Just recently I heard about a marriage in which the bitterness had grown so bad that the wife couldn’t sleep at night. This was only one of the many symptoms of a marriage infected by bitterness. There are many others. Again and again we see couples devastated by bitterness. It is a pity that couples wait until their marriage is on the verge of breakdown before they deal with the bitterness in their lives.

 Replacing Marital Bitterness with Forgiveness

Bitterness, I believe, is the number one killer of our marriages. Many would object and say it is differences on money or incompatibility, but these people do not understand how bitterness is a root problem to these and many other marital difficulties. It is this bitterness which step by step separates the couple from each other and lessening their commitment to each other.

God wants to bring healing to your marriages. He wants to eliminate all resentment.

Part of our problem is that we  don’t understand how He has already given us the tools to snap the intimidating influence of bitterness in our marriages through the wonderful power of the Gospel.

That little stone that God used in David’s hand is much like a special tool that God has given to His children to take down the threatening giant of bitterness. When we in our simple faith and obedience respond, we see God’s powerful love bring down all the walls of resentment.

If you could exchange a marriage where you merely tolerate each other for one in which you can't wait to be with each other, would you? We will show you how to take major steps toward this goal during this session. There is no doubt that God created marriage to be a blessing for mankind. Both the husband and wife are to find great fulfillment in marriage.

Anyone who has been infected by bitterness knows that it can be so dominating that all of whole life is influenced by it. All sorts of physical and emotional symptoms pop up including lots of stress-related pains and diseases. But it doesn’t stop there.

Bitterness starts by destroying relationships. It starts so quietly, though. Here are some possible symptoms of a breakdown in a relationship due to bitterness: rolling your eyes, ignoring simple requests, easily irritated, calling names in 'fun,' criticizing spouse’s efforts, jest about shortcomings, feeling put out. So many marriages have been destroyed simply by not following the apostle’s simple instruction.

"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice" (Ephesians 4:31).

Bitterness should not be accepted in our personal lives. If we refused to tolerate it, then it would not plague our marriages. Bitterness eats away from the goodness that God has given to us in marriage.

Why have so many couples accepted some degree of bitterness in their marriages? Some have never thought about how bitterness is related to their troubled marriages. Others know of it but are so clearly committed to destroying the other that they are willing to put up with the suffering.

In our following discussion, we will show you how bitterness and anger deeply damage marriage. We will outline clear steps to eliminate bitterness and gain that sweet relationship marriage ought to be.

A) Understanding the Root of Bitterness

Bitterness comes from being offended by someone and holding a begrudging heart against him. For example, a husband says to his wife, “That meal was not good.”

His intention might not be as bad as the wife feels. But in any case, the wife resents her husband’s remark. She thinks to herself how it is easy for him to just come home and expect a grand meal. The seed of bitterness can be planted in so many ways. Instead of speaking honestly with her husband about how that comment hurt her, she secretly stores the offense in her heart then cools her heart toward him.

From the verse above (Ephesians 4:31), we can see that bitterness has many ‘brothers and cousins’ including: wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice.

Bitterness is the root of many problems. A bitter heart spawns all sorts of evil reactions. Wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice are all means by which resentment expresses itself. Bitterness cannot stay in the heart by itself. It is true, bitterness can stay dormant for a long period until its storm arises, but it will come.

We should take off all of these expressions of hatred and discard them, get rid of them completely. When a person wants to remove a tree, he does not just cut off the branches. He has to get own to the dirty work of getting out the roots. Otherwise the branches will just grow back stronger than before.

The real solution is not just to get rid of the expression of anger but to deal with the root of bitterness. Let us see how bitterness can do such an evil work even in normal people like you and me.

The reason bitterness is so devastating is that it provides the justification for being mean, cold, short-tempered or unpleasant to others. Bitterness nurtures itself through its self-appointed privilege. Most people know that it is wrong to hate others. Our conscience tells us that it is wrong to do evil to others.

This limits the expression of our hatred towards others. If people are going to persist in their meanness toward someone, they need some way to override the guilt function of their conscience. Otherwise the guilt would pile on so thick that they would have to stop being mean. They feel bad (guilty) about it. Bitterness provides the needed short circuit that allows them to bypass the work of their consciences not only to do evil to others but even to feel smug and self-righteous about it.

How does bitterness do this? Bitterness fools the person by tricking his conscience. The person only needs to dwell upon the way someone offended him, and he becomes free from the protection of his conscience.

A biological parallel might be the effect of drugs or alcohol on a person’s body. The nerve connections become dulled so that he is able, in his drunken stupor, to do things that he would never otherwise do. Bitterness is a soul drug. It allows people to do evil things that they would not otherwise think themselves capable of doing.

I remember a former neighbor. He had so much bitterness that it destroyed his marriage and his relationship with his children. He would ride around with a gun in the car in case he got enough nerve to kill himself. It is important to know how bitterness works. It seems so powerful, but it can be disabled.

Bitterness works as long as it is being focused on. One would think that a person would spit out the poisonous venom of bitterness from his life just as I did the lemon. But people hold on to it. Why? The one who feels he or she has been wronged gains a slight sense of power and control.

In most cases, these people are convinced that they are God’s appointed people to carry out justice. That is right. They believe that they are doing good when they are in fact doing evil. It is this faulty sense of justice that blinds them to the evil of their actions.

When this happens in a marriage, the spouse puts him or herself at complete odds against his mate. Nursing the hatred and pain extend the ‘twoness’ and virtually eliminates the ‘oneness’ of marriage. They are married, but they act as two. Two opponents. Bitterness makes this division permanent as long as he or she wants it to last. Let’s take an even closer look at how bitterness works its wretched evil.