Couples who pray for one another (not necessarily even praying together) may experience increased forgiveness, compassion, love, and selflessness. These powerful effects of prayer can help ease different types of relationship or marriage problems — no matter what religion or spirituality you practice! Here’s what a psychologist found when studying the effects of praying for a partner…
But first, a quip:
“The trouble with our praying is, we just do it as a last resort.” ~ Will Rogers.
If you only pray for your marriage when you’re having problems, then you’re less likely to enjoy the benefits of a prayer-soaked relationship! Prayer – like any healthy habit – works best when it’s done regularly (but necessarily “religiously”). To learn more about couples praying together, read The Power of Prayer to Change Your Marriage. And, here’s how prayer can help married couples overcome difficulties…
Psychological Research and Couples Who Pray for Each Other
Florida State University psychologist Nathaniel Lambert tested the effects of prayer on love relationships. He and his colleagues asked study participants to pray one single prayer for their romantic partner’s well-being. The other participants in the study – the experimental controls – simply described their partner, speaking into a tape recorder.
When Lambert measured forgiveness (or “the diminishing of the initial negative feelings that arise when you’ve been wronged”), he found that people who prayed for their partners harbored fewer vengeful thoughts and emotions. They were more ready to forgive and move on.
How Prayer Helps Couples Solve Relationship Problems
According to this research, couples often profess and believe in shared goals. But, when they face marriage problems, they switch to adversarial goals such as retribution and resentment. These adversarial goals shift the cognitive focus to the self, and it can be tough to shake that self-focus.
Praying for your partner or spouse appears to shift attention from yourself back to others, which allows the resentments to fade. Praying for your spouse, even if you don’t pray together as a couple, can change how you cope with marriage problems. Prayer can help you build a more spiritual relationship with your partner – not by changing him or her, but by changing you.
Prayer May Not Make Marriage Problems Disappear, But…
“Praying opens us to spiritual energy,” writes my “Quips and Tips for Spiritual Seekers” blog partner Gini Grey, in The Healing Effects of Prayer. “This energy flows naturally throughout our body, but it often gets blocked by stuffed emotions, unhealed pain, and negative thinking patterns. When we pray, we surrender to this healing energy and it restores balance to our mind and body.”
And the more balanced our minds and bodies are, the more loving, compassionate, and forgiving we feel towards those around us. These positive feelings don’t just help us overcome marriage problems, they change how we act towards the people in our lives — even those we aren’t romantically involved with, such as coworkers, neighbors, store clerks, children, etc.
Praying for your spouse won’t necessarily prevent different types of relationship problems from occurring. No matter how spiritual or happy your marriage is, there will always be minor annoyances and major life difficulties! Praying offers something even better than the possibility of changing outward circumstances: it empowers you to make the changes you want to see in your life and relationships.
If you have any thoughts or questions about prayer, couples, or relationship problems, I welcome your comments below…
Source of Research Findings: Mayo Clinic (2008, January 4). Learning To Forgive May Improve Well-Being.
Hi again Alex,
I hope this finds you well!
Here’s the link to the article about praying for strength as a couple.
Christian Prayers for Couples – 5 Ways to Approach God Together
Let me know if it was helpful, or if I missed the mark…
All good things,
Laurie
Dear Alex,
Wow, what a wonderful request you’ve made! I don’t have any prayers for couples offhand, but I will research and write about it for my next article. So, please come back next Weds — I’ll post an article about Prayers for Couples just for you.
In the meantime, I encourage you to pray with your boyfriend. I find that praying with my husband immediately releases us from petty things and bigger issues, because God’s presence helps us realize that these earthly things matter naught.
Also, is your boyfriend working on his anger issues with a counselor or support group? Even taking an anger management class or reading books about the roots of anger can be really helpful. Anger doesn’t just go away on its own…it needs to be taken care of in healthy ways.
And finally, I encourage you to think about going to church on a regular basis. Maybe you’re not ready to attend regularly yet — and that’s fine! But, if your heart belongs to God, then He wants to speak to you and help you see His plan for your life. And one way He does that is through church. And through prayer of course, and through Scripture, and even through spiritual websites like these
When you’re ready, God will be there.
I’ll post the link to my Prayers for Couples article here, next Weds when I write it.
Blessings,
Laurie
I’m not married,although,I have been in my relationship for almost 2 years and things have not been the same.My boyfriend and I have frequently had fights over small things.We are very in love.He has anger problems so he gets mad easily.We are both young and want to last with trust,honesty,communication,and just be happy together.I do not attend church too much but my heart belongs to God and I was wondering if you have a few prayers to help my relationship become stronger than what it has been? I just want us to be happy! Knowing that God should have a big plan for us should help as well.Do you have anything in mind?
Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Fatima ~ I’m so glad that turning to God in prayer helped you overcome your relationship problems. What a great experience you had; I imagine it drew you much closer to God and each other. Thank you for sharing.
Lisa ~ I agree; putting God in the center of your marriage life can help us overcome so many problems in life — both in our relationship and in our life in general.
Praying as a married couple won’t make problems disappear, but it can bring you so much closer together. And, prayer can change how you see each other and how you relate. Prayer softens your heart and strengthens your soul.
Blessings,
Laurie
I do believe prayer is powerful and always put God in the
center of your marriage life.God is the foundation and
no problem can stand in your life as long as you put
your trust in him. You have a great article.
Hi, My name iS Fatima Popoca, I have been in a relationship with my wonderful husband Pablo Popoca for five years. We have not always had the perfect, marriage we talked about and planned from the start. We had really bad problems the first two years of marriage, I thouht that my first pregnancy would change things between us, but things only worsened in the third year. we both got to the point where we were looking for what we didn’t have at home somewhere else, and that only led to bigger problems. In the fourth year, we started realizing that we were either going to do something about our relationship to save it, or we had to put an end to it. I really love Pablo so I was willing to do everything to save our relationship, I just couldn’t see myself without him. Well in the middle of the fourth year we turned to God Our most important resource, and we began to pray. Well by the beginnig of the fifth year, we weren’t having as many problems. Every time we had an argument or knew one was on it’s way to hurt our relationship, we would turn to God. Now I can Gladly say that God has helped us alot, He does answer prayers, he always listens. God is powerful and loving, if You’re having problems in your marriage just turn to God and pray with all your heart, he will always be there.
Hello Tammy,
Your situation must be very painful. Something that comes to me as I read your comments is that it sounds like you are waiting for your husband to make the decision about staying or leaving and that you are okay either way. I’m wondering if this diminishes your power and makes it easier for your husband to waffle on this.
I understand how you want to know what’s going on with your husband – why he is torn, if he is caught in an infatuated lust sitation etc. but focusing on him, will diminish your power further. I would suggest focusing on yourself and looking at what you really want from a heart and soul perspective.
As it stands now, I see that you have three options:
1) Remain in the marriage with your husband partly there and partly elsewhere (even if it’s just in his mind and heart)
2) Have a marriage where you are both 100% present in it (and he has let the other woman go out of his life and psyche).
3) End the relationship and move on without him.
If you continue to wait for him to make the decision, he may stay in option #1. What option do you really want? It sounds like you want #2 or #3 but want him to make the decision. I believe that if you become clear about which option you want, and set a boundary around this, you will be owning your power and your husband will have to make a clear decision.
For example, if you want to have a healthy marriage where you are both 100% in the marriage then you can choose this for yourself and then tell your husband he needs to decide if this is what he wants. You might also give him a deadline. If you gave him a month to decide, and after that time he is still unclear, then you will need to honor your boundary and choose #3 (if you are not strong with your boundary to begin with he will sense this and keep waffling). It’s just a suggestion, but I think that as you become clear you feel empowered.
Laurie’s suggestion for counselling is good as it may help you both to decide what is best for each of you and the relationship (plus your husband may need counselling to unhook from his attachment).
All the best,
Gini
Dear Tammy,
I’m so sorry to hear about your husband’s affair. I don’t know why he’s having such a hard time detaching from that relationship and committing to you…and that is something you may not be able to help him with.
Have you and your husband tried marriage counseling? No matter how much you love each other and want to work things out, it’s can be so difficult to do without the guidance of a trained counselor. He or she can help you see your relationship problems objectively, which will help you work them out. A Christian counselor or even your pastor might help you pull your marriage back together.
And, here are a couple articles that may help:
Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay – Help for Failing Marriages
Surviving an Affair in a Christian Marriage
I wish you all the best.
Blessings,
Laurie
why is detaching from an affair relationship so hard? I mean the whole time he was fooling around I knew the signs and i felt it in my soul because we have been married for 28 years so i could feel the change in certain areas of the marriage, but we never stop making love of being a family … there was a little distands at times and we fought more. But now that we are working things out it’s times when I can feel that he is only here in body he said that he was in love with her but when given the told to leave and go follow is heart he stayed with me,but i’m tried of him telling me that he’s torn and his heart is with her !help! is he confused and in lusted?
In nov. of 2009 my husband admitted to a 2 year affair… we have decided to work thinks out but still says he’s torn… I gave him every chance to leave and be with her but he says that he loves me and wants to work on the marriage .. but i’m confused about why if he’s so torn why did’nt he leave when i set his things out or when he told me that he was leaving me for her ?