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More Than You Imagined

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.

Peter F. Drucker

Imagination is limitless. The creativity of young entrepreneurs and their ingenious ideas are awe-inspiring. Consider these recent inventions: a wearable air purifier, global apps providing instantaneous multilingual translation, and paint that turns smooth surfaces into dry-erase boards. Today’s generation is popping up with all kinds of outside-the-box concepts to improve people’s lives and connect the planet.

In the wave of these innovative changes, the concept of following the rules has become outdated. One young millennial told me, “The most successful people are the ones who explore and question everything. We’ve become a generation of outliers.” What has gone before is far less compelling than finding and creating your own way. What if all this innovation were applied to relationships? Especially the most important relationship of your life: marriage.

You may have witnessed a lifeless marriage, one in which two individuals simply tolerate each other because it seems easier economically. Or perhaps you’ve observed a marriage in which a couple feels constrained by beliefs about marriage but lacks the courage to invest in growth and change. You have also likely witnessed a marriage influenced by cultural trends suggesting that if marriage isn’t working for you, get out and find someone new while you’re still young and “marketable.”

Rather than just resigning yourself to an unsatisfying relationship or bailing out if it becomes challenging, what if there was a different way to do marriage?

Whether or not we are able to enjoy the richness of married life and navigate its inherent hardships depends on how we think about marriage. Is my spouse supposed to make me happy? Will I have to give up my independence to make this work? If we have differences, does that mean we are incompatible? Do I think of marriage as a revocable contract? What are my options if I’m unhappy?

Remember James and Amy? They entered their marriage feeling secure that their commitment would withstand the test of time. But when they came in for therapy, that belief had been shaken.

James and Amy realized that trends in their peer culture could be threatening their relationship. The values of success, lifestyle comfort, and personal achievement had tempted James into losing his priority of time with Amy. Amy wanted to be happy, and she assumed that getting her needs met would accomplish that goal.

Having married in their late twenties, James and Amy had enjoyed a great deal of independence prior to marriage. Once married, they found making sacrifices and considering each other’s needs difficult. They bristled at the thought of giving up their independent paths to create a union of two lives.

Guarding independence, pursuing novelty, and seeking self-fulfillment are hallmarks of our current culture. Each pose a unique challenge to married couples, since an intimate relationship will require giving these up to some degree.

Yours, Mine, and Ours

One impact of valuing independence and self-fulfillment is postponing marriage. Most young couples want to get married but choose to wait until they have careers and lifestyles settled. They don’t want to select a life partner until they have explored their options. In the survey I conducted of 256 young married millennials, 31 percent indicated that they had lived together before marrying, and of those who did, 36 percent indicated they had done so in order to test their relationship for compatibility—the highest percentage for any reason given.1 (For more survey results, see appendix E.) Giving up independence is risky. In delaying marriage and testing the waters, some hope to minimize that risk.

This delay impacts a couple’s thinking, particularly in the early stages of marriage. In previous generations, couples married young and figured out life together. Much like a start-up business, marriage was where all decisions about careers, family, and finances were made. With more couples wedding in their late twenties and early thirties, marriage has become more like a merger than a start-up.2

Stacey and Matt met at a sports bar in San Francisco. Both fans of the Giants, they had each come to the bar with a few friends. Matt was immediately taken with Stacey’s energy and quick wit, and she enjoyed his attention. They exchanged phone numbers and went out for dinner the following week.

Matt was impressed with Stacey’s rapid rise to become vice president of a strategic planning corporation. She was well organized, articulate, and gifted at envisioning processes necessary to accomplish the company’s goals. Matt had recently become a partner in a real estate law firm. Stacey appreciated his dry sense of humor and his knowledge of world events.

They dated sporadically. Stacey traveled for work, and Matt was still involved with another young woman. As their relationship grew more serious, Stacey assumed Matt’s affections for her were undivided. Matt knew he needed to say goodbye to his other girlfriend, but he didn’t want to hurt her. He also wanted to know Stacey was a “sure thing” before he called it quits. However, Matt’s ambivalence caused a major blowup with Stacey. He didn’t want to lose her, so he relinquished the other relationship when she found out about it.

