Take a look at these 5 reasons to give your marriage another chance before you go making any decisions.

1. Your husband may not be as bad as he seems

Almost on the daily here at Living the Sweet Wife, I get emails and/or comments from wives telling me how their husband is the absolute most evilest person alive. But when I get those emails and read how awful these husbands are, I think to myself, “If they’re so evil, how on earth did they get you to marry them??” Were these women completely hoodwinked when they walked down the aisle? Or did their husband make a complete 180º lifestyle change somewhere down the road? To be honest, I don’t think either thing happened. I think many women out here, including you and I, marry men with flaws. I’m going to venture out there and say that most of these men aren’t evil. Most do not mean to cause us harm. But we have a funny way of seeing their actions as if they are in fact, evil and trying to cause us harm. I don’t mean to say that I don’t believe these women when they come to me.

2. You might be worse to live with than you think

Having made point #1, it took me a while into our marriage to realize that I can be just as “evil” or worse than my husband at times. At times I, myself, am lazy, selfish, quick to anger, judgemental, harsh, and many other bad habits I like to catch him doing. Except usually in those moments I turn into a bit of a self righteous victim rather than a forgiving, understanding wife and friend. It can be really easy to forget that I do many of the hurtful things my husband does to me sometimes (because those specific actions often don’t look the same, but they stem from the same inward problem, and justifying and explaining my own actions is a lot easier than justifying his).

3. Leaving your spouse might not make anything better

I hear many wives say, “I deserve to be happy!” and they believe that leaving their spouse will let them live a life they’re missing out on. I do want to make it clear that this does not apply to women in abusive relationships. I’m speaking to women who are safe, but hurting. What these women need to know is that leaving a marriage will not always solve the problems you are facing. Even if you one day remarry, many women fall into similar relationships the second time around as well. Don’t give up just yet. You have options other than leaving.

4. Making it through hard times can make your relationship way better than it was before

I am so encouraged when I speak with women or receive comments from you all telling me how you’ve been married 20, 30+ years and have admitted to your relationship not being all sunshine and daisies. Some of you have even made it through affairs and now have a thriving relationship. Wow! I find that just so amazing. Going through difficult times can give you and your spouse the opportunity to learn! You can learn more about each other (the true colors fly when the going gets rough), learn how to handle a difficult situation, learn how to avoid similar situations in the future, and teach others how to work through similar hard times.

5. Forgiveness is never deserved, but always Biblical

If you think of your marriage as having a score sheet, chances are someone’s going to lose. And what will you do then? Eventually, there IS going to be a point in your marriage when your spouse doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. And in that situation you have the ability to cast them out, to hold it over their heads, or to forgive and move on with your relationship. When Christ died for us in order so that we could receive forgiveness, we didn’t deserve one ounce of that forgiveness.