For your marriage, your husband, your wife, the two of you together, and the hard seasons
Praying for your marriage is one of the few things you can do for it on a day when you cannot do anything else. You cannot make your spouse listen, or make an old hurt heal on schedule. You can bring both of you to the One who can.
These are written to be borrowed. Pray them as they are, or read one and then pray your own version in your own words. The second is better. Each is followed by the passage it comes from.
A word before you read on: if you are being hurt, threatened or controlled by your spouse, that is not a hard season to endure quietly, and nothing in Scripture asks you to. In the US you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline any hour at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. In an emergency, call 911. Telling someone is not a betrayal of your marriage.
How is your marriage, honestly? Eight questions, five minutes, private.
Take the free Marriage Health checkPray for your own heart first. It is easy to pray for a marriage as though the problem lives entirely in the other person. Psalm 139 ends with a better starting point: search me, God, and know my heart. Most of these prayers begin there. And sometimes the problem does live in the other person: if you are being harmed, that is not yours to fix by praying harder, and you should tell someone today.
Prayer is not a technique for changing your spouse. It is talking to a Father who loves you both. Philippians 4 promises peace to the one who prays, not a particular outcome by Friday.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
Ecclesiastes 4 says a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Christians have long read the third strand as God Himself, holding two people together when their own grip is weak.
For our marriage
Father, thank You for the marriage You have given us. You were there when we made our promises and You have been here for every ordinary day since. Be the third strand in us. Where we are strong, keep us humble. Where we are tired or distant, draw us back toward each other. Make our home a place of kindness, honesty and laughter, and let the way we love each other point to the way You love us. Amen.
9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor.
10 For if one falls down, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to help him up!
11 Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?
12 And though one may be overpowered, two can resist. Moreover, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
13 Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone else. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
14 And over all these virtues put on love, which is the bond of perfect unity.
Colossians 3:12-14
For my husband
Lord, I lift my husband to You. You know what he is carrying that he does not say out loud. Give him strength for his work and rest when he needs it. Make him a man after Your own heart, wise and gentle and brave. Protect him from temptation and from discouragement. Help me to encourage him, to respect him, and to see him the way You do. And where I have been hard on him, soften me. Amen.
1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.
Psalm 1:1-3
16 I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth
19 of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19
For my wife
Father, thank You for my wife. You know her better than I do, and You love her more than I can. Give her peace in the places she worries and rest in the places she is worn out. Let her know she is cherished, by You first and by me. Teach me to love her the way Christ loves the church: patiently, sacrificially, without keeping score. Make me a husband who listens, notices, and is gentle. Amen.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her
26 to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
27 and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5:25-28
Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Colossians 3:19
10 A wife of noble character, who can find? She is far more precious than rubies.
11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good and not harm all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:10-12
Start with a minute, not an hour. Sit together, and each of you thanks God for one thing and asks for one thing. Hearing your spouse pray for you, by name, is one of the most quietly intimate things a marriage can have. Jesus promised to be present where two or three gather in His name, and a married couple already makes two.
To pray together, out loud
Lord, we come to You together. Thank You for today, and for each other. Forgive us for the ways we fell short, with You and with one another. Carry what we cannot carry, and show us how to help each other carry the rest. Keep us close to You, and close to each other. Amen.
19 Again, I tell you truly that if two of you on the earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven.
20 For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.”
Matthew 18:19-20
Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.
1 Peter 3:7
Ephesians 4:26 asks us not to let the sun go down on our anger. It does not say resolve every disagreement before bed; some take longer. It says do not let anger settle in for the night. This is a prayer for the moment before you go back into the room.
Before I go back in
Father, I am still upset, and I am not sure I was right. Slow me down. Show me what I did, not just what was done to me. Give me the humility to say I was wrong where I was, and the grace to forgive where I was hurt. Help me to want us more than I want to win. Amen.
26 “Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger,
27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
Ephesians 4:26-27
Bear with one another and forgive any complaint you may have against someone else. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Colossians 3:13
What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?
James 4:1
If your marriage is in a hard place, this prayer will not fix it overnight, and nobody honest would tell you otherwise. It is a way of holding on to God while you do the slow work. Joel 2 records God promising to restore years the locusts had eaten. He is not frightened of how much has been lost.
Please also hear this. If you are being hurt or controlled, restoration starts with your safety, not your silence. Talk to someone you trust today.
When we have drifted, or worse
Lord, You see where we are, and it is not where we hoped we would be. I do not know how to fix this, and some days I am not sure I want to try. Meet me there. Heal what is broken in me, and in us. Give us both the courage to be honest, and people around us who will help. Restore what has been lost, in Your time and Your way. I am trusting You with this marriage because I cannot hold it on my own. Amen.
I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.
Joel 2:25
18 “Do not call to mind the former things; pay no attention to the things of old.
19 Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
Isaiah 43:18-19
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from Your presence; take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.
Psalm 51:10-12
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
For the first years
Father, thank You for bringing us together. We are still learning each other, and we will make mistakes. Build our marriage on You and not on our feelings alone. Help us to form good habits early: to pray together, to forgive quickly, to talk honestly about hard things. Protect what You have started. Amen.
A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.
Psalm 127:1
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Genesis 2:24
Pick one prayer from this page and pray it every day for a week, for your spouse, by name. If you can, pray the couple's prayer together once before the week is out. Notice whether anything changes in you.
Kindled, from Great Faith
Kindled is a free app for Christian married couples. Each day you both get one question, answer privately, and choose what to share. It takes about ten minutes, and there are no ads and no streaks to keep up with.
Or start with the free Marriage Health check: eight questions, about five minutes.
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One that starts with your own heart (Psalm 139:23-24) before your spouse's, thanks God for the person you married, and asks Him to be the third strand that holds you together (Ecclesiastes 4:12).
Keep it to a minute at first. Each of you thanks God for one thing and asks for one thing, out loud. Regular and short beats long and rare.
Yes, there is one on this page. Pray it alongside doing the slow work, ideally with a pastor or Christian counselor, not instead of it. And if you are not safe, your safety comes first.
Scripture tells us to pray for one another (James 5:16) and ties a husband's prayers to how he honors his wife (1 Peter 3:7). Praying for your spouse is both an act of love and a way God changes the one praying.
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible, which is free of copyright restrictions for use on websites. Read the full Bible on Great Faith.