Will changing your beliefs, change your relationship?

Changing your beliefs changes your relationships. 

Change and others must adapt if they want to stay in relationship with you. Same for marriage! If you change, your partner must change. If your partner changes, then you must change. We learn to adapt to the other, give them room to grow, and provide a safe space for their transformation to unfold. 

But it’s important to have fun along the way. 

Lisa and I found that as we grew and changed, it made it easier and happier if we could be lighthearted and even make fun of ourselves. 

Laughter’s good medicine. 

This doesn’t mean we despise, ridicule, or shame our earlier lives. Rather, we hold our former selves with compassion as part of our story. We would not be who we are now if we hadn’t been who we were then. The fact that we can look back with gentleness on where we were and how we got here is affirming, liberating and joyful. 

Lisa was 19, and I was 22 when we got married. 

What did we know?! 

In our youthful Pentecostal naïveté, we wrestled with sexual and relational questions that are immaterial now. Even though we enjoyed each other, we were far too serious in our ardour for what was righteous. We had some self-liberating to do! 

So, we laugh! 

All beliefs must be falsifiable if they are to be taken seriously. Armed with this attitude, we can enjoy them as they are: provisional attempts to apprehend and articulate the deepest mysteries of an abundant and joyful life! 

This is an adventure almost as exciting as exploring one another’s bodies. 

If you are on different pages... say one is more conservative and the other more liberal... all you can do is trust them with that choice. 

Otherwise, you end up either judging or disdaining one another. 

Do you know what I think the number one killer of marriage is? 

Contempt. 

Don't go there. 

Work it out. Figure out how to restore and maintain respect for and trust in one another. 

Because if change is a given, then trust is a must.

Homework: Where can you let go of control in your partner's life? Written by David Hayward, the NakedPastor.

David Hayward is the NakedPastor. A former pastor turned cartoonist. After 30 years in the church, he left the ministry to pursue his passion for art. His work challenges the status quo, deconstructs dogma, and promotes critical thinking. Check out his work here.

From the upcoming series featuring David Hayward (@nakedpastor) called "Til Doubt Do Us Part" this week, with a subscription, in the App.

Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco