About
About Refining Marriage
Welcome to Refining Marriage! The purpose of this blog is to help people who may be struggling in a marriage, dealing with major issues like infidelity, or simply want to find ways to improve their marriage.
My name is Kevin Rollins, and I fully believe that it is possible to have a great marriage no matter where you find yourself in your marital journey.
In this blog, you’ll find:
- Articles and recommendations for how to improve a “functional” marriage or potentially save a failing marriage from disaster.
- Tips, Lists, and Ideas on what marriage means, common misconceptions, pitfalls to avoid, and much more.
- A no-nonsense, no-fluff, hard-nosed, Biblical view that makes up the foundation upon which this blog is based.
- Someone who is not perfect and is still learning along with everyone else.
About Kevin
I have been married to my wife, Lesley, for 13 years. We were married in our early 20′s, full of expectations, hope, and love. Both raised in loving Christian homes, our faith was important to us. However, we hit some bumps along the way, and our relationship started to unravel. Over the years, we added children to the mix, but continued to grow more apart and more frustrated. This was largely due to struggles I had brought into the marriage, and they were taking a toll.
Eight years into the marriage, it all blew apart because of some bad choices I had made (to put it discreetly). We attempted counseling, but my heart was not in it…I was still worried about making sure my own interests were served. I moved out.
Long story short, I finally woke up to the road I was on. God is gracious, and my eyes were opened to truth. I should also say that Lesley is an amazing woman to hold out, relying more on God than on hope that I would come around. I realized among other things, that marriage is not necessarily meant to make us happy, by “the world’s” definition. Marriage is meant to make us “set apart”, to make us better servants, and to draw a clearer picture of our relationship to our Creator.
So many people begin a marriage with a definition of love that is basically “I do for you, you do for me, and we make each other happy”. It works great in the movies because the movie ends when the couple finally hooks up or gets married. It does not work so well over the years because these feelings of affection and romance that we like to call “love”, at best come and go, and at worst they die out altogether. To love is to serve, to put your spouse’s interests above your own selfish desires (or “needs” as some say), and love with an unconditional love that does not make demands or expect reciprocation. When a husband and wife discover this together, they are able to reach a deeper, truer form of love, and then contentment and happiness come.
Whether you are unmarried, newly married, or well into your journey, I hope you’ll find this blog is relevant and useful in helping you grow in your marriage and as an individual. Subscribe to my RSS Feed or visit often. Thank you for taking the time to read about the site.
