Holding on to Guilt?

Tune in for today’s Marriage Talk where Apostle Priji and Lucy converse about guilt in marriage.

Transcript:

Lucy: Welcome to Marriage talk. We hope you are enjoying the content. I am Lucy, your co host.

Apostle Priji: I am Priji, very excited to be back on marriage talk. I am more excited because of the new way of doing the podcast. We also have the video podcast going up so people can also see us interacting.
Welcome to video audience.

Lucy: It is a privilege to do this with you and to talk about. it is so much fresh content that we are bringing to the table. So many different and interesting topics not only for people who are married but also for singles who are preparing to get married. We hope you enjoy this as much as we are. Please do send us any queries you may have to us. We would love to hear from you.

Apostle Priji: We are very excited for those who are about to get married in the next season and it is necessary that you go back into our archives and you listen to one podcast everyday. I am sure if will give you a fresh perspective on what to expect and what to avoid, how to lay the right foundations early on in your marriage.

Lucy: Something that I have been wanting to talk about is the guilt in marriage which a lot of people deal without realizing how it can affect your spouse. Guilt doesn’t need to be only what I feel, it can also be brought upon. For eg. If our spouses keep reminding us about our past, whether it was an addiction like a drinking habit, smoking or pornography. It might be difficult to change because of this constant reminder of what has been done in the past.

Apostle Priji: I think to understand guilt, we always have to go back to understand the source of that guilt.
Whether it is something that the person is saying or whether it is something that you have done. For eg. Someone saying you are a liar, but technically speaking you haven’t lied, you didn’t mean to withhold information but that guilt is now being induced in the words that are being spoken. Now on the other side, there are things that you have done that your spouse probably isn’t aware of or isn’t taking it seriously.
But then that guilt remains in your spirit, heart, and it begins to speak to you about how bad you are. So it’s not always the external sources of guilt, as it can be internal as well. An external source can be much easier to deal with. All you need is the voice of God speaking. An internal guilt is something which even God cannot help/won’t help unless you change your mind about yourself. Guilt or condemnation can destroy and disrupt the freedom that you have in a marriage. Therefore it is very necessary to deal with any kind of guilt, because otherwise you will somehow go an extra mile just to maintain peace and keep the other person happy. Doing so you will end up making more compromises. You can refuse to believe what they are constantly saying and believe in what God is speaking about you and to you. It is when you start comparing what your spouse is saying to what the guy in your office is saying. Now that is a challenge because that is validation from the wrong voice. But if you bring what your spouse is saying to the voice of God, you get perspective on how to deal with this issue. For external guilt, you need counselling to unclog your spirit and your identity is restored from within. Agree with what God is speaking about you.

Lucy: What if you aren’t vocal about it. For e.g I am dealing with some guilt in my life but I don’t speak about it. This underlying problem does creep up in marriage. How do you deal with that?let’s say the wife is feeling bad about the way she has been treated by her in laws and she starts bringing that up in every conversation. Somehow she has learnt to keep quiet but there is always this underlying problem that my husband didn’t stand up for me when I needed him. It can be the same for the opposite sex as well where they feel that they haven’t spoken about something that they have done wrong towards their spouse. How do they identify to vocalize and get help with this?

Apostle Priji: Now there are two scenarios, let’s say you are one who is receiving all the badmouthing and guilt, another scenario being you are the one being wronged and want to express that without making your spouse feel guilty. You don’t want to express it just because you don’t want to make your spouse feel guilty. In both scenarios, it is necessary to understand that our solution doesn’t necessarily come by vocalizing or not. It helps our soul and mind to process these things better. Healing never comes because we have spoken about things or shared our frustration and burdens out. Our healing comes when we receive what Jesus has done for us and we change our belief system on the inside. That is the source of healing. Everything will succeed or fail based on what we believe in, based on our ability to really trust in what God is saying about those things in our life. It is not going to help just because you verbalized your hurt to your spouse. Your heart will feel light but your spirit will still hurt. Your healing comes from God’s presence. Restoration of your spirit comes from God. The goal of communication is not to be healed, but it is to be understood, heard. It is very necessary to use the right words to communicate. Instead of saying, ‘you didn’t stand up for me’, you can say, ‘i felt cornered’ or ‘ I felt like I was all alone’
It is always good to first go to God and receive your healing and then go to vocalize it with your spouse. You are expecting your spouse to just understand you and to be sensitive to you in these areas.
In the other scenario, if you are the one who is guilt shamed or hurt, then it is better to vocalize in the very beginning. Men tend to take for granted thinking that their wives know everything or they will at least communicate if there is a problem. We don’t necessarily understand everything what the woman is going through. Men expect their wives to communicate if there is a problem. So if you are the one who is being guilt shamed and hurt again and again, it will help if you vocalize it. I am sure you may reach a point where you aren’t being heard and you decide not to say things over and over again, but initially at least they need to know how you feel.

Lucy: We often have guilt that we are not bringing our kids in a good way.

Apostle Priji: Everything in a child life is completely the responsibility of parents at least up to a certain age. We have to let go of the guilt but we need to make sure we bring solutions at home.

Lucy: Its seen or noticed that people are quick to get financial help from in-laws and parents. We tend to forget to look at our Father for help.

Apostle Priji:If I continue to feel the guilt and burden of everything that I did wrong, then I will constantly look down on myself as a failure. Go to your Father in heaven, He will help you, He will open up the windows of heaven. The more we trust our Father in heaven the easier we heal. No one can live up to your expectation.

Lucy: It is a very wrong expectation that once we get married there are certain needs that will be fulfilled.

Apostle Priji: God has definitely put in our spouse’s to help us, to serve us and love us. But at the end of the day our fulfillment doesn’t come from that person, our fulfillment comes by sitting at the feet of Jesus, our spirit being whole and satisfies and then you go to the people that God has put in your life. Then, when you are helped by them and served by them, it will not be a dependency.

Lucy:Thank you so much Apostle Priji. Thank you for bringing everything to the table. I hope our listeners and viewers are enjoying this. Please feel free to write to us at [email protected] . Will see you soon.