Even good marriages need work. Whether you're newlyweds or you've been married for several

decades, good relationships, even the healthy ones, take intentional effort. Today, on

Insight for Living, Schuckswendall continues a practical message from the book of Genesis

Chapter 2, where we find the quintessential passage on fireproofing a marriage. By the

time we're finished today, Schucks will have cited four time-tested principles that will

keep your home from burning down. You might want to take notes.

Schucks titled today's message, Healthy Marriages Start Here.

If you are in the category of one seeking marriage or one engaged in it, I urge you to keep

these four essentials in mind. Without them, your marriage will never work. Never. They

are essential for the survival of a happy, healthy, strong marriage. Let's take them one

at a time. First, Severance. This is the first directive God gave the first couple. As you

grow up and find your security, your emotional strength, your protection from your mother and

father, and that's essential for a healthy childhood without it. You're not healthy. But

when you marry, you separate from that tight emotional tie that was essential to you during

childhood and adolescence in order for the marriage to grow. And this doesn't mean we abandon

our folks or we mistreat them or we cut them off of all relationship. That's not what's

meant by Severance. It means we sever the emotional dependence we've had on them throughout

our earlier years. We don't rely on them for our physical or financial or emotional or social

strength. We're adults. We're moving toward maturity and we're doing this with another

individual in marriage. The security by now has transferred to ourselves and there is a sense

of purpose and confidence we have on our own that we bring to the marriage. Then there's

permanence. In order for a marriage to be strong and to say healthy, both husband and wife must

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