Praying for Marriages (PfM)

Please join us this week in praying for marriages dealing with sexual dysfunction. Whether the sexual dysfunction is the immediate problem of the husband or of the wife, it will ultimately be a problem for both. The causes of sexual dysfunction are numerous. The genesis of the dysfunction can be physical, emotional or psychological. It can be rooted in the past or its cause can be very current. Regardless of the origin, the effects of sexual dysfunction on a marriage can be severe. The inability to “perform” or respond sexually can lead to feelings of inadequacy, failure, humiliation, unattractiveness and frustration. In order to avoid a painful experience, couples may start to avoid intimacy altogether. In turn, this avoidance can be devastating to the self-esteem of both husband and wife. It is not unusual for the cause of sexual dysfunction to be misidentified and for blame to be assumed by a spouse or assigned to a spouse mistakenly. Finally, sexual dysfunction ...

Please join us this week in praying for marriages being negatively affected by a disruptive friend. Just like spouses bring their families into their marriages, they also bring their friends. This reality is normal and healthy. Marriage should not signal the end of pre-existing friendships; nevertheless, there are instances when a friend, either of the husband, the wife or both, does not honor the marriage relationship and becomes an instrument of division instead of a mainstay of support. The nature of a friend’s disruptive behavior can vary widely. A couple may be faced with a friend who does not respect their time and privacy. A couple may also need to deal with a friend who does not understand that marriage generally affects how his or her married friend must manage money. Martial stress can arise if one spouse makes unwise spending decisions in order to meet a friend’s expectations (golf every week, trips, shopping sprees). Married c...

Join us in praying this week for couples going through marital separation. Although separation from a spouse can be necessary because of abusive and/or addictive behavior, marital separation is not a cure-all; in fact, it can lead to issues that make reconciliation even more difficult than living under the same roof. When separation is viewed as just a way to avoid the stresses of marital disharmony, it can lead to a false peace that provides no positive movement toward the resolution of marital problems. The longer that “hiatus” continues the harder it is for couples to re-enter the difficult process of healing a broken marriage.   Separation can deepen feelings of failure and hopelessness and chip away at a couple’s commitment to their relationship as they experience the very real physical withdrawal from one another. This physical withdrawal, when coupled with the emotional distance almost always present in broken marriages, can make marital infid...

Join us this week in praying for marriages in which communication has broken down. By all accounts the lack of effective communication is a frequent and devastating dysfunction in marriages. The break-down in communication can occur for a wide range of reasons. Communication can grind to a halt if one’s words or body language suggests disinterest in or contempt for a spouse’s input. Sometimes the desire to communicate can dry up if a spouse feels the other’s words are never followed by corresponding action, in other words, if lightly made promises are never kept. Nagging can also cause communication to cease. When effective communication stops, all sorts of misunderstandings and false assumptions are likely to spring up. The resulting cascade of trouble and stress will then be difficult to reverse since the very tool needed to effect this change, good communication, is already impaired. Pray with us this week that couples having comm...

Please join us this week in praying for marriages in deep financial debt. Debt is a life-situation pervasive in our American culture. When this debt is excessive, it can lead to numerous problems for a married couple. First, deep debt can lead to a blame game in which spouses expend their energy assigning blame for their situation instead of working on a solution. Second, excessive debt can create crippling stress as the couple tries to maintain life and limb while fending off creditors. Third, debt can lead to hopelessness, since escaping debt is most often a long road many couples see as beyond their ability to travel. And finally, even when a couple commits to escaping debt, they face the difficulties of changing long established habits, of giving up things precious to them and of learning to say “no,” or at least “not now,” even to good and worthwhile endeavors. Please pray couples in this situation will Be granted grace and ...

Please join us this week in praying for newly married couples. Though the issues faced by newly married couples are common and often joked about, they can be troublesome and cause a marriage to get off to a rocky start. Every new marriage is a blending of two different people, and their differences require adjustments, understanding, open communication and forgiveness. The adjustments of living everyday with another human being can be a strain.  These adjustments are tough for young persons who haven’t yet established routines as independent adults; they can be even more troublesome for individuals who have been independent adults for a number of years prior to the marriage and have habits and life-styles with which they have become comfortable. In either case, adjustments both large and small are a challenge for newly weds. Another issue for young marriages is the personal baggage the newly weds bring with them. Often not all this baggage...

Please join us this week in praying for couples going through the hospitalization of a spouse. This life situation can create numerous stresses on a marriage. Just dealing with the anxiety of the medical situation itself is trying on a marriage, but there are other stressors as well. When one spouse is in the hospital, daily tasks do not decrease by half; in fact, they increase for the other spouse, and, if children are involved, they increase a lot. Time gets compressed as one spouse tries to be at the hospital to support and comfort the other while still meeting the demands of work, home and family. When one spouse is hospitalized, it is not unusual at all for both spouses to become sleep-deprived. Hospitalization does not equate to quality rest for the patient or for the spouse who is splitting time between a lonely bed at home and a not-so-comfortable chair in a hospital room. The longer the hospital stay, the more weariness is likely to i...