THINGS TO STOP
STOP CLINGING
TO UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/1
In the 2001 chick flick The Wedding Planner, Matthew McConaughey plays Dr. Steve Edison, a pediatrician, and Jennifer Lopez is Mary Flore, a wedding planner hired by a female client engaged to Steve. Steve is not with his fiancée during the initial stages of planning the wedding, so he and Mary do not meet. Later they encounter each other accidentally, but Mary does not know he is the groom of her client. The attraction between them is immediate, and they spend a romantically charged evening enjoying a community event in the local park.
Mary instantly falls in love with Steve—or at least in love with the idea of being in love with him. But when she discovers that he is the groom of her client, she is angry and hurt because she believes he has deceived her. A love-hate relationship ensues. But Steve, now attracted to Mary, comes to believe he is not as in love with his bride-to-be as he thought. The movie ends with this realization blossoming moments before the ceremony as Steve breaks off the wedding, rushes to find Mary, and they get married—supposedly to live happily ever after.
It’s a fun, romantic movie that’s typical of most in its genre. But I believe movies of this type—along with the TV shows, magazines, and romance novels of the past half-century—have done much to create the seriously flawed expectations couples take into marriage today. I am convinced that these unrealistic expectations are a major cause of the ballooning number of failed marriages in America.
Studies show that most Americans (70 percent) believe the purpose of marriage is to find a mate who will make them happy.1 By “happy” they mean that marriage should sustain consistently romantic feelings between soul mates whose sexual ecstasy lasts a lifetime. Of course, this is not the reality of day-to-day married life. Yet many newlyweds cling to these unrealistic expectations. Therefore, the first argument creates a crisis rather than being just a normal event through which great marriages grow.
Unrealistic expectations are toxic in marriage. Stable marriages require both partners to take a hard look at mutual goals, compatibility on practical matters, and deep commitment to shared values, religion, and moral principles.
I find it significant that in The Wedding Planner, Steve and Mary do not take the time to get to know each other intimately. Their backgrounds, parentage, values, religion, goals, undiscovered personality traits, or economic expectations are not considered. They don’t know if they both want children or if they act like children when they don’t get their way. The message of the movie is that love conquers all, and nothing else matters as long as the couple’s kisses curl their toes (or in most current movies, their lovemaking sets off fireworks). Steve and Mary believe they are each other’s romantic soul mate, so all other concerns will automatically fall into place.
If it turns out that the marriage does not make them happy, they conclude they must have chosen the wrong mate. So they divorce and begin a new search for their romantic soul mate. (Or perhaps more commonly, first find their new romantic soul mate and then get a divorce.)
Unrealistic Expectations Undermine Reality
I believe in love and romance as much as anyone. But the unrealistic expectations created by making romance the primary focus of your relationship can lead to an early unraveling of the marriage bond.
Over and over I have seen people enter marriage expecting nonstop romantic bliss, and within a few weeks they are surprised by how difficult it is to live together harmoniously. Often the couple clings to these fantasy expectations because they didn’t date long enough to know each other well. When expectations are dashed by harsh reality, the marriage spirals into a miserable existence of disappointment, regret, and resentment.
YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE CAN LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER—BUT ONLY IF BOTH OF YOU ARE WILLING TO WORK THROUGH THE ISSUES AND DIFFERENCES YOU BROUGHT INTO THE MARRIAGE.
You and your spouse can live happily ever after—but only if both of you are willing to work through the issues and differences you brought into the marriage. You hear little or nothing about this struggle in the movies or pop literature. What if Mary intends to keep her wedding-planning career while Steve expects her to be a stay-at-home mom? What if she never reckoned on his long hours and 3 a.m. emergencies that are standard in the life of a doctor? What if another beautiful woman turns Steve’s head as easily as Mary turned his?
Again, these dashed expectations result from too little time spent getting to know the other person. Before marriage, both put their best foot forward, and the other foot is not exposed until after the honeymoon. And each partner is shocked to see how ugly that other foot turns out to be.
When Robert and Frances were dating, he was always kind and gentle with her. Once she had found a stack of old newspapers on Robert’s car seat and, assuming they were trash, pitched them into a sidewalk receptacle. She didn’t realize that the papers were his collection of clippings about his college tennis career. When he discovered the loss, he had been upset but understanding. He made no complaint about the humiliation of having to rummage through the trash can to retrieve his treasures.
But one Saturday morning less than a month after they married, Robert was out golfing and Frances decided to do him the favor of organizing his cluttered desk. She was careful to throw away nothing. When Robert came home he went ballistic, cursing and belittling her for messing with his stuff and invading his privacy. It was only the first of many such explosions, revealing a short-fused temper she had never suspected.
Had the haze of romantic expectations not dimmed her insight, Frances might have recognized hints of Robert’s temper before they married, in the way he treated his mother or restaurant waiters, or even in the way he railed at drivers who tailgated, drove too slowly, or failed to signal turns. (Driving behavior provides an amazing number of clues to a person’s inner character.) But with her he had kept his temper hidden until the daily reality of marriage revealed it.
Problems that surface during courtship don’t go away; they intensify after you say “I do.” In today’s self-focused culture, marriage rarely serves as a channel for couples to grow and mature. Instead couples view marriage as their rightful opportunity to reap the rewards from their investment in courtship. The excitement of romantic pursuit and discovery gives way to a relaxing of the intense focus on pleasing each other. That’s when harsh realities rise to the surface.
The Disappointment of the Soul-Mate Model
Disappointment with your mate is usually not caused by a dramatic character flaw or extreme self-centeredness, but merely by personal differences. Minor differences that seemed unimportant while dating expand into mountains of disappointment in marriage. Perhaps in the evenings you like to spend hours surfing the Internet, while your spouse wants to watch movies together. Your mate likes to watch sitcoms; you want to flip to the news. You believe you should eat only health foods; your spouse wants burgers and fries. Your mate loves NASCAR; you love symphonies.
While dating, you and your mate couldn’t be together enough. But now that you are married and together all the time, you miss your independence and want more time to yourself. So you work late in the evenings and devote more time to your hobbies, causing your spouse to feel lonely. Or maybe your spouse feels smothered by your persistent desire for sex and becomes unresponsive to your sexual hints and advances. Maybe you revert to previous sloppy habits while your mate is an obsessive neatnik. You two don’t go out as much in the evenings and eat fewer dinners together. One or both of you is grumpy in the morning or uncommunicative after a hard day’s work.
If you and your spouse were seduced by the soul-mate model of marriage, you have no warning that the iceberg of unrealistic expectations looms ahead; thus, when you encounter it your hope sinks. How can you keep your marriage afloat? Couples whose relationships were formed on the soul-mate model feel blindsided by this harsh reality in marriage, and the resulting disappointment often brings dissatisfaction with the relationship and the beginning of a wandering eye.
If your marriage relationship is cooling because of unmet expectations, ask yourself this: Just what were you in love with—a fantasy of your own creation or a real person possessing the same fallen tendencies as every son of Adam and daughter of Eve? Did you fall in love with a person or with a feeling? As a golden oldie song put it, were you merely “falling in love with love”?
Resetting Your Expectations
Since the romantic soul-mate model for marriage creates false expectations that lead to disappointment, what are the right expectations that bind couples together in an enduring, satisfying, and happy marriage?
The traditional view of marriage held by most Americans until the end of of the twentieth century was this: “raising a family together, offering mutual aid to one another in tough times, and becoming engaged in larger networks of kin and community.”2 If you are clinging to the soul-mate model, the traditional model of marriage may seem overly practical and unromantic. But the bottom line is that it worked. Those marriages—built on a foundation of family, mutual aid, and community—tended to last a lifetime. The traditional model may seem to be a letdown from the romantic ecstasy promised by the soul-mate model. But that is only because both models have been misunderstood.
In suggesting you embrace the traditional model of marriage, I am not asking you to lower your expectations; I’m actually asking you to raise them. Marriage can be so much better than the soul-mate model has led you to expect. Marriage is not one-dimensional, focused solely on romance and sexual ecstasy. In reality, marriage is multidimensional, consisting of a series of seasons from the honeymoon to the empty nest during which the couple progresses from biological fireworks to deep, sustaining, romantic love and fruitful lives of shared experiences and relationships.
A marriage built on the traditional model embraces the big picture of all that marriage can be. If you want a strong marriage, stop clinging to unrealistic expectations of perpetual candlelight dinners and unending fireworks in the bedroom. Replace that expectation with the higher model of making your marriage the crowning achievement of a lifetime.
Differences in Gender
Another source of unrealistic expectations in a marriage is expecting your spouse to behave and respond to circumstances the same way you do—or the way your same-sex friends do. This expectation ignores the obvious reality of gender differences between men and women. Not only do you and your mate have different bodies, but you have differently wired brains, different emotional responses, and different hormones flooding your systems. This is why author John Gray says it’s like men and women are from two different planets. When husbands and wives relate to each other, all these differences come into play and act as filters through which we perceive the other person. Naturally, each sex thinks its perspective is the accurate one. Yet men and women are inherently different, and if a spouse does not accept the differences, disappointment is a sure thing.
