Prayer for Marriage

Requests about a marriage — one under strain, one being rebuilt, one someone is still hoping for.

Marriages rarely fail loudly. Far more often they thin out — two people who are polite, efficient about logistics, and have not had a real conversation since the spring. By the time anyone says the word marriage out loud in a prayer, it has usually been going on for a long time.

The requests here run the whole range. Someone in the first hard year. Someone whose spouse has said they are leaving. Someone trying to rebuild after an affair. Someone who is not married and has waited a long time to be. Someone whose marriage is fine and who wants to say so.

One thing this page will not do is assume that every marriage should be saved. Most people writing here want theirs to work and are asking for help with it. But if what is happening in your house is not difficulty but harm, the honest thing to say is that safety comes before the marriage, and it is said further down this page too.

How people pray about a marriage

The first prayer is usually about the other person: that he would see it, that she would come back, that they would change. It is understandable and it very rarely moves first. What tends to shift earlier is the person praying — which is not a trick and not a lesser answer, because a marriage that has gone silent generally has two people waiting for the other to go first.

A second, harder prayer is for the truth about the marriage rather than a particular verdict on it. Some people are praying to be shown how to stay. Some are praying, without admitting it, to be given permission to go. Asking honestly for clarity is more useful than asking for the answer you have already chosen.

And there is the ordinary, unglamorous prayer that holds most marriages together: for the patience to get through this week, for one evening that is not about the children or the money, for the willingness to be the first to say sorry.

When the two of you have gone quiet

God, we are civil and we are not close, and I do not know when that happened. I do not want to spend twenty more years like this. Give me the courage to say something true this week instead of waiting for him to notice. Amen.

After a betrayal

Lord, I do not know whether this can be repaired and I am not able to decide today. Keep me from the version of myself I have been since I found out. Do not let bitterness be the thing that finishes it if there is anything left to save. And if there is not, hold me while I find that out. Amen.

For someone still hoping to marry

Father, I have been waiting a long time and I am tired of being told to be patient. I do not want to be bitter at other people's weddings. Give me a life that is full while I wait, and let me not settle for someone unkind out of fear of being alone. Amen.

What helps besides praying

If either of you is frightened of the other, that is not a marriage problem to be worked on — it is a safety problem, and it comes first. A domestic abuse line will talk it through confidentially and will not tell you what to do.
Get a third person in the room earlier than feels necessary. Couples counselling has a far better record when it starts while there is still goodwill left than when it starts as a last resort.
Protect one hour a week that is not admin. Most marriages that go quiet do so because every conversation became a handover about children, money and logistics.
Deal with money out loud. It is the most common thing couples pray about privately and discuss badly, and secrecy about it does more damage than the sums involved.

Questions people ask

Does God want me to stay in every marriage?: Christians disagree about divorce and this page is not going to settle it. What is not in dispute among any serious reading is that nobody is required to remain where they or their children are being harmed. If that is your situation, talk to someone outside the marriage before you talk to anyone inside it.
Can prayer save a marriage if only one of us is praying?: One person praying changes one person, and that is not nothing — many marriages turn because one side stopped waiting to be met halfway. But no amount of prayer overrides another adult's decision, and if it ends it is not because you prayed insufficiently.
Is it wrong to pray about wanting to leave?: No. Praying only the thing you think you are supposed to feel is not honesty, and it does not fool anyone including you. Say the real thing. That is where the useful conversation starts.
What is the difference between this hub and Relationships?: This one is for a spouse or a partner you are committed to, and for people hoping to marry. Relationships is for everyone else — friendships, estrangements, someone you are trying to forgive. If your request is about a partner, you are in the right place.