Sacred Marriage

Welcome to this weekly Lenten series. In previous years I’ve summarized findings from psychology or spiritual writers about such matters as marriage, family, hard times, grandparenting, etc., in emails called “4 Minutes 4 Growth.” This year, my daughter says I’m doing a Greatest Hits Review.

This week let’s look at Marriage.

Thomas says, “The real transforming work of marriage is the twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week commitment. This is the crucible that grinds and shapes us into the character of Jesus Christ. […] Any situation that calls me to confront my selfishness has enormous spiritual value.”

He continues, “The first purpose of marriage—beyond happiness, sexual expression, the bearing of children, companionship, mutual care and provision, or anything else—is to please God. The challenge, of course, is that it is utterly selfless living; rather than asking, “What will make me happy?” we are told that we must ask, “What will make God happy?”

As the author says, “Marriage virtually forces us into the intense act of reconciliation.” And so we become examples, though imperfect, of God’s constant forgiveness and effort at reconciliation.

A few points about reconciliation from the book:

• “Husbands, you are married to a fallen woman in a broken world. Wives, you are married to a sinful man in a sinful world. If we view the marriage relationship as an opportunity to excel in love, it doesn’t matter how difficult the person is whom we are called to love; it doesn’t matter if that love is ever returned. We can still excel at love. We can still say, ‘Like it or not, I’m going to love you like nobody ever has.’” (Betty here – this does not mean anyone should remain in an abusive situation. We can love from a safe distance.)
• “The times that I am happiest and most fulfilled in my marriage are the times when I am intent on drawing meaning and fulfillment from becoming a better husband rather than from demanding a “better” wife. […] Yes, we need a changed partner, but the partner that needs to change is not our spouse, it’s us!”
• “I don’t know how you can be unsatisfied maritally, and then offer yourself to God to bring about change in your life and suddenly find yourself more than satisfied with the same spouse. I don’t know why this works, only that it does work.”

The author continues about mistakes:

• “Falls are inevitable. We can’t control that, but we can control the direction in which we fall—toward or away from our spouse.”
• “I believe one of marriage’s primary purposes is to teach us how to forgive. This spiritual discipline provides us with the power we need to keep falling forward in the context of a sinful world.”
• “It took years for me to understand I have a Christian obligation to continually move toward my wife. I thought that as long as I didn’t attack my wife or say cruel things to her, I was a “nice” husband, but the opposite of biblical love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. To stop moving toward our spouse is to stop loving him or her. It’s holding back from the very purpose of marriage.”
• “What do we do when our spouse doesn’t want us to fall forward—when in fact, our spouse is pushing us away? The Bible provides clear guidance. The father let the prodigal son go, but love demanded that the father always be ready with open arms to “fall forward” should the son ever return (see Luke 15:11-32).”

Thomas speaks from his own perspective about the care of wives. Of course, all he says can encourage wives to treat husbands as treasures, too. (I’ve changed words to generalize) but he writes:

• “My [spouse] was created by God himself! How dare I dishonor [him or] her? In fact, shouldn’t it even give me pause before I reach out to touch [him or] her?  They are the Creator’s child, after all!”
• “The biggest challenge for me in upholding my spiritual obligation to honor my [spouse] is that I get busy and sidetracked. I don’t mean to dishonor [them]; I just absentmindedly neglect to actively honor [them.]”
• The virtues necessary in truly loving a [man or woman] and having that love returned—the virtues of listening, patience, humility, service, and faithful love—are the very virtues necessary for us to love God and to feel His love returned.”

Then he extends the idea of family and asks us to be of service to the world because,

• “When marriage becomes our primary pursuit, our delight in the relationship will be crippled by fear, possessiveness, and self-centeredness.” “But a man and woman dedicated to seeing each other grow in their maturity in Christ; who raise children who know and honor the Lord; who engage in business that supports God’s work on earth and is carried out in the context of relationships and good stewardship of both time and money—these Christians are participating in the creativity that gives a spiritually healthy soul immeasurable joy, purpose, and fulfillment.”
• “We allow marriage to point beyond itself when we accept two central missions: becoming the people God created us to be and doing the work God has given us to do. If we embrace—not just accept, but actively embrace—these two missions, we will have a full life, a rich life, a meaningful life, and a successful life. The irony is, we will probably also have a happy marriage, but that will come as a blessed by-product of putting everything else in order.”

Thomas, quoting Evelyn & James Whitehead says: “In our marriage we tell the next generation what sex and marriage and fidelity look like to Christians. We are prophets, for better and for worse, of the future of Christian marriage.”

May you show your love for God by loving your spouse well. I pray for blessings on your week.

Whatever the state of a marriage, it is possible to improve it. I hope the posts this Lent have helped with that endeavor.

