Marriage Is Discipleship: How The Relationship Shapes Your Kid's Faith

Marriage is Discipleship

Most Christian parents believe discipleship starts with Bible reading, prayer, or going to church. But the real classroom is often much closer than we realize — it’s the way we love (and hurt, and repair) inside our own marriages.

Your children are always watching, and what you model in conflict will shape what they believe about God, forgiveness, and covenant love for the rest of their lives.

Your Marriage Is Preaching a Sermon
Whether you mean to or not, your marriage is revealing what covenant looks like.

Do your kids see:

• Silent treatment or humble pursuit?

• Distance or restoration?

• “I’m fine” or honest repentance?

They don’t need a perfect marriage — they need a repentant one.

What Happens When Kids See Conflict Without Repair
Kids fill in blanks. When parents withdraw, shut down, or pretend nothing happened, children often believe lies about themselves:

• “I must have caused this.”

• “Conflict means separation.”

• “Love disappears when things get hard.”

This trains them to run and hide, instead of move toward God and others.

The Day Our Conflict Became a Discipleship Moment

The other day, my husband and I got into a small argument. It started with something simple — I felt he had been rude to me, and it triggered an old wound. When I’m frustrated, I tend to shut down. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be touched. I just want to retreat.

Of course, my husband knew something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

Anybody else guilty of the I’m fine response? We all know what “fine” really means: Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. And he knew it wasn’t the moment to address it, so we both let it simmer… which only made it worse.

A little later, something else happened that pushed me over the edge. I was waiting to talk with him about whether we should take the kids out for ice cream. I wanted to go, but I also felt like the kids’ behavior that day didn’t deserve a reward. I expected us to talk it through before making a decision.

Before we had the chance, he left to pick up our son from his football game — a rough game filled with inappropriate language and aggressive behavior from the other team. Our son was shaken, and my husband was completely focused on comforting him.

My mom was with us and said, “Great game, Isaac!” My husband, still locked into the conversation, replied, “I’m sorry, we’re in the middle of a discussion right now.”

That was the moment my already-triggered heart said: Okay. I’m done.

I pulled away, hurt and frustrated. We drove separate cars to the ice cream shop, and when he texted, “Are we going for ice cream?” my reply — dripping with emotion — was:

“You do whatever you want.”

That triggered him. So there we were… sitting at the ice cream shop, neither of us getting ice cream, not talking to each other, both of us irritated.

The Breaking Point — and the Beginning of Healing

When we got home, he approached me again.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Sure,” I said. “You were rude to me, and I don’t appreciate it.”

We were both upset, but we finally reached a place of honesty. He apologized. I apologized. We started the work of repairing the moment.

But what we didn’t realize was that our 14-year-old daughter had witnessed the tension.

She suddenly burst into tears and ran to her room, sobbing, “You guys are going to get a divorce!”

She had never seen us argue before. Truly—kudos to us for keeping conflict private, because that has always been a goal. If we disagree, we usually retreat to our bedroom, or honestly, the bathroom… because sometimes that’s the only quiet place.

But this time, she caught it. And she panicked.

We sat her down. “No, sweetheart, we’re not getting a divorce.”

Then we did something important:

We invited her into our reconciliation.

Why We Invited Our Daughter to Watch Us Reconcile

Reconciliation means restoring the relationship. Clearly, something had been fractured between my husband and me. And as I reflected, I realized I had been triggered by something else entirely — but I had taken it out on him.

I needed humility. I needed to own my part.

So, we let her sit with us and watch us work through it. She watched us explain our feelings. She saw us apologize. She saw us listen to each other.

And she saw us hug.

“Okay,” she said through tears, “so you’re really not getting divorced?”

“No, honey. This is part of marriage. We can argue, even fight… but at the end of the day, we come back together. We choose each other. We repair.”

Your Marriage Is Discipleship

That moment taught me something powerful:

When your kids see reconciliation in your marriage, they learn how reconciliation with God works.

Because the truth is:

• Our sin disrupts intimacy with God.

• Our emotions cloud our perception of Him.

• Our unhealed wounds spill out sideways.

• Our brokenness fractures relationship.

And just like in marriage, we must come back to Him — honest, humble, open-hearted.

When your children watch you repair, they witness:

• humility

• forgiveness

• empathy

• confession

• emotional safety

• the beauty of covenant love

They learn that conflict doesn’t mean abandonment. Tension doesn’t equal rejection. Imperfection doesn’t lead to divorce.

Instead, they see a picture of what God does with us:

He restores.
He heals.
He reconciles.

A Final Encouragement for Christian Parents

You don’t have to be perfect parents. You don’t have to have a conflict-free marriage.

But if you can model reconciliation — real, honest, humble reconciliation — you are giving your children one of the most powerful discipleship lessons they will ever receive.

Let them see:

 How you return to each other
 How you repair what was broken
 How you restore connection
 How love wins over pride

Because when they watch your marriage move from rupture to repair…
they learn how to run back to a God who never stops pursuing them.

Ready to break unhealthy conflict cycles and train your kids to reconcile biblically?

Join the Pathway to Wholeness Course — a step-by-step framework for emotional and relational healing inside the Christian home

Download the FREE Forgiveness & Reconciliation Printables to start taking steps toward forgiveness today! 
Check out more Resources for your family and marriage at www.ashleytilford.com 

Listen to the Podcast Episode: HERE