According to Gary Smalley, author of Making Love Last Forever, "the experienced captain of the Titanic was warned six separate times to slow down, change course, and take the southern route because icebergs had been sighted."

    Has your relationship with your spouse gotten a little "icy"? Have you noticed a lack of intimacy that you once enjoyed? Have you been ignoring the "iceberg warnings" in your relationship? Have you hit a few of those "bergs"? Let's see if we can learn to spot the icebergs before we sink our ship!

    Have you ever noticed yourself saying, "If only he/she would change!" This statement is one sign of an iceberg. I won the book If Only You Would Change in a marriage seminar. I was working on my marriage, and I could not have gotten a better book. What I found in the book was a way to gain strength within myself and to grow beyond a fixation with what I thought were my spouse's character defects. In other words, focusing on what I could do to better myself , regardless of what my spouse does.

    The class I teach is currently studying Making Love Last Forever by Gary Smalley. Gary's book emphasizes this same point: I must work on myself first, if I want to improve my marriage. Part 1, or the first seven chapters, are dedicated to what you can do to fall in love with life. In other words, how can I develop a lifelong love with the good, the bad, the harsh, the life we each face every day. This attitude of love, or lack of it, carries over into every relationship. Mark J. Luciano and Christopher Merris, in the book If Only You Would Change, have incorporated the Twelve Step program for troubled couples. Again, the emphasis is on working on myself, first. The Twelve Step program is normally synonymous with Alcohol Anonymous but in this case it is directed to troubled couples. The first few steps begin with admitting we were powerless to make the changes in our spouse and that we must turn our will and lives over to the care of God. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." God wants you to lean on him first and foremost with marriage problems, or whatever else life dishes out. God is where we get the power to keep on loving.

Have you been ignoring the “iceberg warnings” in your relationship?

    Another step is making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. When is the last time you used the family microscope on yourself, instead of everyone else? One area that Smalley really stresses in examining yourself is mining out buried, unresolved anger. This anger can cause damage to people we really love and did not intend to hurt. Smalley offers seven ways to unload unresolved anger:

1. Define the Offense
2. Allow Yourself to Grieve
3. Try to Understand Your Offender
4. Release Your Offender
5. Look for Pearls in the Offense
6. Put Your Feelings in Writing
7. "Reach Out" to Your Offender.

    I urge you to read the book to go into greater detail on these strategies, but you can get a good idea of what to do just from this short list. Buried anger is poison to you physically as well as spiritually - A very large iceberg. So begin making efforts to work on your own unresolved anger and I believe you will find your relationship improving significantly.

    In that fearless moral inventory of ourselves, we must balance our expectations with reality. Our previous column stressed the importance of communicating your expectations with your loved ones. We must balance our expectations with this fact: "The wider the gap between what we expect and the reality of what we experience, the greater the potential for discouragement and fatigue." Here are the three steps Gary Smalley recommends in balancing your expectations:

1. Identify Life Priorities
2. Compare Expectations against Reality
3. Align Your Expectations with Reality

    Once we have taken responsibility for ourselves by doing an exhaustive moral inventory, removed that buried anger, and balanced expectations with reality, it is time to admit our wrong. We need to admit it to ourselves, to God, and to those we have hurt. God wants you to lean on him for strength and here is your chance to show your faith in him. Being honest and asking for forgiveness is hard work.

    It is possible that we can better ourselves, but our spouse may never respond positively. If this happens, you are still a better person than before, but now with a new love for life. What is more likely is that your spouse will be blown away when he/she realizes that you have taken the responsibility for your own happiness as well as bettering yourself? This will remove a huge iceberg between the two of you.

    Bottom line, here are the key facts: We can't change other people. We can choose to make changes in ourselves. As changes occur in ourselves, people usually adjust their responses and choices according to our new behavior. Our relationship is then changed.

    Slow down, take responsibility, change your course, remove that iceberg, and take a better route. The captain of this change of course must be that person in the mirror!

Resources: Making Love Last Forever by Gary Smalley. Gary Smalley has authored 14 award-winning, best selling books. He also has video tapes, cassette tapes and still does seminars. His web site offers all the mentioned resources as well as a monthly article.

If Only You Would Change: What to Do When Your Marriage is Not What You Thought it Would Be by Mark J. Luciano and Christopher Merris is currently out of print. If you go to Amazon, they say "if you place an order we may be able to find you a used copy within 1-3 months." Maybe we can get a reprint on this book started!

Byron and Lisa Ware work enriching marriages in their home congregation at Richland Hills Church of Christ. Byron is a Certified Network Engineer and Lisa is a school teacher, who specializes in reading enrichment.