Marriage

In this changing world, your marriage will require a firm and immovable foundation to stand upon. This foundation is essential for a healthy marriage and family.

Where do we begin? is probably what you’re thinking. And that’s an accurate apprehension. But the good news is that it’s not that scary. Here are a few tried and true principles for establishing a rock solid foundation:

1. Recognize that your marriage is grounded in your family roots, life experiences, and faith. It is crucial to make sure you have healthy beliefs about yourself, spouse, and God. If you perceive some issues, it’s okay, but get some assistance. Your foundation for marriage is building now, so don’t delay dealing with issues that you recognize as problematic.
2. Believe that God is able to help you build a solid foundation. His Word gives you a wonderful blueprint for a healthy, joy-filled marriage. Have confidence that God is able to lead you toward a rock-solid foundation.
3. Receive all the help you can get for establishing a healthy foundation. Seek mentoring or premarital counseling, and read good resources on marriage. How do you know if you have a healthy foundation without healthy people, resources, and studies to assist you?
4. Achieve God’s best for your marriage. Don’t settle for less. God wants you to accomplish great things for Him, but it starts with a healthy, rock-solid foundation. Your marriage is a gift from God. He wants you to experience a flourishing marriage. Make sure you are working on your foundation of beliefs, behavior, faith, and skills to make this happen.

Mark your calendars for Friday, January 20, 2012, for an evening of fun and laughter! Join us on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University, Bourbonnais, IL, in the Centennial Chapel, as nationally-known author and speaker Dr. Kevin Leman will be our guest speaker for  Celebration of Marriage 2012: Date Night! It’s not too early to begin thinking of couples you might invite to this entertaining and informative community event.

Tickets will be $10 per person in advance, or $15 at the door. Tickets are on sale now at www.celebrationofmarriage2012.com, Loves Christian Center bookstore, 249 S. Schulyer, Kankakee, IL, or many local churches.  If you would like to sell tickets at your church, contact the Marriage, Inc. office at 815.939.5385 for more information.

• Be willing to make time for each other. Don’t give excuses like this: “What do you mean we don’t communicate? Just yesterday, I texted you a reply to the voice mail you left me.”
• Be right with God.
• Be in prayer.
• Be in the Word.
• Be assertive. Ask for what you want and need; share your feelings by using “I” statements. (For more help on articulating “I” statements, download and print off this worksheet.)
• Be willing to compromise. Make each situation a win-win for the both of you.
• Be attentive. Make a concerted effort to give undivided focus to the other. Turn off the TV and computer; put down your iPhone. When your partner is talking to you, turn toward him or her, make eye contact, and remember to use touching and nodding as nonverbal communicators.
• Keep persevering.
• Maintain confidentiality in your relationship. How your partner feels is not your best friend’s business.
• Keep humor in your communication. Remember to laugh!
• Avoid mind reading. Don’t make assumptions about how your partner feels about a subject.
• Express empathy. Get into their shoes; seek to understand their feelings.
• Watch out for misunderstandings.
• Request more information. Ask a question to seek clarification or additional details: “Could you share more with me?” or “Can you help me understand what you’re trying to say?”
• Reflect on what has been said. Offer affirming statements such as, “You seem really excited about this!” or “This must have been very painful for you.”
• Rephrase statements with care. Repeat back in your own words what you’ve heard your partner say, until you have it right. State, “This is what I heard you saying. Is this correct?”
• Get closure. Make sure your discussion ends only after you can answer these things: “What are you thinking?” and “How are you feeling?” and “Now share with me what you heard me saying.”

Which of these can you and your spouse work on today?

(In case you missed it, here’s the “You to I Messages” worksheet for you or your small group to complete.)

A healthy marriage isn’t always going to be a smooth marriage. In fact, there will be many bumps—obstacles—along the way. These obstacles are always in our presence; they continually strive to divide and conquer, which could lead to personal and relational destruction. While you may not see any obstacles in your marriage right now, it is always beneficial to be aware of and be able to identify them.

One of the most common obstacles in marriage is the sinful heart. Driven by self-gratification, the sinful heart is fed through any means, at any cost, through compromise, contempt, or disregard for the interests, concerns, and well being of others.

Often feeding into self-gratification are the following characteristics:

• Selfishness—living exclusively without the concern or interest for others.
• Pride—an unreasonable conceit of one’s own superiority.
• Envy—an ill will or discontent over the prosperity or success of others.

How are you doing?
Read the following statements. Do any of these apply to you?

• I have a strong desire to do my will more than God’s will.
• I frequently believe that my ideas and opinions are better than others.
• I am more concerned about controlling others than developing self-control.
• I find it difficult to admit that I was wrong.
• I have a tendency to be more of a people-pleaser than a God-pleaser.
• I am highly concerned with getting the credit I deserve.
• I am driven toward receiving recognition that comes from degrees, titles, and positions.

