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St. John the Baptist taught us, this is why God instituted marriage - for those who cannot lead a monastic life, to live in marriage with the goal of righteousness!!!
Therefore, disagreements in Orthodox marriage can be compared to the Cross of Christ which we are called to carry. Marriage requires not only happiness but also a willingness to bear these crosses. Therefore, some of the disagreements between the couple come from losing the orthodox path, forgetting the vision (purpose) of orthodox marriage, and not remembering that there is salvation, healing, justification, and blessing in the middle of the struggle. Therefore, the challenges we face in marriage can be overcome with wisdom and love. The important thing is that even if our spouse does not do what is expected of us, we should look at what is expected of ourselves in terms of the purpose of marriage. Marriage is not a worldly life of competition or abandonment, but the purpose of being justified by walking together and supporting each other. For this is either marriage in Christ or spiritual marriage. The martyrs entered the kingdom of heaven because they were killed by the sword and shed their blood for the sake of their religion, so we who are asked for a lesser price than this, should see our marriage as a good way of salvation and justification, and we deserve to fulfill our duty to live in love.
Even if there is a problem that is beyond our control, we should discuss how to cope, how to correct this mistake and solve the problem by talking openly, but we should not enter into inappropriate satanic thinking, hatred and revenge. Even God, who is pure by nature, did not want to destroy us after seeing all this dirty work of ours. Therefore, at any time, anywhere, any situation witout condition, since we the marriage promise we made is for our common purpose, we should mainly live with complete sympathy, love and forgiveness for our spouse. Even if there is a problem that is beyond our control, we should go as far as possible and solve the problem by talking openly about the way to correct our mistake in order to overcome it with the spirit of patience, forgiveness and tolerance. There is no one who can do my pre than we can to save our marriage, our children, and our future lives, so we ourselves, individually and collectively, must be ready to pay any price.
Therefore, we need to talk openly about the challenges and disagreements we may face in our marriage and how we can overcome them. Marriage is where we learn about love, where we live love, where we understand the love of Christ. Christ the Bridegroom loves the Church with a selfless and unconditional love. The love in marriage is the key to this perfect love as St. Gregory the Great tells us. "If we love one another, God will live in us, and his love is perfected in us." When we show this love in practice, we wash away our sins with that love (1 John 4:12). This is why we call marriage a journey of righteousness.
The Church is Christ's body and bridegroom, and the wife is her husband's body and bridegroom. In order for the body to function in a healthy manner, unless the feet or hands are sick, it works without disobedience. This is the body's system (nature). A wife is equal to her husband and they are one body. Therefore, she should submit to her husband as she submits to the Lord for their common health. (Eph 5:22) This is the Christian order (nature). One of the things that make a family not run properly is to confuse this transience (nature). We should remember that when a wife obeys her husband, she is participating in our Lord's work of salvation, not the obedience of a master and a slave. A wife obeying her husband does not mean that her husband is perfect. The only perfect bridegroom (husband) is our Lord Jesus Christ!
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