Marriage in the green zone

Your God-given value helps you to have good relationships!

If you don’t know your God-given value, your relationships will suffer. Then conflicts will either turn into fights or withdrawing! Neither is healthy. What does my value have to do with my relationships? I would like to explain that.

It’s usually the same issues that lead to fights, not just in marriage. I wrote a blog post a while ago about triggers. Triggers are unhealed experiences from childhood that hurt every time a similar situation arises. They make us feel inferior and we don’t like to remain in that position. Then we react – either harshly or with silence, which is not understandable for the other person. This is hurtful and so the other person reacts… And so it goes on and on.

If one or both of us feel inferior, a deep, emotional relationship is not possible! Inferiority creates distance! And inferiority also manifests itself in arrogance!

When our children were small, some old issues in me emerged that resulted in feeling inferior. Beliefs that I had formed and internalized as a child. The logic of a child. This helps us as a child, but when we grow up they no longer serve us. These beliefs were difficult for our marriage – because I often felt unworthy and this resulted in me withdrawing. In addition, my husband’s beliefs made him repeatedly feel inferior and led to him being more critical.

Surprisingly, we functioned very well together through all of this! And we were sometimes quite happy with our marriage, because we didn’t know how much more beautiful and closer a relationship could be.

My illustration shows how a statement or behavior can catapult someone into inferiority. We want to get out of this inferior position as quickly as possible and react violently to bring ourselves back up again. We do this through critical judgment, contempt, blocking or defense. This in turn creates new problems! The partner is either very stable in their God-given value or they also slip into inferiority and will defend themselves – and the game continues in a spiral… Are you familiar with this?

When we know our God-given value, which means we are in the green zone and remain mostly there, then a relationship become stable and joyful. That’s where my husband and I are now, because we were ready to let God influence our thoughts. His nature is extremely healing, like nothing else!

How do we manage to come to this God-given value and stay there consistently? This value is only given by God. We read about it in the Bible and we experience it when we listen to him by being quiet! That means: I am quiet, I don’t pray, I don’t praise, but I am quiet until I feel the presence of God or good thoughts arise in my mind. God talks to us when we are silent and trust him that he is good and wants to talk to us!

When I allow God and his truths to take root in my thoughts, I am more likely to stay in the green zone, which means in my self-esteem and thus protect my marriage – and other relationships too! My husband and I are thrilled with the emotional intimacy this creates! It’s worth looking for the value that God has given you – it changes your life for the better!