Let’s take one common complaint as an example. Many women tell me about their husband’s reticence to share his desires, fears, and problems. Viewing their husbands through a feminine filter, they interpret this reluctance as resistance to the intimacy she desires. “He’s closed himself off to me,” she complains, feeling rejected and hurt. While lack of communication is a flaw that many men need to work on, expecting a husband to share as deeply and fully as a female best friend is an unrealistic expectation that often leads to frustration and disappointment.
It’s not that men don’t have these feelings; most men love their wives dearly. But many men are like the old Vermont farmer who said, “I love my wife, Millie, so much it’s all I can do to keep from telling her.” The right feelings are there, and it would do wonders for a wife if he would let them out.
I am not excusing this reticence because I’ve learned that most women love expressions of endearment like flowers need rain. Of course, each woman is unique in how she prefers her husband to express his endearment. Perhaps she feels loved when you buy her a gift. Or she may feel loved when you write her a special note. Maybe she just wants you to spend time with her. The point for husbands is this: learn how your wife wants to be loved, and express your love to her that way.
We men do have our gender tendencies, but we don’t have to be slaves to them. Each sex can learn a few new tricks for the sake of the other. But the point is, neither you nor your mate will get everything you dream of in the other. Both of you must be ready to accept traits that you wish were otherwise.
The best way to accept some gender differences is to learn to look at them as blessings. The truth is, neither sex will ever completely understand the other. It’s simply not meant to be. Those differences are by God’s design. Just as you and your mate can have a sexual relationship only because of your physical differences, many of the other ways you relate to each other are possible or at least enhanced because of differences—differences in outlook, ideas, abilities, and interests. If you and your spouse were exactly alike, you wouldn’t need each other any more than you need two heads. Your world would be a dull place of limited horizons because you would be deprived of all the creativity, personalities, and development that come from the two of you pooling your differing outlooks, ideas, and abilities.
A key to a successful marriage is to learn not only to accept each other’s gender differences, but also to use them to broaden the possibilities of what your marriage can become.
Differences in Family Background
We relate to each other not only through the filters of our respective genders but also of our family backgrounds and training. The two of you were raised in different homes, with different parents, siblings, friends, educations, and usually different churches—sometimes different denominations or even different religions. These varying influences leave each of you with different expectations.
In his family, for example, the kitchen was the woman’s realm, and men were not expected to be part of it. In her family, the father helped in the kitchen. He took out the trash, mopped the floors, helped with the dishes, and often cooked steaks on the grill. Thus when the daughter from this family marries the son from the other, these differing expectations will be deeply embedded, likely causing friction over kitchen duties if they don’t address the issue and develop kitchen duties that work for both of them.
One important reality every couple must learn to accept is each other’s family. This is not always easy, and it often requires a generous dose of grace. Your mate’s family may or may not have serious flaws, but they will certainly have significant differences that can cause misunderstandings. Often difficulties with a spouse’s family are visible before the marriage, but the couple dismisses them as unimportant, saying, “I’m not marrying her parents; I’m marrying her.” That is a myth. Relationships with parents are inevitable and can present problems neither partner expected.
Perhaps she’s an only child from an academic family with quiet habits and reserved interactions. He’s one of five siblings who love loud banter, jokes, competitive games, and raucous laughter. Expect misunderstandings in the marriage. Maybe his less-than-mature mother resented the transfer of his affections to his bride. Or her father disapproved of the marriage, thinking no man is good enough for his daughter—especially you. Expect problems. Scheduling family events can become as treacherous as walking through a minefield. His family thinks they should come home every Christmas. So does hers. Solutions are almost impossible, and relationships can get sticky. When you marry, you take your mate’s family as your own and work toward loving and accepting them just as your mate does—warts, skeletons, inconveniences, and all.
DON’T HANG ON TO AN UNREALISTIC EXPECTATION THAT THE OTHER PERSON IS THERE TO MEET EVERY NEED YOU HAVE.
When dealing with the natural differences that arise from gender and backgrounds, it helps to be objective and realize that many perceived flaws in your mate are likely nothing more than unmet expectations on your own part. He may never earn the money to live in the style you hoped for, or she may not have the cooking skills or sexual interest you dreamed of. Don’t hang on to an unrealistic expectation that the other person is there to meet every need you have. Accept and celebrate the differences.
The Reward of Realistic Expectations
Does focus on achieving the higher and more satisfying expectations of a full, blessed, lifelong relationship mean that you should dismiss romance as unimportant? Absolutely not! Take this higher, harder road to marital bliss and you are in for a happy surprise. It’s hard for young people to imagine, but a silver-haired grandmother is likely to have a far stronger love for her balding, overweight husband stretched out in his recliner than she could possibly have imagined in their courting days. Those feelings are the result of a life built together through thick and thin, ups and downs, joy and tears. It’s a much higher, broader, deeper, and more satisfying and tightly bound love than one based solely on romantic sensations and orgasmic intensity.
A strong marriage takes work, but the rewards are profound and abundant. Expect constant romance and you kill it, just as too much sugar makes you sick. But when you stop focusing only on romantic feelings and start being willing to iron out the wrinkles and smooth out the bumps, you’ll find that you get lasting romance thrown in as a bonus.
Remember this truth from Proverbs 10:28: “The hopes of the godly result in happiness, but the expectations of the wicked come to nothing.” Be sure your expectations of marriage are based in truth. Grieve the loss of the fantasy marriage so you can accept the reality of what you have. Seek God to fulfill you and heal you rather than expect your spouse to do what only God can do.
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Won’t Stop Clinging to Unrealistic Expectations
• Be sure you are meeting whatever expectations are realistic rather than giving up altogether.
• If you performed a “bait and switch” and act in a completely different manner than you did while dating, admit this to your spouse and ask forgiveness.
• Seek counseling for both of you so a third party can define reality and realistic expectations.
• Develop a deeper understanding of the wound within your spouse that is driving his or her unrealistic expectations of you.
• Determine to grow in areas where you can.
• Be sure you are communicating about your spouse’s disappointment and your continued desire to meet realistic needs.
• Determine that you will not allow disappointment to rule your mind because of your spouse’s unrealistic expectations.
STOP OBSESSING
ON THE PAST
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/2
On your honeymoon, were you amazed at how much emotional baggage showed up along with your luggage and travel gear? If so, you are not alone. The lack of clarity is one of the most common traits found in early marriages. And you are also not alone if you did not handle the reality of what you discovered very well. If your reactions to your spouse’s emotional baggage made things worse rather than better, I have some hope to offer you.
ALL OF US BRING INTO MARRIAGE THE RESIDUE FROM OUR PAST.
All of us bring into marriage the residue from our past. Many people carry emotional scars—and sometimes physical ones as well—from the harmful acts others inflicted on them. These traumas usually occur before courtship, and the victim brings them into the marriage as dark clouds that cast a shadow over the relationship.
Usually the person bearing these emotional shadows comes into the marriage thinking the painful event is buried so deeply that it no longer has any effect. But this is seldom true, especially if it has not been dealt with and resolved in some way. When this person marries, the intimacy of the marital relationship is likely to bring the effects of the past trauma to the surface—especially as the chemical reactions from romance wear off.
Quit Seeing Yourself as a Victim
When you marry a person bearing emotional pain, you can make things worse by looking only at the effect your mate’s issue has on you personally. You can see yourself as a victim of your spouse’s pain, regret your marriage, and look for a way out—or you can seek to understand the cause of the behavior and help your mate find healing. This is the choice my friend Cody had to face.
Shortly after Cody married, he found that his wife had hidden from him a dark shadow from her past. On their wedding night that shadow emerged and threatened to undo their relationship. Cody did not realize that Rhonda carried deep-seated psychological problems resulting from childhood sexual and physical abuse inflicted by her stepfather. These problems had remained more or less dormant until she entered the intimacy of marriage. During their dating period, Cody had interpreted Rhonda’s lack of sexual interest as a sign of her strong faith. He did not know that sex was an area she would not and could not enter. Once married it became obvious that the abuse Rhonda had endured was so severe she found it impossible to trust anyone enough to allow a sexual relationship—even with her husband, Cody, whom she loved dearly.
Although Cody tried to be gentle and understanding, Rhonda’s fears increased until she had to be confined in institutional psychiatric care. She was in the hospital much more than she was home with Cody. Even when she was home, she had to be supervised to prevent suicide attempts. At the time, the right medication for her particular pathology had not been developed.
When Cody married Rhonda, he did not expect to have to deal with such a deep and disturbing relational problem. Now he faced a hard choice: Either he could put Rhonda away as damaged goods and justify himself by saying, “This is not what I bought into. No man could be expected to put up with this, so no one will blame me if I get a divorce.” Or he could stick by his vow to take this woman “for better or for worse” and work toward finding healing for her.
