10 Reasonable Biblical Expectations for Marriage (3rd and 4th)

3. We will leave our fathers and mothers and create a new, independent, special family unit.

• For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (Eph. 5:21 NIV)

4. We will have one healthy fight a week. Confrontations around our unmet personal needs will be believed and not dismissed.

• Correct, rebuke, and encourage-with great patience and careful instruction (2 Tim. 4:2 NIV)
• Speak the truth in love.... Therefore putting away lying, "Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor."... Do not let the sun go down on your wrath (Eph. 4:15, 25-26 NKJV)
• For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it (2 Cor. 7:8 NKJV)
• Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Heb. 12:11 NKJV)
• Brothers, if someone is caught in sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently (Gal. 6:1 NIV)
• Exhort one another daily...lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13 NKJV)
• Make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather healed.... [Look] carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled (Heb. 12:13, 15 NKJV)