Tammy Collins, wife of famed gospel singer Kirk Franklin, recently revealed that counseling saved the couple’s marriage, telling a radio show that she believes therapy is sometimes an essential step for couples to take.
“I think that as a culture we kind of tend (to) shy away from counseling and therapy but it’s important. It says that you love each other enough, love yourself enough to get the help that you need,” she said in an interview last week with “Get Up! Mornings With Erica Campbell.” “And so we’ve done counseling. It has saved our marriage.”
Tammy continued, “We pray together and I’m not only his wife, but I’m his girlfriend.”
She also said it’s essential for married individuals to focus on their spouses not only as husbands or wives, but as friends, as building that basis of the marital relationship helps with conflict resolution and positive interaction, The Christian Post reported.
“When you have a girlfriend and y’all are at odds with each other it just (doesn’t) feel right, it just hurts you,” Tammy said. “But sometimes we’re not like that with our spouses, but if you have a friend in your spouse, then … my heart aches when we get into it. I’m like, ‘OK, I’m ready to talk through this … let’s get back.'”
Being “best friends,” having date nights and properly “communicating” are also essentials, Tammy said.
Listen to the interview below:
The Franklins, who have been married for 21 years, have regularly shared their past struggles, including a once-infamous argument in an airport decades ago that served as an important marital lesson for Kirk Franklin.
And in a 2015 blog post on Patheos, the singer also recounted some of the couples’ other marital roadblocks, including an incident at a restaurant that unfolded just a year into his marriage when his wife caught him staring at another woman. Let’s just say she didn’t let the incident go without making her voice heard on the matter.
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“As I sat guilty, sweaty, in fear for my life, she spoke with the quietness of a lamb, yet the authority of a soldier. She said, softly, ‘Babe, I know this is new for you, being married and everything, but you’ve got to make a choice, quickly. You can either look at her backside, or mine. But you can’t look at both,” Franklin wrote at the time. “I’m giving you the Christian, Sunday morning Easter version of the conversation. Basically, she informed me that the old man was not going to be able to coexist in the new covenant.”
Franklin also shared other helpful lessons, which you can read about here.
(H/T: Christian Post)
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