Rather than curse his fate or resent his wife for hiding her condition, which he could easily have done, Cody stood by Rhonda through her many long-term hospitalizations, remaining faithful and chaste all the while. He studied up on her condition, reading book after book, attending classes, and searching the Internet for relevant information. He learned how he should treat her and how to rebuild her trust in men. As a result, over a ten-year period, she regained normalcy and learned to trust Cody and love him deeply. With the help of newly formulated medication combined with the work she had done toward her own healing, she finally put institutionalization behind her completely. Today Cody and Rhonda have as happy a marriage as I have ever seen.
Cody did what my friend, pastoral counselor Milan Yerkovich, advises the mate of a wounded spouse to do: “The best strategy is to get a Ph.D. in the wounds of your spouse.”1 In other words, become an expert on your mate’s hurts. Do all you can to uncover the underlying cause of the impaired behavior. Dig into it until you understand it, and then take steps to help your mate address and resolve the problem. This is what Cody did, and it bound his marriage together with real intimacy.
Cody’s Christlike action turns the prevalent mind-set of today’s culture upside down. Instead of seeing himself as a victim and getting rid of the woman who ruined his happiness and disappointed his expectations, he chose to stick by his vow and love her through her ordeal. He demonstrated that his love for his wife was not merely a superficial, “what’s in it for me?” love. It was deeply compassionate love. The result was not only a healed wife and a happy marriage, but also an inspiring reflection of the God who loved and rescued us while we were yet sinners.
Understand Your Mate’s Pain
Sensitivity to your mate’s hurts means trying your best to understand what has happened to him or her in the past, as well as the effect those hurts have on the present. You build a strong connection between the other person’s pain and your own understanding.
This commitment to understanding your mate’s pain accomplishes three things: First, it does what we Christians are consistently enjoined to do—to separate the problem from the person. This separation allows you to hate and attack the problem without hating or attacking the person. You realize that the effects of the trauma your mate is carrying do not define who he or she is. You see your mate as a victim who bears the pain of evil inflicted. Just as physical pain often causes us to writhe and twist our bodies in an attempt to escape it, the agony of emotional pain causes us to writhe and twist in our inner selves, distorting our relationships and preventing intimacy.
IF YOU DON’T BUILD THIS BRIDGE TO THE PAST—FROM WHERE YOU ARE NOW TO THE CAUSE OF THE PAIN—YOU WILL NEVER TRULY KNOW YOUR SPOUSE EVEN AFTER YEARS OF BEING TOGETHER.
Second, your commitment to understanding your mate’s pain puts you in a position to establish a strong relational connection as you build a bridge of empathy. If you don’t build this bridge to the past—from where you are now to the cause of the pain—you will never truly know your spouse even after years of being together. Part of him or her will be living in a place you can never go until you build that bridge.
Third, seeing your mate as the victim of events instead of as the perpetrator of the effects enables you to accept and forgive more easily. When the pain of your mate’s past spills over into actions that hurt you, your understanding allows you to bear that hurt without anger or resentment because you understand the real source of it. You see those hurtful actions not as personal attacks but for what they are—the spill-off from a debilitating weight of pain the other has borne for perhaps many years. This more accurate viewpoint makes an offense much easier to forgive.
When Don was a child, his father spanked him to the point of inflicting bruises for the slightest infraction of the rules his dad imposed on his family. After each beating, Don’s sympathetic mother would sneak cookies or cake to him as compensation for what he endured. Thus Don developed the habit of using food to relieve the tension of stressful situations.
Don married Sherry, a health-conscious woman who regularly prepared nutritious meals. When Don began to gain weight, Sherry suspected he was sneaking unhealthy food behind her back. She found evidence of it and confronted him. He denied the charge, and the guilt brought on by his lying caused him to withdraw emotionally from her. Sherry was hurt by his withdrawal, but because she was able to see the effect of the past on Don’s present actions, she could forgive the emotional pain Don was inflicting on her. She understood its source.
Sherry sought help through her church’s counseling ministry. Don, though reluctant, finally agreed to go. In time his reluctance eased away as he began to see the benefits and decided to follow the counselor’s program. Though it was difficult at first and punctuated with several slips, he eventually won victory over his food addiction, which restored trust and intimacy with Sherry.
Sherry found it easy to love Don through the trying times of his emotional withdrawal because she could see that his secret eating was caused by a problem that was inflicted on him by others in his past. An added bonus for her efforts is that he now has a healthy physique!
In these situations, when pain was inflicted on your spouse by someone else, you can start to resent the fact that your spouse did not disclose this pain or attempt to resolve it before marriage. Either way, you need to stop obsessing on the past. Instead of dwelling on your spouse’s emotional baggage and viewing yourself as a victim of his or her pain, extend grace to your spouse. You can be a healing force in your spouse’s life, even if he or she has waited to initiate healing.
Not all of the pain you experience is going to be a result of someone else hurting your spouse. Your spouse is going to do some things that hurt you. Some of those will be extremely painful. But I can tell you from my own experience that when you work through those hurts and resolve them in a godly and healthy way, they will lead you to a deeper connection than you ever thought possible. So when your spouse hurts you, you can give up—or you can dig deep and find the compassionate love and grace that is required for two imperfect people to love each other forever.
Dealing with Hurt from Your Mate’s Sexual Past
In today’s anything-goes sexual climate, you wouldn’t think past sexual experiences could damage a marriage. It would seem that so many people today bring a sexual history into marriage that its presence would be generally assumed and accepted. Don’t misunderstand me: I am not justifying today’s sexual license; I am merely recognizing the reality of it. But the reality does not reduce the negative effects. In my helping couples transform their marriages I have found that past sexual experience can damage a married relationship in several ways.
Roger and Carolyn had been married three years when a friend dropped a hint about Carolyn’s sexual past. The couple had never discussed their sexual history, and Roger had assumed Carolyn to be as virginal as he was. When he confronted her, she admitted that she had been a little wild in her college days, engaging in several one-night stands and three or four sexual relationships lasting a few months each.
Roger was stunned. He could not cope with the revelation, and imaginary visions of Carolyn’s sexual encounters haunted him continually. He became angry, depressed, and could no longer bring himself to have sex with her, fearing that she would compare him to her more experienced partners of the past. When he suggested divorce, Carolyn insisted they seek counseling first.
Counseling helped Roger understand that everyone comes into a relationship with baggage from the past, whether sexual or otherwise. Everyone has done things they are sorry for and wish had never occurred. Carolyn was not proud of her past, but it had nothing to do with Roger since he did not know her then. And when they did marry, she was not the same person she had been in her past. In fact, she had married Roger because he was so different from other men who were interested only in her body. When they were dating, Roger had surprised her by not pushing her into sex because he respected her and loved her for who she was. He did not sleep around because he had integrity and valued commitment. Before they married she felt secure in the relationship. The feeling of security and those strong character qualities attracted Carolyn and made her see the shallowness of casual sex indulged for superficial pleasure. She felt clean and whole with Roger. And she came to love him as she had never loved anyone.
Did Roger want to throw away their marriage because of something that had happened long ago? Something his wife could not go back and change even though she herself had changed? Did he want to undo their vows and start over with another woman who would bring a whole new set of past experiences into the relationship? He asked himself these questions rather than do what many would do in the same situation: use his spouse’s past to pull away, reject, and isolate.
When people who have been sexually active in the past get married, problems often arise. These problems may be more acute when a person who has been sexually active marries a person who has not, as in Roger and Carolyn’s case. The inexperienced partner can feel haunted by a sense of inadequacy due to his lack of experience in the face of his partner’s wide experience. He can feel that his wife is comparing his performance with her past sexual partners, and he may wonder whether he is satisfying her as well as they did. He can feel that she has shared intimate parts of herself with others that should belong only to him.
A corresponding problem in some cases can be that such fears are real. A sexually experienced partner who is focused heavily on receiving sexual pleasure may indeed compare and think he or she has known better sexual partners, causing disappointment in the mate and regret over marrying this particular person.
These problems can emerge even in marriages where both partners have past sexual experiences. Feelings of jealousy or resentment can boil up when one imagines—or perhaps even has reason to believe—those past liaisons linger in the other’s mind. Another common problem arising from past sexual activity is the guilt either or both can feel over past sexual sins. That guilt can intrude on the relationship in the form of sexual dysfunctions or withdrawal from intimacy.
Perhaps the biggest problem that can arise out of one’s sexual past is what Roger experienced with Carolyn: the shock of discovery when a partner’s hidden past is unexpectedly revealed.
Due to the differences in people’s psyches, there is no one-size-fits-all way to deal with these shadows from the past. The best way, of course, is not to indulge in premarital sex at all. But given the fact that the majority of the people who marry today carry a sexual past with them, we must face that reality and deal with what is rather than what should be.