 

In this week’s book, The Exceptional Seven Percent: Nine Secrets of the World’s Happiest Couples, Gregory K. Popcak, MSW, discusses a continuum of marriage types from weakest to strongest. Find ways to emulate the marriage type that is beyond yours and grow both personally and relationally.

 

Deadly Marriages:

• In Chaotic marriages, both husband and wife are bent on self-destruction in an attempt to escape, either from their past or from the world as it is.
• In Codependent marriages, one is bent on self destruction and the other is determined to save the partner.

 

Shipwrecked marriages are all about staying afloat. They may be:

• Materialistic, where they value financial security above all else. In these the husband is often neglectful or controlling while the wife is dependent.
• Safety marriages, where the wife with a traumatic past chooses a nice, quiet man to avoid conflict and pursue a stress-free life.
• Rescue marriages where both spouses fled traumatic childhoods. They are happy to have survived, and don’t ask for more.

 

Conventional Marriages are built to support and maintain a couple’s place in world. In a conventional marriage:

• Both spouses are relatively sure of their own ability to provide for at least basic needs.
• Both have found personally meaningful work or social roles to play.
• Here, love is warm and comfortable but the number one threat is growing apart. Other problems include domestic scorekeeping (whose turn it is to do what and how much is fair) and marital chicken (you change first). Most marriages in this category are moderately stable and moderately satisfying.

 

With work, they can become:

 

Exceptional Marriages

These marriages make up only 7 % of married couples. The first stage is:

Partnership Marriages which are primarily concerned with pursuing and increasing personal competence. This pursuit allows:

• No job is off limits for either spouse. A 100/100 partnership keeps them from 50/50 mentality.
• True intimacy, because no matter how much they give to the marriage they know they will not be taken for granted. They see each other as their best hope for becoming the people they want to be by the end of their lives, by helping each other grow in identity strength and move toward actualization of their shared spiritual values, moral ideals and emotional goals.
• Rapport and negotiation. The intense interest in and sharing each other’s worlds tend to remove the last barriers to communication.

 

To improve further, partnership marriages must develop a truly spiritual sexuality and exhibit a willingness to make financial sacrifices, setting serious limits on anything that distracts them from actualizing their value system. Then they may find themselves part of a

 

Spiritual Peer Marriage whose marital theme is the pursuit of intimacy, simplification, and actualization. These couples are a joyful, living breathing example of their particular value system. These couples hold common traits:

• Simplification – they are off the fast track, having discovered deeper values.
• Competence – both husband and wife are competent at all aspects of family life
• Egalitarianism over equality – they know they are equal, they don’t have to prove it. In a “dance of competence,” they desire to never take the other for granted so they accomplish what needs to be done without worrying about whose responsibility a task is.
• Each other’s best friends, they have virtually no secrets from each other, and have achieved a level of spiritual sexuality that is truly enviable.
• As in Maslow’s definition of self actualized – They are accepting of themselves and others, are at peace when life becomes unpredictable, are spontaneous and creative, have a good sense of humor, value their privacy, can take care of themselves, are capable of deeply intimate relationships, and have an open, positive attitude about life.

 

:

 

1. Exceptional Fidelity, the promise to “forsake all others,” includes all those friendships, family-of-origin commitments, career opportunities, and community involvements that do not serve to increase either the physical and mental health of each spouse or the intimacy of the marriage.

 

2. Exceptional Love is a calling. They do loving things for their mate every day, whether or not they feel like it and whether or not their mate “deserves” it.

 

3. Exceptional Mutual service is valued more than “fairness” or sharply defined roles and responsibilities. Each actively looks for opportunities to serve and nurture their mate, creating a dance of competence that enables chores and other domestic responsibilities to be passed back and forth gracefully, and accomplished efficiently.

 

4. Exceptional Rapport becomes the result of overcoming both their basic gender and personality differences, allowing them to achieve an enviable level of understanding and in their relationships.

 

5. Exceptional Negotiation where all needs are respected and met—even when a partner’s need is not completely understood. That your need will be met is never called into question; the only topic of debate is, “What is the most efficient, respectful means by which your need can be met?”

 

6. Exceptional Gratitude ensures every service—no matter how common or simple—is viewed as an active expression of love to be noted and appreciated.

 

7. Exceptional Joy imparts an ability to play and be joyful together. They look for new interests to share and work to share in the interests they already have. They make time to be together, work at being present to each other, and actively seek ways to ease each other’s burdens.

 

8. Exceptional Sexuality allows them to view sex as something they are. For them, lovemaking is not an activity or a performance; it is a total self-gift, a symbol and expression of all that is good about themselves and their relationship. It is a spiritually active way to connect with the Divine.

 

What more could we want than to connect with the Divine through our marriage?

May your marriage continue to grow and bring you closer to God.