After six months of seeing each other exclusively, Matt and Stacey decided to move in together. Both of them had built their own lives, furnished their own apartments, and pursued their own interests. They found it challenging to combine their separate lives.

Fights soon began over whose apartment they would move into and which set of furniture would remain. The familiar turf of each was a reminder of their quest to build a fulfilling life individually, and neither wanted to relinquish their trophies.

Matt and Stacey valued personal independence. They had each developed a social network and expected the other to meld into their group. In deciding which friends would be included in their social calendar, Matt and Stacey frequently went separate ways to sustain already cultivated relationships.

Matt had fulfilled his dream of a rewarding career and hoped to supplement it with an attractive and accomplished wife. Stacey had worked hard to build her life. She sought fulfillment in the relationship but found it difficult to make compromises. Both perceived sacrificing their own needs as diminishing their freedom.

A year after moving in together, Matt and Stacey decided to marry. They wanted a child and felt it was “time.” They had an extravagant wedding at a winery in Napa. Their difficulty merging their lives was evident during their wedding planning, which I will discuss later.

In a young start-up marriage, you each bring what you have and throw it into the pot to create a future dream together. No prenuptial agreements here. You’re both all-in. The future is uncertain but you build your life together from scratch.

Those who marry in their late twenties or thirties may experience the more difficult challenges of a merger marriage. You’re both concerned with identifying and protecting what you bring to the relationship. Merging is filled with decisions about the best ways to create a streamlined union. To further complicate matters, you and your mate may have silent expectations, each of you assuming the other partner will adapt to you and your needs.

If you are in a merger marriage, consider creating new beginnings together. In Matt and Stacey’s case, they could have decided to find a new apartment and furnish it with a few items each couldn’t live without. They could include each other in their decisions and explore developing new traditions as a couple.

Reshaping your thinking to embrace a shared life will stretch you. It will also give you opportunities to create something new and innovative.

Freedom versus Constraint

For most young people, having alternatives is essential and highly valued. Perhaps technology has influenced today’s thinking about marriage. With instant access to information and consumer products and apps of every variety, the options seem endless. The idea of being bound to a decision or having choices restricted, particularly by some cultural or religious norm, is dismissed. The risk of making a poor decision is mitigated by the possibility of making a different choice in the future. But keeping options open, though it appeases one’s aversion to risk, can carry with it a high degree of anxiety and unhappiness.

Some young people will leave a marriage if it fails to meet their needs or expectations. For them, loyalty is based on satisfaction. As long as my needs are getting met, I’m in. If not, I’m out!

External constraints (vows of commitment, the welfare of the children, honoring the institution itself) hold many traditional marriages together. But those things have less power to sustain a struggling young couple when exiting seems easy.

In a TED Talk on “The Surprising Science of Happiness,” Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert stated that we are very focused today on guarding our freedom and throwing off anything that might restrict it.3 He defined freedom as “the ability to make up your mind and change your mind.” We don’t like having any constraints put on us that might limit our ability to choose. If we make a mistake, we want the chance to cut our losses and take a new course.

To illustrate his point, Dan shared a study he had conducted at Harvard University that measured happiness as it relates to freedom. He taught a photography class where students were asked to take pictures of meaningful aspects of their lives at Harvard using old-fashioned film cameras. They brought in the negatives and were shown how to use a darkroom. Dan instructed them to enlarge two of their favorite photos and bring them to class the next day. When the students brought them in, he told them to give one up. They had to make a choice between their two favorite pictures.

The students were divided into two groups. One group was told that the decision was irreversible; once they gave up the picture, they could not change their minds. The other group was told they had four days to change their minds. Then some students in each group were asked to make a prediction. How much would they come to like the picture they kept compared to the picture they gave up? Both groups of students expected to like the pictures they kept slightly better.