The best way for couples to deal with past sexual experiences, as with all past mistakes and sins, is to be honest with each other before they marry. Openness and transparency is a key to intimacy, and by revealing and confessing your past mistakes before the wedding, you show your mate that you are hiding nothing and that you want everything out in the open. You want no secrets to emerge later that would cause the other to regret the marriage. You clear the air before you breathe it in to say “I do.” In so doing you intensify the clarity you need to build the relationship.
Couples who do not confess their sexual sins before marriage often find that there is a need to do it afterward when one or more of the problems outlined above emerge. Revelation after the marriage has the disadvantage of showing that you have hidden something from your mate, and it will add to the issues of honesty, trust, and security.
Whether this openness about your sexual history occurs before or after the marriage, you need to be willing to offer your partner as much or as little information as he or she wants to know. In some cases, the partner may want to hear only the outlines of your past, and the details are unimportant. Others may have more trouble dealing with their mate’s past, as Roger did, and need more in-depth information, painful though it is. If he doesn’t hear the details, he is likely to imagine them; but hearing them from you may cause him to relive them over and over in his head. You can provide full and complete disclosure without revealing every detail.
Withholding details may be more comfortable for you and less painful for your mate, but anything you refuse to tell may be interpreted as closing the door in his face to some part of your life that you have shared with another but will not share with him. It is sure to create distance. Of course, when you do reveal those details, you run another risk: your mate may reject you because he cannot handle the revelation. There’s no way around it—sin creates problems, and often there are no easy ways to resolve them. Yet the attempt must be made, and if two partners want to save the marriage, they can find a way.
If your mate presses you for something you are reticent to tell because revealing it will cause pain either to you or to him, you might say, “I’ll tell you this if you really want me to, but I have put it in the past and have no need to go there ever again. The person I once was is dead now. If you can let it lie where it is, I think it would be better for both of us. But if you feel that you must hear it in order to deal with it, I will tell you if you insist.” It’s a risk you have to take.
When such revelations occur, couples should be prepared for certain pitfalls they may face in the process. If you are the partner hearing your spouse’s revelation, you must be prepared to bear the pain of things you won’t like to hear. It may hurt more deeply than you anticipate to learn that your spouse has shared the most intimate parts of herself with others—parts that you feel should be reserved only for you. You may feel that your mate’s past sexual partners have stolen something valuable from you. For this reason, it’s best that you ask only for what details you are prepared to hear and can deal with.
If you are the partner revealing your sexual past to your mate, it is good to accompany the revelation with confession. You need to recognize and admit that what you did was wrong. You need to say that you are ashamed of your mistake and that you are committed never to do it again. The past is behind you. You have buried it and you never dig it up to cling to it or wish you could have it back. God has forgiven you, and you beg your mate to forgive you too. You also need to assure your mate that he or she is now your only love, your whole life. You are committed totally to your marriage and to your future together.
On receiving a confession of past sexual sins, the other mate completes the reconciliation and healing of the relationship by forgiving. Forgiveness may not be easy, and it may be necessary for your mate to absorb the information and work through his or her own hurt and shock before coming to a place where forgiveness can occur cleanly. I will deal more fully with forgiveness and all it entails in chapter 10.
Once past sexual sins are brought into the open and dealt with, I recommend that, as with all sins that have been repented of and forgiven, you never bring them up again.
Dealing with Past Issues within the Marriage
Not all hurts of the past occur before marriage. Married partners can develop an immense capacity for inflicting severe and debilitating wounds on each other. And these hurts can linger and eat away at the relationship if they are not dealt with effectively.
Some examples of hurts within a marriage are obvious, such as adultery, abuse, abandonment, or addictions. These are serious issues, and we will deal with them later in this book. But in this chapter, we are focusing on past mistakes or choices in the marriage that are not as severe as the four deadly A’s—choices such as broken promises, failure to support one’s mate emotionally, deception, misuse of money, or making solo decisions. Acts such as these inflict pain that can cause lingering resentment or regret and loosen the bonds of marriage.
The effect of a hurt from your spouse within the marriage can be worse than one inflicted by someone else before the marriage. It involves a breach of trust because it comes from a source from which only love should flow. This can drive the pain deeper and make repair more difficult. But these mate-inflicted hurts need not destroy a marriage. If the isues are handled carefully, the marriage can actually come out stronger after the hurt is addressed and healed.
Dennis and Gail had been married six years and had two children when Gail discovered that he had lied to her. He had told her he was taking a company trip to another state, but instead he slipped off with his buddies for a three-day fishing trip in the mountains. Dennis admitted it, repented of his deception, and vowed never to lie to her again. But Gail no longer trusted him. She pulled away emotionally, and though they maintained the appearance of a good marriage, the distance between them grew. Dennis tried his best to restore trust and intimacy, but Gail simply could not get over the hurt. Her reaction caused Dennis to become angry and impatient with her, and their relationship deteriorated further.
Up to a point, the healing process in a case like this is the same as for healing past offenses inflicted by others: First, the offended mate must develop objectivity and empathy by looking beneath the surface to detect and understand the underlying cause of the offense. Could it be that one had done something in the past that caused the other’s offending behavior?
Counseling helped Dennis and Gail to look beneath the surface of the problem. Under the counselor’s guidance, Gail saw that since the children arrived, all the care and attention she had previously lavished on Dennis was now directed toward the children. Dennis, thinking only of himself, had turned to his fishing buddies for companionship. This did not excuse his lie, but it allowed her to understand the dynamic that had set it up. She also realized Dennis could have done worse; he could have turned to another woman instead of to his buddies.
This kind of objectivity is not easy when you are the one who has been hurt. But it can be achieved if someone has the incredible willingness that Gail possessed. Again, it’s the principle of separating the sin from the sinner, which is one of the requirements of Christian forgiveness.
Counseling showed both Dennis and Gail the effective steps to restoring trust and intimacy. Dennis learned that his impatience was misplaced. He was the guilty party, and though he tried to restore trust by being truthful, it took time for his trustworthiness to be proven to Gail.
The counselor urged Gail to forgive Dennis, accept him back fully, and restore intimacy with him. But forgiveness is a process. She was willing to see the situation from both sides, but she was not so sure about rushing in with forgiveness with the risk that he might turn around and do the same thing again. She wondered how to know if he could be trusted.
YOU CAN NEVER KNOW WHAT A PERSON IS GOING TO DO IN THE FUTURE. TRUST ALWAYS INVOLVES RISK.
The answer is, you can’t know. You can never know what a person is going to do in the future. Trust always involves risk. One good way to reduce the risk is for the couple to agree to boundaries that will help assure the offended mate that a repetition of the offense is unlikely. In the case of Roger and Gail, he promised to show her his airline tickets and hotel reservations when he took a trip on company business in the future. He would always give her a landline number where he could be reached.
Even with good boundaries in place, we are still flawed creatures who fail occasionally. But we cannot find happiness by closing off relationships because of that universal failing. We must plunge in and trust and love and forgive with no absolute certainty that we will never be hurt again. It is the only way to restore a relationship and the only way to have a strong marriage.
That is not the same as excusing a repeat offender. There is a time for forgiveness and there is a time for action. If you are being repeatedly betrayed you must not push toward forgiveness before you have done all you can to confront the behavior, demand change, and require help that will cause the pattern of betrayal to be broken. The rush to forgiveness is an easy temptation. But it can become an act of enabling evil. The evil must stop before forgiveness is appropriate. Proverbs 10:10 tells us that to wink at wrong—in other words, to minimize how severe a problem is or to just let it go—brings trouble. An open rebuke, or confronting and talking about the reality that is before us and taking action based on truth, can lead to a lasting peace because it resolves the problem at hand rather than allowing it to enlarge. We are never to minimize or deny that the evil is there. Often the bold move that is required to help the situation is ignored and the situation gets worse rather than better. That is enabling evil.
There are a lot of things you can do in response to your spouse’s past, but the most destructive choice you can make in the face of a repentant offender is to hold the past against him or her. The best choice is born out of love. Love is the one indispensable key to healing past hurts. You can find healing if you love enough to work through the hurt and restore your relationship. Your marriage will be the stronger for it.
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Won’t Stop Obsessing on Your Past
• Be sure that you are truly repentant and not involved in an ongoing pattern of betrayal.
• Ask your mate what you can do to make restitution to make things right.
• Continue to ask for forgiveness and be willing to discuss the past until there is no longer a need to talk about the offense.
• Set up safeguards and protections that ensure the past mistake won’t happen again.
• Get help for that particular vulnerability by attending counseling.
• Select two or three friends (of the same sex) to be your accountability partners for this particular issue. Meet weekly with them, and be willing to answer their questions honestly.
• Participate in a character-building process such as a Bible study that shows how determined you are that the problem not be repeated and that you continue to grow from it.