 

 

 

 

Man to Man about Marriage

 

My husband George is an amazing spouse! We celebrate 40 years of happy marriage this week, so I am reprinting advice he wrote 5 years ago to men about marriage. (Much holds true for women, too.)

 

 

Respect:

• A woman is a gift of great value to be treasured throughout your life. She is easily the most valuable gift you will ever receive on this earth and must be treated with respect at all times.
• Be cautious with criticizing her, even in private.
• Never express disappointment about choosing her to be your partner, or comparing her to previous partners, or current acquaintances.
• Never speak as though you’ve had enough or would ever consider leaving her or ending the relationship.
• When you’ve hurt her (or learned after the fact that you’ve hurt her), apologize. And mean it. Even if you have rationalizations in your head, just go with the apology. Try to understand why she was hurt, even if you don’t think that you would have been in the same situation. Only if you can do it without sounding antagonistic, ask her for advice on what you could have said or done differently to handle the situation.

 

Careers:                                                                                                                                                               

• Don’t ever talk about money as though it were ‘yours’. All money is ‘ours’ in the family, regardless of whose paycheck it comes from.
• Never treat your job as more important than hers, whether you make more money than she does or not.
• If she does take a traditional role in your family, such as at-home mom, remember that she’s doing this by choice for your good and the good of the family, not because she’s any less capable.
• With your children, take care that they realize that her staying home or working away from home are options, and neither is an expected role for women.

 

Gratitude:

• Thank her for the normal things she does daily for you and the family. Even if you thank her every day for the same things. There should be several times each day when you acknowledge her efforts and thank her:
• When you get up from a meal: “Thank you for dinner!” (And clear your place.)
• When clean clothes appear in your drawers or closet: “Thanks for the clean clothes!” Or when there’s clean laundry on the bed to be folded: “Thanks for doing the laundry!” (Help fold them and put them away, at least your own items.)
• New groceries in the fridge or cabinet: “Thanks for shopping for us!”
• When you notice that a room looks especially nice, tell her so! (But avoid any comparison with past condition.)

 

Attention:

• Give her a generous hug, at least three times a day. Hold on to her as long as she wants.
• A woman needs to be told that her looks please you. And she needs to hear it frequently. Never just count on her ‘knowing’ that you love how she looks all the time (even if you do). When you notice something nice about her clothes, or hair, or face (or figure!) or whatever, tell her. This shouldn’t be hard; of course you love how she looks! And don’t compare to any previous time (you look better today than yesterday). And don’t say that she looks nice ‘today’ (possibly implying that she doesn’t on other days). But OK to say that she looks ‘especially nice today’.

 

Communication:

• Be cautious with teasing. Preferably don’t tease her about anything! Teasing is never nice, even if she seems to laugh, go along with it, and say that it’s OK. She could fear that there’s a grain of truth in whatever you’re teasing her about, whether there is or not (and there often is).
• Talk with her! She loves talking with you, about anything (as long as you’re not the one doing all the talking).
• Listen to her! And pay attention while you do. She needs to know that you’re hearing what she has to say. Ask her, every day, how her day went. And listen while looking at her, not while reading, or checking email, or watching TV. Remember that sometimes she just wants to be heard and doesn’t want to you offer advice or try to ‘fix’ the things she tells you about. (But be sure that when she does ask you to fix something, you take it seriously!)
• Learn how to disagree (and even express your anger) without raising your voice. A raised voice in a man is a danger signal to a woman. No matter how well she knows you, she may fear being physically or emotionally hurt.
• Realize that you likely have different methods of resolving conflicts, and that you now need to have a common method. It’s best to have some rules that you discuss when you’re not emotional.
• Never try to make her feel stupid.

 

Family & Friends:

• Women need family and relationships, much more so than you might. Don’t try to keep her from seeing or communicating with friends or family. And be sure to consider this strongly in decisions about where you’ll live or what job you’ll take.
• Never complain about your wife to friends or family.
• Never embarrass her in front of the children, or anyone.
• Compliment her in front of others, and say how proud you are of her, for whatever reason that you are. Or what you like about her, or why you treasure her.

 

The Future

• Realize that you both brought dreams, goals, hopes, and desires to your relationship. Some of those now need to be subjugated to hers, and to the higher dreams and goals of the relationship. When you marry, you agree that your personal priorities will change to support your joint relationship. You don’t need to give up everything, just realize that some things may not be possible right away, and that some may no longer be appropriate.
• Ask her what her dreams and goals are, and what she’d like to see in the relationship. And then, simply listen, and listen some more.

 

Betty here: Didn’t I tell you he is an amazing guy? Some of these recommendations came naturally to him and some he learned the hard way, over the years.

Ladies, be careful how you show this to your husband so that he doesn’t feel criticized! Maybe instead, thank him for how he currently shows his love for you. Positive reinforcement goes a long way!