Which of the three characteristics (selfishness, pride, envy) do you seem to struggle with? How do you see them affecting your life and relationships? What can you do to make things better?

I recently read a report about a politician in Bavaria who has thrown scandal into her Catholic state in Germany. Gabriele Pauli told reporters she believes marriage should be a seven-year institution, and that at the end of those seven years, a couple can elect whether their marriage will extend or will be automatically dissolved.

When I do premarital counseling I often tell my clients that I have been married for 37 years. I also tell them that in those 37 years I have fallen in love with my husband six or seven times, and, if I were to be honest, there have been at least six or seven times that I have thought, “Oh my goodness—what was I thinking?” So, if I do the math, about every five or six years I might have opted out of marriage if I had been given the chance. No doubt one of those times would have fallen at the same time as the expiration date proposed by Gabriele Pauli. I have never done premarital counseling with a couple that believes their marriage will end in divorce. As a matter of fact, most of the time when I talk about common problems in marriage their eyes glaze over and they tell me, “That won’t happen to us, we’re in love!” Yet almost 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce, many of them within the first seven years.

So, is it impossible to stay happily married? I guess it depends on how you view marriage. Is marriage something you only stay in as long as you are happy? Or did you mean the vows you repeated at your wedding, promising a commitment during the easy and hard times, till death makes you part? Those are tough promises to live up to on the days when you not only don’t feel love for your spouse, but you really don’t even like him or her! 
I wonder how many people would still be married if they were given a legal escape every seven years.

For me, marriage is more than a contract that can be broken if I’m not happy. My commitment to marriage is more about my faithfulness to the vow I took before God than my “love” (or feelings of love) for my husband. Feelings are fleeting and dependent on circumstances. While there may be many days that I do not feel “in love” with my husband, my love for him is a decision that I act upon even when I don’t feel like it.

Genesis 2:24 reminds us the very basis of marriage: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (NIV). We’ve all heard this verse, some of us more frequently than others. Have you ever stopped to wonder what becoming “one flesh” really means?

It literally means to become “one body.” The Scriptures reveal that marital relationships between a man and woman are to be close. Becoming “one” would be expressed in a marital lifestyle of:

• commitment
• communication
• compatibility
• care
• encouragement
• empowerment
• nurture
• sacrifice
• serving
• sexually fidelity
• growth

Everyone needs close relationships! A primary goal in a biblical marriage is for the “two to become one.” The “oneness” that God desires for marriages will only happen if couples are willing to be open, honest, vulnerable, and accountable to each other.

“Oneness” produces a relational intimacy—an intimacy vital for any growing relationship. For relational intimacy to develop, both individuals must be willing to be known. It will require a constant effort to get close to each other and to remain close throughout the years of marriage. It’s becoming the best of friends for life, which requires time, trust, patience, and perseverance. This sounds like a lot to work on, and it may feel like that at times, but it will be worth it!

Take a few moments to discuss these questions with your partner:

• Why should a couple establish “oneness” and relational intimacy in a marital relationship?
• In the successful marriages you have observed, how would you describe their “intimacy factor” (e.g., their ability to get close, through vulnerability and accountability to each other)?
• How would you describe your parents’ “intimacy factor” in their marriage?
• How have your parents’ marital relationship influenced your desire for “oneness”?
• What would it take for your relationship to become more “one”?

Is marriage a contract or a covenant? Well, the easiest way to settle this debate is to identify a relatable definition of each. First, let’s talk marriage. You marry her. He vows to be your husband. You both sign the marriage license; you’re now legally bound. But do you know what you’re walking into?

If it’s a contract, it can be broken. In our society, many get married based on the contractual conditions to satisfy self—it’s living to get, rather than living to give. If the individual needs are not met, or there are difficulties and disappointments, then by virtue of contractual living, one has the right to break their contractual vows through divorce. Contractual living diminishes any depth to one’s commitment level and to the value of life.

A covenant, on the other hand, should never to be broken. It is a binding agreement to love your partner unconditionally and sacrificially to the very end of life. However, the Scriptures reveal how unethical and immoral conduct could lead to broken a covenant leading to marital dissolution.

So what does a covenantal commitment look like? Author’s Anderson and Guernsey provide five statements describing a covenantal commitment:¹

1. “I will commit myself to do or to be for you whatever I have agreed to do or to be because of my commitment.” Commitment becomes a structure in and of itself. It maintains a line of action that makes it difficult to discontinue the commitment even if the commitment of the other person declines.”
2. “I will finish the task given to me, no stopping halfway. I will do the best I can possibly do with an unbroken loyalty, regardless of any change, disappointment, or conflict that may occur.”
3. “The covenantal basis for our marital relationships is an unconditional and sacrificial love that puts self aside in an effort to be a blessing to others. This results in a greater capacity for couples to freely communicate their thoughts and feelings, contingent upon not fearing one another.”
4. “This covenant commitment is observed in the security it provides in relationships, the grace to forgive, the freedom to give and the ability to serve one another.”
5. “Covenantal commitment and love relinquishes the right to exist alone. It is a commitment to the life of the other, and is accepting of one another. The home should be an intimate environment where couples and family members can be themselves without fearing rejection.”