STOP DROWNING
IN SUSPICION AND JEALOUSY
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/3
As I write this chapter, a television commercial airing for an insurance company stresses that its agents are always there for you, day or night. It features a husband alone in his home, talking quietly on the phone late at night. His suspicious wife, thinking she’s caught him red-handed, strides angrily into the room and demands to know who he’s talking to. He replies that it’s Jake from State Farm. Not believing him, she snatches the phone, thrusts it to her ear, and says sarcastically, “Well, Jake from State Farm, what are you wearing?” The scene switches to the agent’s office where Jake sits, phone in hand. Nonplussed by the strange question, he says, “Uh, khakis.”
The commercial makes us laugh, but there’s nothing funny about spousal suspicion and the jealousy that drives it. Suspicion and jealousy can be vicious and destructive, leading to oppressive control and even abusive behavior. It can turn a spouse into a tenacious watchdog tracking all the moves and activities of the other. It can mean police-like grilling for all details as to where a spouse went and what that spouse did. It can show itself in frequent phone calls to be sure the spouse is where he or she claims to be. It often involves monitoring phone calls and every other source of connection. It drives controlling and demeaning actions.
We can understand the suspicion of the wife in the insurance commercial. It was late at night and her husband was in another room on the phone, talking low. As it turned out, he was innocent. In many cases, the suspicion in a marriage is unfounded. The suspicious and jealous spouse merely interprets normal events in the worst possible way rather than believing the best about the spouse.
That’s how it was with Margie. She suspected her husband, Jeff, of running around on her every time he came home late from work. She was suspicious when he went on a business trip with his boss, fishing with his buddies, or even when he dined with a male client at a restaurant. The truth was, Jeff was completely faithful to Margie. The suspicion problem was rooted in her past and not in Jeff’s actions.
Margie was raised in a home where distrust was a way of life. Her father was unfaithful to her mother and exhibited secretive behavior that caused her mother’s distrust to grow. Following the pattern of her mother, Margie regularly checked her husband’s whereabouts, his computer files, and his cell phone, seeking verification of the activities he reported. She never found anything wrong, but her suspicions destroyed any chance for intimacy with her husband. In reality Jeff was a faithful guy who loved her. But he grew more and more distant with each false accusation.
Finally Jeff told Margie she must get help or he was moving out. He didn’t want to move out; he wanted her to get help. And she did. The counseling revealed much to her. It soon became apparent that the source of her problem was her father’s continual unfaithfulness during her younger years. She thought her dad was the most immoral man she had ever known—that is, until the pastor she went to for counseling years ago approached her sexually.
To Margie, therefore, it was “normal” for men to be untrustworthy and for wives to be suspicious. She expected her husband to act like her father, and that triggered her to act like her mother, doing surveillance instead of trusting him.
Too often a problem in our marriage is an unresolved experience from our past. Someone did not give us what we needed, and now our desire for it is so intense and out of balance that the people in our lives today cannot provide it or compensate for it. We place unrealistic demands on people, and the result is disconnection and disruption of the relationship. It is a call for us to look back—not to dwell on the past, but to see if the past has any connection to our present problems.
Scripture tells us to throw off anything that might get in the way of our moving toward the finish line (Hebrews 12:1). If the past is controlling the present, it needs to be dealt with, resolved, and healed.
When Suspicion Is Justified
Sometimes the marriage partner is not acting innocently and the suspicion is justified. In this case, you need to be objective about the behavior of your mate. When you see real signs of furtive behavior, deception, or secretive-ness, don’t ignore them. Insist on mutual accountability where behavior could arouse suspicion and distrust.
Certain behaviors naturally arouse distrust, such as a mate spending an inordinate amount of time away that he or she cannot adequately account for. A mate who stays up late every night alone at the computer should raise a flag. If a mate refuses to share computer passwords or engages in secretive behavior, that’s suspicious. If one mate walks into the room when the other is talking to someone else and the conversation suddenly ceases, that’s suspicious. Or if one walks into the room and the other immediately clicks off the phone or the website, there may be reason for distrust.
My friend and New Life Live cohost psychologist John Townsend tells of an incident in which Vicky’s friend tells her that she has just seen Alex, Vicky’s husband, lunching at a restaurant with an old girlfriend. Dr. Townsend writes, “When Vicky asked why he hadn’t mentioned it to her, his reply was defensive: ‘I knew you would freak out, like you’re doing now.’”1 Alex had no business opening up his life to an old girlfriend at a lunch where they would be alone. By not disclosing the meeting to his wife, he showed that his intentions were wrong from the beginning. The old girlfriend needed to be either completely out of his life or part of the life he shared with his wife.
I don’t know of any situation where it is appropriate for a man to meet with an old girlfriend without his wife’s presence. That is messing around with marital dynamite. A high number of affairs begin when old flames get in touch later in life. It’s a good thing for married couples to trust each other, but it’s important to trust only what it makes sense to trust. Your mate eating out with someone of the opposite sex without you does not make good sense at all. Anyone thinking otherwise has probably not been burned by a budding affair that started at a meeting away from the other spouse.
By far the worst breach of trust in any marriage is unfaithfulness. Statistics on infidelity are notoriously undependable, and it’s easy to understand why. The guilty parties are not likely to be open about it. But according to one survey, one-fourth of all marriages in America experience physical infidelity on the part of at least one partner. The figure jumps to 41 percent when both emotional and physical infidelity are included.2 Statistics from other sources list percentages ranging from 30 to 60 percent.
In spite of these variations in data, almost all statisticians agree on two things: First, the incidence of marital infidelity is steadily increasing, and second, infidelity has become almost as prevalent in women as in men. Undoubtedly these facts contribute to the increasing rate of divorce. In fact, a mere 31 percent of marriages last after an affair has been admitted or discovered.3
There are many reasons for the increase in infidelity, and each of them gives couples more reason for suspicion. E-mail, Internet chat rooms, and social media such as Facebook make it easier to begin and maintain secretive relationships, as do the sexes mixing freely in the workplace and educational facilities. Thirty-six percent of extramarital affairs begin in the workplace or on business trips.4 No doubt the obsessive cultural emphasis on sex and the right to sexual satisfaction also contributes to the problem.
While infidelity is an enormous breach of trust, it does not have to end a marriage. There are excellent reasons for mates reeling from infidelity to do the painful work of rebuilding trust and holding the marriage together. There are a number of ways in which this can be done.
Trust in marriage can be damaged or lost in many other ways, both small and large. An obvious one is lack of truthfulness or outright lying. Similarly, when one mate attempts to hide habits, activities, or even private addictions from the other, it’s a cause for distrust. Mates should be able to trust each other with their deepest secrets in total confidence.
IF DISTRUST EXISTS IN YOUR MARRIAGE, BEGIN NOW TO TAKE POSITIVE STEPS TO UNCOVER THE CAUSES AND THEN WORK ON THOSE ISSUES TO REBUILD TRUST.
As Jesus said in Matthew 12:25, a “house divided against itself will not stand” (NKJV). Failure to trust or to earn trust leaves your house divided and in danger of falling. If distrust exists in your marriage, begin now to take positive steps to uncover the causes and then work on those issues to rebuild trust. That may mean either confronting your mate or digging painfully into your own soul to determine what you are doing to cause distrust. In either case, it means taking responsibility to correct the issue and rebuild trust.
Rebuilding Your Marriage on Trust
In the last years of the nineteenth century, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was a traveling show that provided all the excitement and thrills of the modern-day Cirque du Soleil. One of its most popular events was the petite sharpshooter Annie Oakley. She could aim her rifle and hit a playing card edgewise from a distance of ninety feet.
Buffalo Bill took Annie to Europe with his show in the summer of 1897. At one performance Annie completed a series of spectacular shots and then called for a volunteer from the audience to hold a lit cigarette in his mouth while she shot the ashes off the end of it. To the surprise of everyone, who should volunteer but the German prince, Wilhelm II. The shot was successful with no harmful effects—other than the need for the prince to relight his cigarette.5
Obviously Wilhelm trusted Annie Oakley’s shooting ability. It was not blind trust, because in watching her show he had seen her perform every shot successfully. Based on this evidence, he trusted her so completely that he was willing to put his life in her hands, at least for that one shot.
The expertise of people like Annie Oakley amazes me, but I’m not sure I could muster up the kind of trust required to put my life in her hands. (Okay, I’m sure I could not muster up that kind of trust.) Yet when it came to marriage, I did muster it up. I trusted my well-being, my life, and a major part of my happiness to my wife. And amazingly, she did the same with me. On that day when the minister stood before us and asked if she would love and honor and give herself to me from that moment until the day death separates us, she placed enormous trust in me. She trusted me to love her, protect her, support her, and treat her honorably and respectfully.
The trust my wife and I have for each other is not blind trust. Just as Wilhelm II trusted Annie Oakley because he had witnessed her sharpshooting accuracy, my wife and I trust each other because we have seen trustworthiness demonstrated in each other. If, when we were dating, I had failed to show up for dates or arrived consistently late or made promises I didn’t keep, she would rightly have been reluctant to trust me. Or if after our relationship became serious I had flirted with or ogled other women, she would have known I was untrustworthy and severed the relationship.
