Broken Promises, Lies and Infidelities

Are you a person of your word? What about your spouse? Does your spouse trust you? Being trustworthy is an awesome character trait and is essential for a healthy marriage. But there are many things that we say and do that will break the bonds of trust with our spouse.

1. Broken Promises:

Keeping promises to our spouse is a very important part of marriage. It builds trust and shows we are committed in what we say and do? God tells us to make our yes's a yes and our no's a no. What does that mean?

And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your Yes be Yes and your No be No, anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37

We shouldn't end our statements with, "I swear to God" because this is swearing falsely in God's name. We shouldn't end our statements with, "I promise". God wants us to be "true" to what we say! This means we are to do what we say and say what we do. This is being true to our word.

An example of swearing falsely is if your spouse says to you, "I swear to God, I will take you out to dinner on Friday". But when Friday rolls around your spouse is working late and can't go. What happened? Your spouse used God's name to promise a dinner date but ended up breaking that promise. They broke their promise to you, and more importantly to God. They're not being sincere with their words, are they?

Why do we make promises that we know we may not be able to keep? We truly believe that we can back up our promises with action. We want people to believe in us so bad that we say, "I promise", or "I swear to God" because we want to please our loved ones. But more often than not, busy schedules and priorities get confused and in the way, and promises get broken.

If you're not really sure that that you can keep a promise to your spouse then don't make the promise! If you are the type of person who often makes promises, do what you say you're going to do and be a person your spouse can trust and believe in.



2. Lying:

Lying is like a broken promise but much worse. Unlike a promise, which you hope you can keep, a lie is an untruth that deceives people into believing truth, which in fact is not true, but a lie! When you lie to your spouse, they feel deceived and unloved by you. Why would you lie to your spouse? Can you not be trusted?

There have been numerous studies made about liars and lying. These studies all say that everyone lies. What do you think when you read that everyone in this world lies? Do you believe it? If you do believe that everyone lies, then it makes it seem like it's okay to lie since everyone's a liar! I don't believe it. I think it is pure media persuasion to get people to lie; this is how satan does his work, because, not everyone lies.

Above all, my brothers, do not swear - not by heaven and not by earth or by anything else. Let your Yes be yes and your No, no or you will be condemned. James 5:12

Why do we lie to our spouse when we know it is dishonest? Because we are hiding something we are ashamed of. Because we do not really have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and our conscience doesn't bother us when we lie and deceive others. Maybe we don't want our spouse to hate us, be mad at us, or leave us. We aren't bold enough to tell our spouse the truth about who we really are.

Did you know that nine times out of ten, your spouse can tell a lie from a truth? This breeds more mistrust and pretty soon there is nothing left of the marriage because of this. One of the major components of a happy marriage is trust and faith among couples.

You don't lie, do you? You don't have to be a liar. Be an honest person of character and then you won't have to lie. When you can avoid lying, fibbing and making half-truths you become known as trustworthy, which marriage and all other relationships thrive on.

3. Lack of Commitment:

If a person is not committed in what they do they will eventually be dishonest in its interactions. This is also true with marriage. If couples aren't committed to each other, what do you think is going to happen? You guessed it. All sorts of deceitful deeds will be acted upon; making couples feel jealous, doubt, mistrust, and suspicion.

Unfortunately this kind of marriage won't last long. Unfaithfulness and deceitful practices run rampant in marriages today because couples aren't devoted to the marriage. It is a great virtue of character to be committed to what you do in life. Your commitment to marriage is your promise to your spouse that you will be the honest and upright person you say you are.

Angie Lewis is the author of two marriage books. Journey on the Roads Less Traveled is a book about love, life, addiction and marriage. Love The Man You Married is an informative and biblically centered book tackling such issues as adultery and learning to completely forgive your spouse.