Prayers for your marriage

For your marriage, prayed alone

For a normal Tuesday, before anyone else is up.

God, I am not the builder of this house and I have been acting like I am. Build it. Keep watch over it while I am at work and while we are both distracted and while we are being careless with each other. Where I am the problem, tell me plainly and early, before it becomes an argument. Where we are tired, give us a boring good week: enough sleep, enough money, one evening that is not admin. Thank you for the person in the next room. Amen.

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.

Salmo 127:1, BSB

A short one to say together

Thirty seconds, out loud, at the end of your Ask step. One of you says it; the other says amen.

God, thank you for this marriage and for this morning. We are asking for the same things: patience with each other today, honesty when it is inconvenient, and help with the thing we both know we are avoiding. Look after our children, our work and our bodies. Forgive us for what we did to each other this week that we have not mentioned. Keep us kind. Amen.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

James 5:16, BSB

After a fight, or after three quiet days

For the morning after, when you are both still being careful.

Lord, I am still angry and I have started building the case in my head. I do not want to carry this into another night. Show me the part that is mine, and let me see it before I demand the part that is theirs. Take the sentence I have been sharpening and take the tone I was going to use. Give me one honest conversation today instead of a week of politeness. If I am wrong, make me quick to say so. Amen.

“Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger,

Ephesians 4:26, BSB

When you are the only one praying

For a reader whose spouse has no interest in any of this — a very ordinary situation, not a lesser marriage.

God, my husband does not pray and I have stopped waiting for him to start. I am not going to turn him into a project. Thank you for who he actually is: the way he is with our kids, the things he fixes, the way he has stayed. Keep me from praying for him in a way I would be embarrassed for him to overhear. Let this ten minutes make me easier to live with, not more sure that I am right. Amen.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, BSB

For a season that is grinding you both down

For small children, illness, money, distance, night shifts.

God, we are both running on nothing and we have started keeping score. Neither of us is going to win that. Break the scoreboard. Let me notice what my wife is carrying before I list what I am carrying. Give us small mercies this week: a decent night, one meal without an emergency, someone offering to help before we ask. This will not last forever. Keep us gentle until it lifts. Amen.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Philippians 2:3-4, BSB

Please read this part too

This page is not counselling, therapy or pastoral advice, and prayer is not a substitute for any of them. Plenty of good marriages need a professional in the room for a season, and asking for one is a sign of seriousness rather than of failure.

If your spouse is hurting you — hitting you, threatening you, controlling your money or your movements, frightening you or the children, forcing sex — that is not a spiritual test for you to pass with more patience. Nothing on this page asks you to endure it, and there is no version of faith in which your safety is the acceptable price of staying. Tell a doctor, a lawyer, a domestic violence service, or someone you trust, and call your emergency number if you are in danger now. Getting to safety is not the failure of your marriage vows.