There is another reason we have built trust in each other. Misty and I both brought children into this marriage from previous marriages. We knew that blended and blessed families are rare. So before we married, we agreed to give each other a lot of grace over our past and to extend a lot of grace toward each other’s children. When she saw me earn the respect of her boys rather than demand it, it built her trust in me. When I saw her make allowances for my child that met her unique needs, I knew I could trust her. Both of us acted consistently with our promises.
You have heard that love is blind, but it shouldn’t be. If you find yourself in danger of falling in love with someone who breaches your trust, you had better open your eyes, see the handwriting on the wall, and break off the relationship before trapping yourself for a lifetime. The breaches of trust that you see before marriage will not suddenly change just because you say “I do.”
Couples build trust by being trustworthy. Yet even when a potential mate has proven trustworthy, plunging into marriage still involves risk. There’s no way around it; in this fallen world, trust involves risk.
Your potential partner may pass every reasonable test of trust, but in the uncharted seas of marriage you will encounter unanticipated shoals and currents that can cause trust to founder. The joys of marriage make the risk worthwhile, however. The best marriages are those in which each spouse takes care to build trust and then acts to preserve trust and repair it when it is breached.
Build Trust by Guarding Your Relationship
As I have already noted, a spouse’s relationships with members of the opposite sex can raise trust issues in a marriage. Many people today work in offices that place them in regular contact with members of the other sex. Friendships may develop in meetings or when working in adjacent cubicles or on mutual projects. In a marriage where the bond is strong and trust prevails, these harmless opposite-sex friendships usually raise no cause for alarm. But situations can arise that threaten trust and lead to suspicion or jealousy, as the following story shows.
As head of the art department for a major book publisher, Derek and the company production manager often flew to printing plants to check the color accuracy of projects on the press. The trips usually took three or four days. When the publisher hired a woman as the new production manager, Derek told his wife, Amy, that the two of them would be scheduled to take these trips together.
Even though Amy knew Derek was a strong Christian and had always been a faithful husband, the situation bothered her for several reasons: First, she felt that a man and woman taking repeated trips together for three or four days, sharing flights, meals, work, and even staying in the same hotel could create undue temptation, even for morally upright people. And she was absolutely right. Even the strongest Christian should never allow such an arrangement. Second, even if nothing immoral occurred, the trips could cause ugly rumors, damaging Derek’s reputation. Third, although she trusted Derek, she did not know whether the woman was morally trustworthy.
Derek’s response to Amy’s concerns could either strengthen or damage her trust in him. He could have been affronted by Amy’s reaction. He could have insisted that her concerns indicated a lack of trust in him. After all, he had proved his commitment and faithfulness through two decades of marriage. He could have asserted that it was all in her head—her problem, not his.
But that is not what Derek did. He put himself in Amy’s shoes and made the right choice—the smart choice. What if she was the one flying on four-day trips with a man? He trusted Amy, but he wouldn’t like it. Looking at the situation from her point of view made him see that such an arrangement was loaded with danger. So he understood Amy’s concerns. He also knew that even committed Christians with strong moral integrity are not immune to temptation. He remembered Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 10:12: “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (NIV).
Derek candidly expressed his concern to his vice president and convinced him that two people were not needed to check printing on the press. The woman’s business with the printer was solely bids and pricing, and that could be done on separate trips. The VP agreed and the problem was solved.
But what if the VP had ruled the other way and insisted that the two travel together? Derek had already determined what he would do: he had promised Amy beforehand that in such a case, he would ask for reassignment or resign. To Derek and Amy, maintaining trust in their marriage was more important than his career. But beyond trust, Derek was ensuring that his sexual integrity and deep connection would remain intact.
One of the best ways for people of integrity to protect trust in their marriage is to set rules and guidelines, as Derek did, that will help them avoid any appearance of wrongdoing. Wise pastors and other counselors usually observe certain protective rules. Some pastors, for example, will counsel women only when other people are in the building, and they will not close their office door while the counseling is in session. Doctors, who must at times see and touch the opposite sex in intimate places, have guidelines that require the presence of another medical professional, usually a nurse, in the examining room. I encourage married people not to dine one-on-one with the opposite sex or ride with them in a vehicle without a third passenger.
YOUR WILLINGNESS TO TAKE FIRM STEPS TO MAINTAIN TRUST SPEAKS VOLUMES, MAKING YOUR MATE FEEL HIGHLY VALUED AND PROTECTED.
Some of these rules may seem overly puritanical in today’s social climate. But at times Christians must ignore popular opinion and swim against the current in order to show they are serious about purity, marital fidelity, and especially the feelings of their mates. Even if your peers scorn such guidelines, you can be sure your spouse will appreciate them. It’s a way of earning and maintaining trust. Your willingness to take firm steps to maintain trust speaks volumes, making your mate feel highly valued and protected.
Banish Suspicion and Jealousy by Earning Trust
“One of the most wonderful gifts of a loving marriage is the ability to trust your mate,” writes John Townsend.6 He goes on to describe some of the characteristics of trust. It means you and your mate are the same person on the inside as on the outside. Trust means both of you have the best interests of the other at heart. Both keep your promises. Both are open and transparent with each other. These attributes create an atmosphere of safety and security, and they promote a deeper capacity to love because they enhance the clarity and security priorities in the relationship.
I really like what Dr. Townsend says next: “One of the Old Testament words for trust (batach) has a meaning of ‘careless.’ Think about it: When you trust your spouse, you feel so safe that you are careless—or free of con-cern—with him or her. You don’t have to hide who you are or to be self-pro-tective.”7 Of course, Dr. Townsend isn’t speaking of carelessness in the way we generally use it, which means being irresponsible. He means “care-less” as in without a need to take undue care and caution around your mate. You don’t have to be wary or defensive. It means being free of any fear that would cause you to hold back from the other any part of yourself. When your trust is “care-less,” you give yourself to your mate with total abandon and produce a deep serenity in the marriage.
That kind of “care-less” oneness doesn’t just happen; it has to be earned. It has to be built layer by layer into the relationship. It starts while you are courting, but it must continue throughout the entire marriage. It is the key element of marital clarity and security.
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Won’t Stop Drowning in Suspicion and Jealousy
• Determine to be the most predictable spouse on the planet.
• Inform your spouse of any change of plans.
• Make all sources of communication and connection open for your spouse’s review.
• Eradicate any secrecy from your behavior.
• Point out all you have done to reassure your spouse of your trustworthiness and ask him or her to get some help in dealing with the insecurities that remain. Be willing to go to counseling with your spouse.
• If the jealousy or suspicion is a result of recent betrayal, do not expect trust to be regained quickly. Give your spouse time, and understand his or her need to know where you are and who you are with at any time until trust can be reestablished.
• Continue to reassure your spouse of your love in as many ways as possible.
STOP TRYING
TO CHANGE YOUR MATE
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/4
Ever try to fix a broken lawn mower with a waffle iron? A foolish thought, isn’t it? The waffle iron is a fabulous tool when it comes to making waffles. But try to use it for lawn mower repair, and it quickly becomes evident it is the wrong tool. Screwdrivers and box wrenches are much better, though they can’t make a waffle worth pouring syrup over. A tool that works well at one thing would be an absolute disaster at something else. You are like a waffle iron. You are an amazing tool for creating a lot of wonderful things in this world. But when it comes to fixing your spouse, you are the wrong tool. You can’t do it. So it is time to stop trying.
Vivian loved Robert, but in public she was ashamed of him. They had met and married when she was in college. He didn’t go to college, but he owned and ran a farm supply franchise and did quite well at it.
Vivian was now a professor and had published a couple of reasonably successful books. She was often invited to dinners and receptions, and on these occasions she found herself embarrassed by her husband’s unsophisticated conversation. Neither his vocabulary nor his clothing was quite up to the level of her academic peers.
So, like Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Vivian undertook the task of remaking her blue-collar husband into a refined gentleman. She began to correct his grammar and his mispronounced words. She also began to suggest the kinds of clothing he should buy, and she let him know when any of his present clothing seemed a little too redneckish.
Naturally, the continued criticism of his speech and dress irritated Robert, and he told her so. “I’m just trying to help you,” Vivian explained. “I’m offering a little constructive criticism.”
Robert understood what was going on: his wife disapproved of him, and he resented it. When he resisted her makeover attempt, Vivian stopped asking him to accompany her to dinners and receptions. She could not accept him for the simple, working guy he was.
I have seen it happen many times. A woman envisions her husband as a reconstruction project. She sees him as raw material for her expert shaping. She makes it her calling to clean him up, chip away at his flaws, point him in a new direction, inject a dose of ambition, and reshape him into her ideal of what a husband should be.