But what they actually found was that the students who could not change their minds came to like the picture they kept much better. In contrast, the students given the choice to change their minds did not like the pictures they kept. Days after the deadline, they remained unhappy with the pictures they kept, regardless of whether they exchanged them during the four-day grace period.

The conclusion from the study was that although most students would prefer to have the freedom to change their minds, that freedom to keep their options open left them ambivalent and dissatisfied. Once their decisions were made and other options were off the table, the students grew to accept and appreciate their choices and were much happier. Although having revocable choices sounded good, making a deliberate and irreversible decision led to higher degrees of satisfaction.

These findings have some interesting applications to marriage. If we view it as a reversible decision, a revocable contract, we are likely to see the imperfections of our mate in an exaggerated light and overidealize other options. As we become dissatisfied with our current choice, the alternatives become unrealistically appealing. On the other hand, if we view marriage as an irreversible decision, accept our choice, and work out the implications of that choice, ultimately we can experience deeper levels of satisfaction.

Is it possible that the “freedom” to keep our options open leads to ambivalence, self-doubt, anxiety, and ultimately unhappiness? Maybe commitment, specifically commitment in marriage, isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Self-Fulfillment versus the Fulfillment of a Shared Life

We all desire to feel full of joy, satisfaction, and love. We long to matter, to make a difference in the world, to have an impact on those around us. Leading a well-lived, fulfilling life is important.

Self-fulfillment means different things to different people. To some it means accomplishing a particular goal, making a significant contribution, or successfully reaching their full potential. To others it means gaining a certain status, living a luxurious lifestyle, or satisfying a deep desire.

In the classic Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life, the main character, George, has an idea of what will bring him fulfillment. Tired of living in a small town, he makes plans to see the world. When he falls in love with a local girl, he is frustrated by the likelihood he will have to abandon his dream and settle down. But love prevails, and they marry. On their way to their honeymoon, George’s father dies. George inherits the responsibility of running the banking business his father owned, which seems to be yet another blow to his dream. When his uncle loses a significant amount of the company’s funds, George falls into despair. As he’s ready to jump off a bridge to end his life, an angel intercepts him and shows him the significance of the life he has lived.

The beauty of the movie is in what George realizes at the end. As he dreamed about world travels and material possessions, he’d missed the far deeper fulfillment of loving relationships. While he was contemplating his life as a failure, his faithful friends were collecting funds to defray his financial loss. In the end, George realizes the great treasure of his shared life.

As George discovered, a focus on fulfilling ourselves can deprive us of the love we ultimately long for. Author Tim Keller describes a marriage based on self-fulfillment versus self-denial as one that “will require a low- or no-maintenance partner who meets your needs while making almost no claims on you.”4 The priority of the relationship is on what it can do for you. Does that sound like a recipe for a truly loving marriage?

To enjoy intimate partnership you will need to make room for the needs and desires of your mate. At times they will conflict with yours. To make a marriage work, you will need to learn to give—to bend, postpone, compromise, yield. Your mate will need to do the same.

Many young people believe they should not have to compromise their dreams when they get married. Matt and Stacey had strong ideas as to what their personal strategies for fulfillment were, and although an intimate relationship was important to them, they did not want to subordinate the dreams in which they had invested.

When I helped them probe further, it became clear that each of their identities had been wrapped up in what they had accomplished. Matt had grown up in a home with a highly critical father who never hesitated to point out that Matt couldn’t do anything right. Stacey grew up in a home where girls weren’t expected to amount to much. For both, their careers were a proving ground and a daily reminder that they had value.

Our initial focus in therapy was to help them articulate their feelings in a way that was not attacking or demeaning. Over the course of a few months, they learned how to have a much different conversation. They were able to slow their interactions and identify the feelings underlying their competing positions. Together, we eventually surfaced the hurt that fueled their insistence on their own fulfillment, and each was able to find compassion for the other’s longing to never again feel insignificant or unloved. They began to experience the joy of fulfillment found in relationship.