What does a covenantal marriage look like? The marriage commitment should be based on a covenant agreement with God, each other, and our witnesses. This is consummate in the covenant wedding vows we take before God, each other, and the witnesses. Couples can establish the following principles or concepts for how they will covenant with each other.

• In a covenant marriage, couples are mutually committed to each other!
• Covenant marriages are not a 50/50 deal, but it is each giving 100 percent. It is a couple giving all they can, to be all they can, to be a blessing to one another as they humbly and sacrificially serve one another!
• In a covenant marriage, couples are committed to resolving hostility by working things out among themselves!
• In a covenant marriage, couples are restless when they realize something is wrong between them. They seek reconciliation with God and with each other!
• Couples are motivated by God’s love and are willing to risk vulnerability!

Take some time to think this through with your spouse. Ask each other these questions:

• What kind of marriage do we have—contractual or covenantal?
• How do you see this affecting our marriage?
• Share one or two concepts that you can change in your marriage today?

¹Anderson, R. & Guernsey, D. On Being Family: A Social Theology of the Family, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 1985.

When we first fall in love we often look at our spouse through rose-colored glasses. We filter out any negatives and focus only on the positive. But when we are mad, we may only see our spouse through what I would call “mud-colored glasses”—we filter out anything positive and only see the negative. We are like attorneys in the discovery process: we set about looking for evidence to prove our case that our spouse is a jerk, or is selfish, or whatever conclusion we have come to in our anger. Then, when the offending spouse does something that vaguely fits our belief we think, “Ah ha! I knew s/he was a jerk!” So we add that bit of evidence in the file for the case we are building and before long we have enough “evidence” to convict them. How easy it is to build this case against our spouse when we can’t see the good!

We have all heard, and probably said, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” at some point in our lives. And that philosophy plays into our marriages when we wait to see if our spouse proves our case. The problem with that belief is that it puts things in the wrong order. The truth is that we see it because we believe it, not the other way around. What would happen in our marriages if we began to believe the best of our spouse and treat them according to our belief?

I recently read some information about The National Marriage Project, an initiative aiming to “increase marital quality and stability.”¹ One of their publications, “The Top Ten Myths of Marriage”, discusses the myth that couples who live together before marriage know each other better and have longer-lasting marriages because they are so well suited for each other.

I have found, in over 37 years of marriage, that marriage is more about commitment than feeling, and more about the decision to accept my spouse than my skill in finding someone who suits me well. The difference between living together and being married is like the difference between renting an apartment and buying a house. When I was newly married we rented an apartment. In some ways it was great—no maintenance, no lawn mowing, no long term commitment. If something broke, I only had to call the landlord. There was a downside to being a renter, however: I couldn’t paint the walls in my apartment, I didn’t get the benefit of mortgage tax deductions, and I had to wait, sometimes for weeks, for the landlord to fix things.

When couples chose to live together before marriage they are like renters. They want the benefits without the commitment. Dr. Willard Harley, Jr., Licensed Psychologist, asks:

“What, exactly, is the commitment of marriage? It is an agreement that you will take care of each other for life, regardless of life’s ups and downs. You will stick it out together through thick and thin. But the commitment of living together isn’t like that at all. It is simply a month-to-month rental agreement. As long as you behave yourself and keep me happy, I’ll stick around.

Habits are hard to break, and couples that live together before marriage get into the habit of following their month-to-month rental agreement. In fact, they often decide to marry, not because they are willing to make a lifetime commitment to each other, but because the arrangement has worked out so well that they can’t imagine breaking their lease, so to speak. They say the words of the marital agreement, but they still have the terms of their rental agreement in mind.

Couples who have not lived together before marriage, on the other hand, have not lived under the terms of the month-to-month rental agreement. They begin their relationship assuming that they are in this thing for life, and all their habits usually reflect that commitment.”²

Check out Dr. Harley’s Web site Marriage Builders and The National Marriage Project Web site to find out more.

¹The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, “Mission,” The National Marriage Project, http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/mission.html.
²Dr. Willard Harley, Jr., “Living Together Before Marriage,” Marriage Builders, http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5025_qa.html.

Sometimes, the communication between spouses is off-balance. While this needs to be corrected, it isn’t always easy to know where to start.

Ask your spouse to set aside time for the both of you to evaluate the ways you communicate with each other. Talk about the following signs of healthy and unhealthy communication.