Someone has said that a man marries a woman hoping she won’t change, but she does. A woman marries a man hoping he will change, but he doesn’t. The obvious solution in the face of these disappointments is to put your spouse on the anvil and beat him into shape. And it’s not just a woman thing; both sexes are guilty of trying to change their mates. Husbands often attempt a similar transformation with their wives, trying to remake her into a Stepford wife or an avid sports fan or a fireball in the bedroom.
MAKEOVERS MAY WORK WONDERFULLY ON TV PROGRAMS, BUT NOT IN MARRIAGES.
Makeovers may work wonderfully on TV programs, but not in marriages. If you are trying to correct flaws in your husband or wife, you need to stop. Trying to change your mate will put distance between the two of you. The person you married came gift wrapped as a total package of mixed attributes. You knew much about what was in that package before you married, and on the whole, you liked what you knew or you wouldn’t have married. No doubt you knew the package contained a few things that didn’t quite fit your tastes. But hopefully you came into the marriage prepared to accept those things instead of fixing them.
Of course, after you married, you found other less-than-attractive attributes you had not suspected. Most of these were well hidden before the wedding, so you may think you have a right to tackle anything you disapprove of and do something about it, right?
Wrong. You have no right—and really no power—to change that package. You didn’t marry a lump of clay that is yours to mold into whatever shape pleases you. You committed to the package as is. Your responsibility—and the only way to make any marriage work—is to learn to live with your spouse and be happy. In this fallen world it is impossible to find a mate without flaws. And it is impossible for all our flaws to be eradicated in a lifetime. If you expect to have a spouse, you must prepare yourself to live with an imperfect one.
Please understand that when I speak of accepting flaws, I do not include abusive, adulterous, or abandonment situations. I would never encourage anyone to endure abuse or betrayal rather than get help when the spouse has crossed a destructive line. (I’ll have more to say about this later.)
Who wants to spend a lifetime with a person who constantly corrects, criticizes, or judges you? You naturally prefer to be with someone who appreciates you for who you are and enjoys you without disapproval.
Putting Up with Your Mate’s Annoying Behaviors
You may wonder about all I’ve said so far. “What am I supposed to do when my mate’s behavior is annoying or repelling? Am I supposed to just let it go and ignore it?”
It all depends on the fault or the behavior. Most of your mate’s flaws and weaknesses are not likely to be deep enough to warrant a change. These attributes may be annoying or unattractive, but you need to adjust to them and love your mate anyway. One helpful way to accept those flaws is to remind yourself that you would rather have this person in your life with the flaw than not to have him or her at all. This is a lesson Teresa learned—almost the hard way.
Teresa married Roy, a construction worker who handled all kinds of building materials and heavy tools. As a result, his hands were rough and calloused. In their lovemaking she could hardly stand the feel of his coarse hands moving across her skin like sandpaper. She nagged him continually to use lotion on his hands and wear gloves at work. But nothing worked. In time Roy’s hands and Teresa’s complaints took their toll, and the frequency of their lovemaking dropped to almost zero.
Then one day the news reported a serious accident at the construction site where Roy worked. Several men had been killed. Trembling with fear, Teresa called his boss’s cell phone and learned that Roy was among the missing. Please, God, don’t let it be Roy—please! After an hour of praying in utter agony, she got news that Roy had been taken to the hospital and released. He was okay.
That evening when he came in the door, Teresa threw her arms around his neck and showered him with kisses like never before. Then she took his calloused hands and kissed them tenderly. In bed that night she urged those hands to roam over her body anywhere they pleased. She never again complained, for to her the feel of Roy’s sandpaper hands had become a touch of heaven.
Avoid Becoming the “Fixer”
We tend to take our wedding vows too lightly. When you married you stood at the altar, not the alter. When you promised to take the person beside you “for better or for worse,” you made a solemn vow before God. You took on your partner’s flaws, weaknesses, irritations, and all. Now your duty is to live up to your promise—not reluctantly with distaste or disapproval, but with full acceptance of the person you married for what he or she is.
When one mate assumes the right to fix the other, the result is ineffective at best and usually creates distance. Marriage is a bonding of equals. When one assumes the right to fix the other, the mutuality of the relationship goes out of balance and the marriage wobbles on its axis. The “fixer” assumes a superior position over the “fixee.” The fixer becomes the judge and the fixee becomes the accused.
This imbalance generates negative emotions in both partners. The spouse on the receiving end of the fix feels resentment, rejection, and probably a sense of inadequacy. The spouse administering the fix exudes a sense of disapproval, and when the other mate resists the fix, that disapproval can expand into a grudge—an embedded offense that poisons every interaction between them.
The Poison of Criticism and Judgment
Most attempts at fixing a mate involve a program of criticism and judging—actions that build resistance and resentment. Criticism is the opposite of acceptance, which is why it has no place in your marriage. “Constructive” criticism is no better; it’s nothing more than the same old criticism with a smile. Criticism of any kind is the opposite of acceptance, and its continued use destroys intimacy and builds walls.
And don’t try to camouflage your criticism as advice. Unsolicited advice comes from the same bag of unworkable tricks as criticism.
The other negative element involved in trying to change your mate is judging. In a mutual relationship based on equality, how can one partner assume the position of judge over the other? What right has one partner to decide which standard should be used to determine whether a behavior is unacceptable and should be changed?
Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not advocating the postmodern idea that there are no standards of right and wrong except those we choose personally for ourselves. To the contrary, I strongly believe that right and wrong are firmly fixed absolutes that apply universally to everyone. My point is that in a marriage, one partner cannot assume the right to interpret and enforce what behaviors fall below that absolute standard. I am merely saying that one partner cannot be objective enough to be the judge and enforcer of the rules.
If at the end of a criminal trial, the prosecuting attorney went up to the bench, dumped the judge from his chair, picked up the gavel, and rendered a verdict of guilty, you might expect the defense attorney to object. A participant in the trial cannot also be the judge. You might suspect his judgment to be biased. None of us judges our own situation objectively.
A judgmental spouse also impairs a marriage in another way. Judging tends to expand from the particular to the general. Rather than limiting condemnation to a single, isolated flaw, judging makes a blanket assumption about the whole person based on that one flaw. Here’s an example: Though both spouses go to work every day, the husband doesn’t help the wife in the kitchen when they get home in the evenings. She nags him about failing to help her with the dinner dishes, crying, “I can’t believe you’re so lazy!” Rather than making a simple observation about one aspect of his behavior, she expands it into an indictment of his whole character.
TRYING TO FIX A MATE WITH CRITICISM AND JUDGING IS LIKE TRYING TO ALTER A SUIT WITH HAMMER AND NAILS.
Trying to fix a mate with criticism and judging is like trying to alter a suit with hammer and nails.
What About More Serious Flaws?
When I urge you to stop trying to change your mate, I am speaking mainly of minor idiosyncrasies, which, as I said previously, should be taken with grace along with the good points. But I fully realize that some faults are worse than merely annoying or distasteful. Some spousal behavior may threaten your marriage. Maybe she can’t stay within the budget and runs up the credit card bill. Maybe he makes major purchases without consulting her. Maybe one has a compulsion or addiction. Problems such as these need to be addressed, and fixing them is imperative.
So how do you get your mate to make the needed change without becoming his or her fixer? Let’s look at some ways.
When addressing spousal behaviors that must be changed, it is always more effective to focus the conversation on “we” instead of “you.” Make it clear that you are not trying to come down hard or be accusative. Your primary interest is in improving or saving the marriage relationship while increasing your times of connection and deepening your level of intimacy.
Motivating Your Spouse toward a Positive Solution
Usually, the best way to get your mate to change a problem behavior is to make the benefit of the change apparent. By using a little creativity you can assess the problem and find a way to motivate your spouse positively instead of resorting to the negative, ineffective habits of nagging, criticizing, judging, or complaining.
One woman I knew used motivation effectively to achieve a needed change in her husband. He was a nice enough guy, but he followed his father’s example in spousal roles. To him it seemed natural that when the meal was over the man was free to watch the news while the woman cleaned up the mess from dinner. His thoughtless behavior aggravated his wife, but she held it in and let it fester. Finally she could no longer stand the personal insult she felt from having to both cook and clean up while he did nothing. So she came up with a creative approach that worked.
Before I tell you what she did, let’s look at a few other options she could have tried—all viable, and none that resorted to nagging or criticizing.
1. She could have stopped preparing dinner, instead making reservations at a restaurant seven nights a week so there were no dishes to clean up. When he asked why, she could explain that she is too tired in the evenings to prepare the meals and clean the dishes. She thought eating out would solve the problem.
2. She could have begun serving dinners on cheap paper plates, cups, and plasticware. When her husband asked why they were not using their own dishes, she could explain that it saves her time and energy that she does not have in the evenings.
3. Rather than go out for dinner she could have picked it up on the way home or had it delivered, using the restaurant’s to-go plates and plasticware.