Rather than competing with each other for priority, you can, in love, support the gifts and dreams of your spouse. Matt was eventually able to invite Stacey to share her heart about what was truly important to her in her career and sought ways to offer her tangible support. As Stacey was able to experience Matt’s support of her, she no longer felt compelled to prove herself and was able to show more interest in Matt’s hopes and dreams. As they softened, each of them felt more connected and fulfilled. The shared life they hoped for was beginning to become true.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Before you got married, did you expect that marriage would make you happy? Most people believe their wedded lives will be better than when they were single because their mates will provide the emotional and physical companionship they long for—that a spouse will somehow complete them. In short, they are hoping their mates will make them happy.

There are two problems with this perspective. (1) The person you marry is imperfect and is bound to disappoint you. (2) The focus is on you. Marriage is much bigger than you. It includes your mate’s well-being and has its own creative dynamic that can transform both of you into better people and better lovers.

Our picture of happiness is often too small and shortsighted. Studies have consistently revealed that happiness is not something to be found like the cheese at the end of a maze. It is also not an elusive treasure, forever moving just inches out of reach. Nor is it about having freedom to choose your future. It is not even about the circumstances of your life.

University of California–Berkeley offers an online course called “The Science of Happiness.” More than fifty thousand people have taken the course since January 1, 2015, most of whom are millennials (those ages eighteen to thirty-three). They are intensely attracted to the pursuit of happiness and how to achieve it.

One of the instructors, neuroscientist Emiliana Simon-Thomas, stated, “People are hungry for the science of happiness because they’ve hit a wall in that they’ve obtained all the things they thought would make them happy, and found themselves still disenchanted.”5 Can you relate? Some people believe that happiness is an absence of hardship, pain, or conflict. Others associate happiness with material success. Many think happiness is linked to keeping their options open and the freedom to choose.

But happiness is not about any of those things. As the course concludes, it is about human connection, acceptance of your life and circumstances, generosity, thankfulness, and a commitment to something greater than yourself.

What does this have to do with marriage? Everything. Marriage is about human connection at the deepest levels. In marriage, you move past the façade you show to the outside world and expose all of your raw beauty and quirky idiosyncrasies. Your mate has quirks and defects too. If you are to grow as a couple, you have to accept each other. To accept your mate fully you will have to be generous and forgive, even when those things are inconvenient. In a growing relationship you will have innumerable opportunities to be thankful for your mate. And together, on this great adventure of marriage, you are committing to something far greater than yourself.

Marriage provides you with the potential for happiness, but the way you think about marriage has a strong impact on whether you will experience it. If you think your mate is responsible for your happiness, your disappointed expectations may cause you to protect yourself and disconnect from them. If you are unable to accept your mate’s differences, you will respond negatively when they surface. You will be unable to be generous with their flaws or be grateful for their positive contributions and attributes. When you have a negative mindset in your marriage you tend to hyper-focus on what’s wrong and lose the ability to look beyond yourselves to something greater than yourselves.

Many couples face despair in their marriages. They see no way around the challenges they are facing and fall into harmful spirals of interaction. In most cases, these couples can rebound from their difficulties, rediscover love for their mates, and experience joy. However, some choose to end their marriages—a decision that does not ensure happiness. Most admit they never anticipated the painful consequences of terminating their union.

The way you think about marriage in these times of difficulty is critical. When my husband and I were in a profoundly difficult season of our marriage, we remained married solely because of our commitment to something greater than ourselves. When we married, we believed we were entering something sacred, something bigger than just the two of us. Because of our belief that God loves us completely and unconditionally (while our mate can only love us imperfectly) and has promised to be at work in us and, therefore, in our marriage,6 we have been able to endure the hard seasons.

Over time, we began to see ourselves, and each other, in the light of his generous love for us. We came to realize that his intention for us was not just to remain married but to experience the richness that comes from weathering the hard times together.

