Marriage-
If people knew in advance how hard it is, they would never sign up. But life is hard, married or not-we are all in this together and it all is hard sometimes, right? We all go through seasons of a desert walk.
I’m in the throes of creating a marriage coaching course and this conversation keeps bubbling up in my mind. Marriage IS hard. And there are a lot of crummy marriages out there. I was running errands for a friend last week, had to take a road trip. Along the way back I stopped in at a small town Cenex to grab a road snack and bathroom break. (please ignore the fact that I got a road snack at a gas station). As I was in line checking out, I overheard typical small-town banter at the register, which can be so charming (and so destructive). A couple checking out ahead of me were talking with the cashier with a familiar tone, like they knew each other. They were all on a rant about marriage and divorce. My ears perked-I love this topic! All of them my age or older, which would be somewhere around exactly middle, talking about how divorce is rampant. The older couple checking out were talking about a couple that had gotten married 3 years ago and were already getting divorced, eyes rolling, heads shaking in disbelieve, bewilderment, judgment. ‘I don’t even know why they bothered to get married in the first place, it doesn’t make any sense.’, he said.
Later in the week, had the delight of paddling around on a mountain reservoir with a friend. We waxed philosophical about life. We talked about marriage and soon the topic of good marriages vs. bad marriages came up. My friend said she hardly knows anyone who has a good marriage, a happy marriage. …..a theme was emerging in my week.
Of course, I had a too-fast, probably too-simple, flippant response. “God didn’t come up with marriage with the sole purpose of making us happy, but to make us holy.” I didn’t say it with a snarky tone, but still, the words escaped too quickly. Instantly I felt as if I had stated the obvious to my very devout, really smart, really deep, precious-to-me, believer friend. Think foot in mouth. But, being on a paddle board in the middle of a body of water, I couldn’t physically manifest what my brain was thinking…..’foot-in-mouth!!!’ “We really should be talking to our kids about this-preparing them better.”, she said. I agreed.
My mom told me marriage is hard but worth it. No tools. I walked into marriage with no tools, unhealthy expectations, no conflict resolution skills, lots of ignorance and blissful hope. Hope and faith it would all work out.
It’s true, I believe God did design marriage not with the primary intent for us to just be happy (though that is absolutely PART of the plan), but with the primary intention of making us holy. Marriage is fertile training ground for us to learn how to love (agape)….because, contrary to the message you will get from Hollywood, love is really hard. Love is a high calling. Love is sacrificial. It isn’t convenient a lot of the time. You will get hurt. You will be asked to do what you don’t feel like, and what doesn’t come naturally. You will be asked to do what is absolutely counter-intuitive.
I believe that couples by and large settle for divorce because they just want the pain to stop. They want the bleeding to stop. They don’t want a divorce, they just don’t have the tools to make it better, know where to get them or don’t believe they could work. Destructive patterns, often brought from their family of origin, set in, bitterness and unforgiveness grow and people walk away. It’s understandable. They don’t want to keep hurting and don’t want to keep hurting the other or the kids.
As we paddled along, my friend commented that, “It takes two-one can’t make a great marriage.” She is so right! Even in a great marriage we experience seasons that are less than awesome. But to have an awesome marriage it takes both partners, all in, serving each other, mutually concerned about not only their own needs, but committed to helping their spouse realize their dreams, goals, desires. They are committed to doing what’s best for their spouse. Here’s one caveat that I want to throw out there. In an unhappy, dysfunctional marriage, one person committed to becoming healthy and functional, turning around, changing their unhealthy relational patterns (that might look like enabling destructive behavior to continue) CAN turn the whole ship around. One person can change the dynamic of the relationship because when one person changes how they respond to their spouse (by having healthy boundaries and speaking the truth in love), the relationship will inherently change. I am not saying that the other spouse will decide to change immediately and grow in response to the spouse who is the change-agent. One person can have massive influence (not control, but influence) by having healthy responses. And in having healthy, functional responses, they will be taking care of not only themselves but truly loving their spouse. (The offending spouse may not realize that the new boundary represents love because it will be a change to the status-quo. They might receive a firm but loving, ‘no’ from their spouse to being collateral damage of the problem behavior). It’s truly loving to have loving boundaries.
Here’s a thought. It takes two to make a great marriage, but it also takes two to make an unhappy marriage as well. If one spouse has some really destructive, relational behaviors, it takes the other spouse to allow themselves to be treated that way. Or not. We do teach people how to treat us.
*** Abusive relationships are another story. If you are in an abusive relationship, get help from friends, pastors, authorities.