In honour of Valentine’s Day, we asked three Godly couples — relationship coaches Stephen and Carolla Lowe, Pastor Joseph Whalen and his wife Heather, and motivational speaker Chris Crumpler and his wife Nicole, to share some of their best marriage advice with us. Here’s what they said:

Remember that God is your spouse’s father, too

Mr Lowe said it changed how he related to his wife when he started to think of God, not only as his father, but as his father-in-law, too.

“That really changed my paradigm as to the level of respect and honour that I show to Carolla,” he explained.

“The other thing that follows from that is that as a dad, I don’t like when people mess with my children. You mess with them you are messing with me. Again, it follows that if I am not treating Carolla as I should as her husband, then her heavenly Father will not be pleased.”

He said it was also encouraging to know that the reverse of this statement was true — that the more he attended to his wife’s needs and showed her love and respect, the more God would be pleased.

Be deliberate about the atmosphere that you set in your home

Mrs Lowe understands that Valentine’s Day is when people go out of their way to show love for others. But she feels it would be wonderful to create an atmosphere of love in our homes year round.

“There is a school of thought which says, ‘when I walk through the door at home, I can let my hair down’. What this often looks like is that I bring all of my stress with me and I’m just not a loving person to the people who love me the most,” she said. “Very often we are miserable, ill-mannered, mean and nasty once we walk through our front door when we are the exact opposite outside of our home.

“Wouldn’t it be so much better to walk through our front door and know that we are going to find peace, laughter, love, passion, empathy, encouragement and fun?”

She believes that people should work to create a positive household atmosphere where their spouse is excited to come home at the end of the day. They can start with coming up with a plan for ways to make their partner feel happy and safe at home, she said.

Embrace the four Ts: Trust, Transparency, Training and Transformation

Pastor Whalen said he and his wife were learning the dynamic power of the four Ts. “Learning to trust each other is foundational to building a meaningful and lasting relationship,” he said. “When spouses feel that it is safe to share honestly and openly with each other, trust is established and intimacy experienced. Couples can then become transparent with each other, sharing past, present and future aspects often hidden from others.”

Mrs Whalen said part of transparency involved taking ownership of your own faults, rather than pointing the finger of blame at your partner.

But this is not easy and even for Christian couples may require some training.

“The nuts and bolts, the tools, the strategy and essential support for restoring relationships that are in trouble are available,” Pastor Whalen said. “Even for those of us who hold a Bible in one hand, we need a training manual for the application of biblical principles. Would you believe that many of us need to train ourselves just to pray together? If we [as couples] can hang in there, trust each other enough to be fully transparent and be willing to put in the effort to get help and work on our marriages, then the inevitable transformation will occur.”

Stay devoted to working things out

Mrs Whalen said even couples such as themselves were still learning all the time.

“We are definitely a work in progress. We haven’t figured it all out, but we are committed to working at it,” she said.

Put your friendship first

Chris Crumpler said that he and his wife, Nicole, have a strong, balanced marriage because of their commitment and friendship.

“When we first started giving each other the cold shoulder, a friend of ours gave us a 30-day marriage devotional and the first day talk about commitment,” Mr Crumpler said. “We realised that we both were acting with selfish motives and was not honouring our commitment.”

He said all relationships would have trials, but their friendship helped them to overcome these because they truly care about the other person and are not just ‘in love’ with a spouse.

Focus on your faith

Mr Crumpler credits he and his wife growing to the real love they have in Jesus.

“My wife and I share a common foundation in love that never changes and when everything else changes we always go back to our foundation and hit the restart button,” he said.

“When we both wanted to give up and give in, our faith has kept us in the race. This is why holidays and birthdays are so special, because despite everything over the years we are still together and in love and it gives a reminder and another reason to celebrate.”