Happiness is not something you chase after. It cannot be attained. It is the fruit of an open heart and a willingness to accept the challenges of your life. If you know that God has your back and intends to bring you joy, you can be thankful while he is busy at work in ways you cannot see.

More Than You Imagined

To experience your maximum marital possibilities, two things are necessary. The first is to change how you think about marriage. If you believe your mate should make you happy, you will likely be miserable. If you see differences between you and your partner as a sign of incompatibility, you will likely turn and run. If you’re confident that self-fulfillment will bring you satisfaction, you will miss the joy of a shared, mutually supportive marriage. If you value protecting your personal freedom more than learning to love, you will miss the joy of intimate connection.

The second necessity is to shift your perspective about who is to blame for the problems in your marriage. Most couples who come to marital therapy see their mate as the problem. They are often unable or unwilling to see their contributions to the issues in their marriages. They guard their positions like generals at war. Underlying their intractable stance is fear—fear of being hurt if they let their defenses down, fear of vulnerability if they admit a need for change.

The reality is most problems in marriage are cocreated. Though each spouse would prefer to blame the other, it is the dynamic of the relationship that sustains the impasse. The thinking of each, and the way they respond based on their thinking, fuels that dynamic.

When Seth and Amber entered my office their level of tension was electric. After introductions, I invited them to describe their reason for coming. With a glance, Seth deferred to Amber to describe their difficulty.

“I don’t trust him,” she said. “He wants me to be affectionate and playful, but the minute he doesn’t get what he wants, or I say something he doesn’t like, he erupts in anger. It scares me. I just want to leave.”

“You’re always leaving,” Seth said. “You are too sensitive. If I get the least bit upset, you come unglued.”

“You’d come unglued too if you could see your face,” Amber replied. “It scares the kids too.”

“There you go, hiding behind the kids,” Seth said. “They’ve never complained to me.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Amber said.

“She’s always making a big deal out of nothing,” Seth said. “She’s the one with the problem. She turns the kids against me.”

After several weeks in therapy, it was apparent that Seth did have an anger problem. He had never hit Amber or the children, but he had verbally attacked his wife on a number of occasions. We discussed what she could do when those outbursts occurred. With a safety plan in place, we continued to work on their interactions.

It was clear that Seth blamed Amber for their difficulties. He saw her as overreactive and undermining. Amber, in turn, blamed Seth. She viewed his anger as the source of their problems.

Amber shared that she had been anxious since she was a child but had started having panic attacks four months ago. Six months ago, Seth had become demanding about having sex more frequently. Eventually, Amber moved out of the bedroom and started sleeping in the den.

“I felt guilty about that,” she said, “but it seemed like the only thing I could do. There was a lot of tension and I wasn’t sleeping well.”

“How did you feel about that, Seth?” I asked.

“I was feeling rejected and hopeless.”

“He got angry and said some pretty mean things,” Amber said.

“They weren’t mean,” Seth said. “I was just really frustrated.”

Seth was not ready to take responsibility for his comments and was feeling powerless to change the situation. I decided to introduce a shift in focus.

“If you woke up one morning and your marriage had completely changed overnight, becoming the relationship you’ve always hoped for,” I asked him, “what is the first thing you would notice?”

“The tension would be gone. Amber would want to be close to me.”

“And if you had the power to make that happen, would you want to?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Seth’s willingness to be involved in change was a hopeful sign.

We spent the next month exploring family history and the development of their relational patterns. Seth had come from a home with an angry, critical dad who shamed him for his lack of athletic prowess. He had developed his self-protective defense of anger early in life. When Amber withdrew from him, he felt fear and shame, which provoked his angry response.

Amber’s mom had been overly anxious. She’d micromanaged many aspects of Amber’s life. On one occasion, without any valid reason for concern, she was afraid Amber had been kidnapped on her way to middle school. She drove to the school, pulled her out of class, and brought her home. This and other embarrassing incidents, coupled with the chronic level of reactivity by her mother, led Amber to protect herself from charged emotional interactions.

