prayer for my marriage old couple holding each other with foreheads together in snow and two wedding rings together making the shape of a heart over a book

A Prayer for My Marriage: Finding Daily Strength and Inspiration

January 8, 2024

Marriage is beautiful but HARD. Spending each day with a person, committed in love and faithfulness, creates a fulfilling life. You have a partner to support you, guide you, and teach you. As cliche as it sounds, my husband is my best friend and I could not imagine life without him. We have a lot of fun. But differences of opinion, varying temperaments, and different viewpoints can make certain seasons of life more challenging. I often wonder how couples who have been married for 50 years have lasted so long. What’s the secret? I have no doubt that it’s PRAYER. God is behind the scenes. This “Prayer for My Marriage” has helped me and I’m positive that it can help you!

Why should you say “A Prayer for My Marriage?”

Have you ever gotten into an argument with your spouse and you felt like you could not get out of that head space and heart space? It happens to me all the time, and it definitely happened to me often in the first years of marriage. In the earliest years of our marriage, my husband and I had a toddler and an infant. I started a new job and we moved to a new town. It was such a beautiful time in our lives, but it was very stressful. But honestly, I didn’t turn to God during those times. I tried to take on everything myself. I didn’t default to prayer. Ten years later, I wish that I had started from the beginning. I see how a prayer for my marriage helps to recalibrate me. When I say the words aloud, I actually start to believe them. As cheesy as it sounds, I feel every cell in my body asking God for help. And I see how it makes me happier and more loving with my husband.

Remembering our vows EVERY SINGLE DAY

Praying for your marriage encourages you to remember your vows and what you promised on your wedding day. Your wedding day was undoubtedly beautiful, emotional, and special. But none of that ends on the wedding day! DON’T LET IT! Continue to pray for the zeal and passion that you had on your wedding day. If you have to write them down or find them from your old wedding mementos, put them someplace where you can read them every single day. Challenge yourself to focus on a different line each day. For example, many vows include “…in sickness and in health.” What is your husband’s sickness? Is it gambling? Does he have a bad temper? What is your wife’s sickness? Does she have an obsession with shopping? Does she like to gossip with her girlfriends? Pray that you may have the clarity to recognize that “sickness” can mean “sin” or “vice,” and that when you react with grace and patience, you are accepting “in sickness and in health.”

Praying for Strength

I feel like I ask God for strength in every situation, marriage and otherwise. Maybe I have just come to accept over the years that I am very weak. The older I get, the more I realize that I am weak and I can do very little without God. This definitely includes my duties as a wife. There are many days when I feel like I want to quit. I know that the devil is trying to trick me in my weakness, diverting my attention to single mothers and broken families who seem to have found their stride. They appear to have figured out how to raise their children without “needing” to stay married. So I pray to God, asking Him to extinguish those thoughts completely from my brain. I ask Him for strength to fight off those lies and I ask Him to help me to grow stronger each day so that it gets easier and easier to not think in that way. I also pray for strength in times to come that I may not know about yet, times that should bring us closer together instead of wedging us apart.

Asking God for JOY in our marriage

What do you see when you picture a JOYFUL WIFE? For whatever reason, I picture a woman who is smiling while caring for her home. She is smiling while washing her dishes, looking in the distance, daydreaming about her future or gazing in awe at her children playing outside. I picture a woman peacefully folding laundry while listening to music. I do NOT picture an exhausted woman, screaming at the top of her lungs that her husband is not helping out more around the house. A joyful wife is not someone who sits around with girlfriends, all talking about how men are useless. Because this is unfortunately quite common in today’s culture, I say a prayer for my marriage, asking God to make me more joyful. I want my husband to see light and love in my eyes, even in the ordinary moments. I know that when he sees this in me, He sees more of Christ’s light in me. This brings my husband closer to God, which is my greatest work.

We all need HOPE

There are many times in life that feel hopeless. There are times in my marriage when I feel like my husband and I will never resolve a problem. This is why I find it even more important to say a prayer for my marriage. There is ALWAYS HOPE. When we hope in the Lord, we know that every day is a new day. We know that the biggest problem we have can always be solved by God, even if it feels impossible. There is always hope in Heaven when we are faithful to God by being faithful in our marriage. The beauty of hope is that it is always there, even if we can’t see it. We just have to find it. We need to open our eyes in the darkest, bleakest moments and see that hope is still there.

Praying to Forgive and Ask for Forgiveness

Have you ever considered how you and your husband reconcile? I know that most people grow tired of hearing “I’m sorry” because they feel like it loses its meaning over time. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry, show me you’re sorry.” You hear this all time time. But does it work? I want to tell you a SECRET WEAPON that has changed my marriage when it comes to apologies. One day, I decided I would GO FIRST. I would not wait for the apology. I would seek out my husband FIRST to reconcile. It was very difficult at first because I had a lot of pride. But it became easier and easier over time. THEN, I BEGAN TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. What’s the difference? I literally started to ask my husband, “Will you forgive me?” From that moment on, I noticed a change in my husband’s body language. He would hug me in a way as if he dropped ten tons of weight off his shoulders. I will never forget his first response when I asked for forgiveness: “Of course I forgive you.” Without saying so, it was as if my husband saw that I was still his bride and there was almost nothing to forgive. Our problems seemed to vaporize into thin air because of those simple words. I challenge YOU to try it! It can be freeing!

A prayer for my husband is doing God’s will

In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “…Thy will be done.” What is God’s will, exactly? Sometimes it’s hard to know. But most times, it’s RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR FACE if we really look. What is God’s will for us in marriage? It means to show love and faithfulness to our husband. I think God’s will is that my husband goes to Heaven. My job as his wife is to get him to Heaven. Sometimes I don’t know what “getting him to heaven” looks like on that day, but I pray that I can put my pride and selfishness aside, focusing on God and focusing on my marriage.

Calling on the Greatest Family That Ever Lived

Every day, I pray to the Holy Family. Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Joseph are the greatest example of what a family should look like. I may not always know what my husband needs or what I need to do to be a good wife, but I trust that the Holy Family will guide me in those moments. I also say a Morning Prayer for My Husband each morning and a a daily prayer for my husband in the middle of the day or whenever I have a moment to stop for a few seconds. It has helped tremendously and I know it will help you!