, a refuge, an oasis and a happy place to be.
16. I will do my best to be a giver rather than a getter (aka taker) in all aspects of our marriage.
17. When I am with others or in public I will never cut you down, ridicule you, demean you, or make you the object of any joke.
18. When I am with others or in public I will always support you, honor you and uphold you.
19. I will never break our confidences, and I will never share with others about our intimacy or our private matters.
20. I will do everything I can to contribute to a happy and God-honoring marriage relationship.
Make these commitments to each other and before the Lord. CHOOSE to KEEP these commitments. Reaffirm all of these commitments to each other regularly.
Warm Southern Breeze 
Thrift Shopping Buzz said
Nice post. These are basics all people in committed relationships should uphold.
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Warm Southern Breeze said
Thanks much for your readership, and your response! It never hurts to state the obvious, nor to be reminded of it – does it?
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lovesexandmarriage said
It’s very true. People forget that marriage, or any LTR, takes work. If you don’t work at it, it will fall apart. Sometimes you have to suck it up and just get through it. An excellent list. I think I may print it out and post it on my fridge or in my cubicle at work so I can share it. I have some friends who were divorced within a year of marriage… I wish they could have seen this!
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Warm Southern Breeze said
“And they lived happily ever after” only happens in fairy tales. But, that does not imply that happy endings do not exist, for they do. It’s just that all the work that occurs between “once upon a time” and it is most often unmentioned or neglected, and therefore untold. Thanks for the good words, Molly!
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