As Seth and Amber heard each other’s stories, they both began to have more compassion toward the other. Each had learned behaviors in their families that were being played out in their relationship. Amber saw how her pulling away triggered fear and shame in Seth. Seth saw how his anger set off anxiety in Amber. Over time, they were able to take responsibility for their patterns of behavior and gain tools for communicating their needs differently. The problem was no longer solely the fault of the other.

On the last day of therapy, Amber eagerly shared the results of their work. “Seth has been leaving it to me to initiate sex, and I’m finding I am more interested.” She shot Seth an affectionate smile.

“I realized Amber has been anxious about a lot of things,” he added. “So I wanted to relieve her of needing to feel pressured in bed. I feel bad that I made it so unsafe for her for so long. I just never made the connection between my anger and her nervousness and distrust.”

“He’s a good guy,” Amber said, giving her husband a shoulder nudge. “I’m not sure how we lost our way, but I don’t ever want to go back.”

“That won’t happen,” Seth said. “We’re different now.”

Your marriage can be more fulfilling than you ever imagined if you have the courage to face the ways you contribute to the difficulties and rethink some of your assumptions. Seth and Amber came to realize the patterns that were destroying their relationship. They recognized that their marriage was not just about meeting their personal needs. Using the skills discussed in chapters 4–9, they were able to move toward each other with more compassion and meet one another’s needs in ways they could not have anticipated. They began to think differently about their relationship.

To have a great marriage, you have to be an outlier. You can’t buy in to the cultural norm that says commitment is to be avoided because it narrows your options and you need to keep them open. That thinking will never provide the security necessary for a vulnerable, intimate relationship.

Nor can you assume that your mate should make you happy—and if they don’t, it’s okay to leave. That mindset will put you on a path of numerous superficial relationships.

The Bible has an interesting take on marriage. It refers to marriage as a passionate love adventure where two self-centered people (that would be all of us) learn to love each other and become refined in the process.7 In this view, marriage is an incredibly innovative way of taking two people and their relationship and creating something new.

If you let your thinking be transformed, moving from self-focused ways of relating to extraordinary ways of loving, something new and innovative may be just around the bend.

Discussion Questions: Chapter 2

Group and Couple Questions

1. Did you begin your married life as a start-up marriage or a merger marriage? What were the challenges you faced early on? Have you been able to navigate the challenges to effectively join forces?
2. The conclusion of the study “The Surprising Science of Happiness” was that although most students preferred to have the freedom to change their minds, that freedom to keep their options open left them ambivalent and dissatisfied. Once their decisions were made and options were off the table, they grew to accept and appreciate their choices and were much happier. Were you surprised by these findings? How do you think this might apply to marriage?
3. In what ways have you each had to give up some measure of independence to give priority to your relationship? What has been most difficult about giving up that independence? What do you see as a good balance of independence and connection? What does Philippians 2:3–11 say about self-fulfillment?
4. Have you and/or your spouse had to surrender or compromise any of your individual dreams to build a shared life? What have been the challenges and benefits of doing so?
5. Read 1 John 4:9–12, Philippians 4:12–13, 2 Corinthians 8:7, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, and 1 Chronicles 22:19. How do these verses suggest we can experience joy in our relationships, especially marriage? How do they urge us toward human connection, acceptance of our life and circumstances, generosity, thankfulness, and a commitment to something greater than ourselves?

For Personal Reflection

1. Do you believe your spouse is supposed to make you happy? Why or why not?
2. Did you struggle with having to give up some of your personal independence when you got married? Do you carry any resentment toward your spouse for the compromises you have had to make to give priority to your relationship?
3. Have you been viewing your marriage as a revocable contract with options to leave if your needs aren’t met? If so, how do you think this view might impact the feelings of safety and trust between you?
4. Do you agree that happiness is about human connection, acceptance of your life and circumstances, generosity, thankfulness, and a commitment to something greater than yourself? How does marriage provide unique opportunities to experience each of these?