5 Ways to Increase Teamwork in Marriage

Marriage requires teamwork. When a couple drifts apart due to conflict, differences in personality, or general busyness, it can become easier for them to become more individualistic in their marriage. The couple must work toward becoming a team to deal with whatever life throws at them. This also helps reduce the amount of conflict and the instances of divorce.

Teamwork in marriage can be easier said than done. When personalities clash or two spouses are strong leadership types, it can be difficult for them to embrace teamwork. However, there are ways to increase teamwork in marriage that will celebrate their differences and embrace each other’s traits to create a strong partnership in the present and future.

5 Ways to Increase Teamwork in Marriage

Here are five ways to increase teamwork in marriage:

Pray

One of the primary activities a Christian couple should do is pray together regularly. Even if a couple has not been used to praying with each other regularly, there’s no time like the present. In prayer, a couple can bring requests, struggles, and difficulties to God. Prayer promotes intimacy and trust in both parties as they pray for each other.

When a couple acknowledges God as the Lord of their marriage, it increases the likelihood of success. God wants couples to be happy in their marriage and embrace their different roles. Although Ephesians 5 talks about the husband being the head and the woman being submissive, it also talks about the importance of submitting to Christ.

When both parties submit to Christ and yield their lives to his will, they will embrace teamwork and become more united as a team. Submission is a vital element for both parties to adopt in marriage. The husband sacrificially loves the wife, the wife submits to the husband, and both submit to Christ.

When Christ is at the center of their relationship, the couple draws closer together as they listen to and obey God’s voice. Both parties should support the other in following His voice as they hear the Lord speak through His written Word.

Study the Word

It’s easy for Christian couples to read the Word daily. But do they study it? This means digging deep to learn the significance and nuances of the various passages. Listening to the voices of Christians from other times and places by consulting commentaries and scholars’ views of Bible passages can be helpful – God did not reveal all truth to only one person or generation. However, it is crucial to ask God to send the Holy Spirit to open their eyes to see what He is saying in His Word.

Also, couples need to sharpen each other in their knowledge of the word and their interpretation of it. This teaches both parties that they may not be entirely correct in every situation and that they can work together to study and apply the Word daily in their lives and marriage.

Discuss roles

When a couple has children, they can easily assume lopsided roles. One parent may be the disciplinarian, while the other partner is more fun and accessible to talk to. Even if couples agree, one couple may come to resent the other after a while.

One person may always have a more straightforward role of simply being the friend or the person that is safe to talk to because they don’t carry out discipline, leaving the other person to do the hard work of shaping the child’s character by instilling discipline and correction. This can understandably cause resentment.

To increase teamwork in marriage, the couple must discuss their roles often. To achieve more balanced parenting, both partners must implement discipline when necessary, just as both should be approachable and ready to talk to their children about anything.

Not allowing a child to become a friend to meet a parent’s emotional needs is essential to increasing teamwork. Both parties need to feel cherished by each other in their marriage. If only one parent is the disciplinarian, they may feel like a bad person, especially if the child rebels against such correction.

The other person, the friend, may reap the benefit of a child’s approval and might reject teamwork. However, both parties need to do both the fun and challenging parts of parenting. They need to provide a united front and not allow the child to divide them by taking sides or tricking the other into believing the child over the parent. Both parents need to understand how they’re going to institute discipline regardless of how the child behaves.

Negotiate responsibilities

Whether a couple decides to have children or not, each couple will have chores and responsibilities. However, this can get boring if one party constantly does the same tasks for years.

This boredom is especially likely if one party is doing chores they hate while the other one is only doing what they like to do. This does not promote teamwork and only divides them further, causing one party to resent the other. Get together and brainstorm ways that you can redistribute the housework.

Name five things you like to do and five things you don’t like. Have the other party do the same. Is there a place where you can compromise when one party can take on a couple of the chores you hate and vice versa? If both parties understand that they are going to do both the chores that they like and don’t like, it will promote teamwork as they both strive to be good stewards of what they have and make it a clean and healthy environment for all involved.

Submit to each other

Be a couple that submits to each other. However, it is important to recognize that the submission of wives to husbands and husbands to wives is of two different kinds. The wife is to submit to her husband’s authority as the head of the family. The husband is to submit to his wife by loving her sacrificially. Both parties must submit to Christ.

However, it is unsuitable for a wife to lord over her husband in the relationship. Both parties must humble themselves and assume a submissive posture for the other. If both parties submit their wants and need to the other and put in effort and hard work in their marriage, their marriage will survive.

Submission does not mean that the wife never makes any decisions. However, it does mean that she is responsible for submitting to her husband’s God-given authority in the marriage. A husband who constantly lets his wife control the relationship, especially in making significant decisions, will find it hard to exercise his authority. It will be easier for a wife to submit to her husband’s decision if she is accustomed to recognizing his authority.

The husband’s headship is not to be authoritarian, however. He is to lovingly, humbly, and sacrificially lead his wife, giving himself up for her as Christ did for the church. (Eph. 5:25) This means he is to be a tender leader who helps his wife develop her full potential, protecting her from all dangers, both internal and external to the marriage.

Teamwork in marriage is vital for a relationship to thrive. Teamwork can be embraced when both parties humble themselves, pray together, seek to put the other person first, and don’t seek to lord their control, position, or authority over the other.