4. She could continue to fix dinner at home but allow the dishes to pile up in the sink. When he finally commented, she could explain that she is finding the double burden of cooking and cleaning up exhausting. Then she could ask him if he would help her with the pile.
5. She could politely ask him to help her clean the kitchen after dinner.
None of these options is bad. Each calls attention to the problem with no criticism involved. But as it happens, this creative woman chose another solution. All she did was to make a simple request with a huge motivating bonus attached to it.
After dinner he sat in his recliner as usual, flipped on the news, and left her standing at the kitchen sink. She walked into the living room and told him that she had been missing him and wanted more intimate time with him. What would he think of watching the news together while they both cleaned up the kitchen? That way they could get to their intimate time in the bedroom as soon as possible.
In your case this solution might not work. You know your spouse, and one of the other options above might be more effective. But in this woman’s case the motivation worked very well, and now there is less work for her in the kitchen and more pleasure for both of them in the bedroom.
There is one, staggering truth that may do more than anything to motivate change in a mate: if you can provide that person with unconditional love, if you can look beyond the surface behavior into the wounded heart where the behavior was born and totally accept that person in his or her brokenness, you have a far greater chance of seeing change than if you demand it. It seems that acceptance frees the person to give up some of his or her territory or rights. Your unconditional love and acceptance increases the like-lihood that your mate will address the offending behavior and attempt to correct it. Rather than pray for God to change your spouse, pray that God would give you the supernatural ability to be more accepting of your spouse. A heart of acceptance is going to be much more enjoyable for you to possess than one that is critical and judgmental.
Looking at Yourself
Some clients have told me that their solution is to ask God to change the other person. I firmly believe in the power of prayer, and fervent prayer for one’s mate is commendable. I recommend that you do it regularly. But as a solution to changing those things you don’t like about your mate, it can be a flawed strategy. It can be more a prayer for self than for the mate, because it reveals your inability to accept reality and a resistance to loving unconditionally in spite of imperfections. Furthermore, it often reveals the praying person’s resistance to self-assessment and failure to address his or her possible need to be the one who makes changes. The prayer can boil down to saying, “God, make her change,” or “God make him change—not me.”
The truth is that neither partner in any marriage is free from defects. If you find yourself disappointed in or disapproving of your mate, whether it’s the morning after your wedding night or seven years into the marriage, it’s likely that your mate is feeling the same buyer’s remorse.
Changes in behavior may be needed to improve or stabilize the marriage. But those changes almost certainly need to happen in both partners. You should not set out to change your mate without looking first in the mirror. No one who marries has the right to stay the same while expecting their partner to change. This means two things are needed: First, you and your mate must let go of your marriage fantasy, as described in chapter 1—and the sooner, the better. Second, both of you should put yourselves in the shoes of the other and realize that the disappointment or disapproval you are feeling is inevitably reciprocated. What faults do you need to address that may be frustrating your mate?
It’s important to accept the fact right now that some of the things that bother you about your mate will never change. In fact, most will not change. These irritations or disappointments need not ruin your happiness or your love for each other. But rather than sulk over having to live with those defects, rather than trying to keep your resentment and bitterness at bay, joining a support system such as a Bible study or counseling group will help you find contentment to override your disapproval.
In making this adjustment to our mate’s weaknesses, we get help from Scripture. The apostle Paul suffered from some kind of embarrassing or debilitating weakness, which he called his “thorn in the flesh.” Three times he prayed for God to remove the affliction, but God did not do it. Instead he told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV).
SOMETIMES GOD DOES NOT REMOVE THE BURDEN FROM US. INSTEAD HE DOES FOR US WHAT HE DID FOR PAUL: HE GIVES US THE GRACE AND STRENGTH TO BEAR IT.
Sometimes God does not remove the burden from us. Instead he does for us what he did for Paul: he gives us the grace and strength to bear it. He does this because he knows that exercising patience, forbearance, and acceptance toward our mate makes us stronger, and more Christlike, and deepens our maturity. It also increases our humility to know that our own weaknesses and irritating behaviors must be borne by the other.
Once married couples commit to accept each other’s flaws and irritating habits, they discover something unexpected but vital: acceptance does not change your mate. Loving the person in marriage does not necessarily cause him or her to become tidy or punctual or financially responsible or caring and attentive or appropriate in their interactions with others. But acceptance does change you, enabling you to love your mate in spite of the flaws.
Be aware of this reality, because you are going to run headlong into it. If you are not yet married, be aware that once the knot is tied the person you love today is still going to have the same problems you see now, plus a number of other issues you don’t yet see. With those realizations, a healthy, strong marriage can be forged that will withstand any flaws or weaknesses in you and your mate.
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Won’t Stop Trying to Change You
• Examine yourself and see if there are habits or behaviors that need some work.
• Change the things that you can and get help for changing the things you can’t.
• Evaluate whether attempts to change you in one area could be a result of some unmet needs in another area that you could fulfill.
• Take more time for personal connection with your spouse that will foster more of an attitude of partnership and acceptance.
• Communicate a willingness to grow personally and to grow closer to your spouse.
• Express honestly how you feel when your spouse makes attempts to change you.
• Since attempts to change you may be a diversion from changing self, show mercy and grace for your mate’s flaws, minimizing the need to make you look bad so your spouse can feel better about him or herself.
STOP SEETHING
IN ANGER AND RESENTMENT
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/5
Just about everyone I know loves the digitally animated movie Toy Story and its sequels. In these movies, children’s toys come alive and interact with each other when their owners are not there to play with them.
You may assume the credit for this idea should go to some creative genius in the Pixar organization. However, the idea of toys coming to life after hours is older than your grandmother’s hat. In the late nineteenth century, Eugene Field wrote “The Duel,” a poem for children about two stuffed animals, a gingham dog and a calico cat. At night these toys came alive. The stuffed dog and cat did not get along, and as the night began they were extremely angry at each other. They began to fight, and the poem describes the battle as something frightful, with tatters of cloth and stuffing flying all over the place. But when morning came no trace of either animal could be found. Field ends the poem by explaining the mystery:
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up!
The poem may be fanciful, but its central idea is not. Anger can eat people up. In a marriage it can consume both partners and destroy the marriage, even one that has lasted several years.
Everyone experiences anger. Even Jesus was angry when he drove out the money changers preying on worshippers in the Jerusalem temple (John 2:13–17). So it’s obvious that anger itself is not wrong. Perhaps a better way of saying it is that not all kinds of anger are wrong. Anger directed at a just and unselfish cause or to prevent evil and defend others—which is what Jesus was doing—is not wrong. When you are the victim of evil and abuse, the anger you feel toward this evil is, of itself, justified. But what you do with that anger may be another story. There are right ways and wrong ways to deal with anger. As the apostle Paul said, “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26 NIV).
By far most of the anger we see today is not benign. It is toxic and does significant harm. This is especially true in marriage, because anger drives a wedge into the closest and most intimate relationship on earth, causing damage to our marriages and to our souls.
Most people don’t realize that anger also damages our physical health. Anger raises blood pressure, impairs the immune system, and increases the likelihood of arterial and heart problems. It greatly increases the risk of depression, even in the spouse who is not angry. Someone has said that anger is like a snake bite: it’s not the bite itself that does the harm; it’s the toxins the bite puts into your system. Anger injects toxins into the marriage that can eat away at the relationship until there is nothing left. The marriage partners can eat each other up.
Now I am about to say something that you may not like. I’m going to be blunt here and not pull any punches: most of your anger is self-centered. You get angry because you want the world around you to be ordered in a certain way, and when you can’t have it that way, you do what an undisciplined child does: you throw a tantrum, pout, or start planning revenge. It’s all about you, your entitlement, and what you want right now. You have built a walled castle around yourself with a sign on the ramparts reading, Don’t Tread on Me. Don’t violate my space. Don’t mess with my domain. Anger comes from having your expectations dashed, your standards violated, your wants unmet, or your desires frustrated. Your little castle of self is not to be breached.
I know that’s not a pretty picture. It makes the angry person seem childish and spoiled. I understand that, because I, too, am guilty of building such a castle. When I look at my anger, I don’t like what I see any more than you like what I’ve written here. But the truth is, we all build those castles, and every one of us experiences anger. No one is immune.
Even ministers who preach against anger get angry. I once attended a conference with a respected pastor and his wife. One evening as the three of us were visiting, the two of them got into an argument. As the argument got louder and more intense, I started to walk away, fearing I would get blistered by the heat. But instead they got up, went into their cabin, and continued their discussion. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could certainly hear their anger. After a short while they resolved the issue amicably and came out smiling with their arms around each other.
THERE ARE WAYS TO BE ANGRY AND YET KEEP ANGER FROM CONTROLLING YOUR LIFE AND RUINING YOUR RELATIONSHIPS.
As the experience of this couple shows, there are ways to be angry and yet keep anger from controlling your life and ruining your relationships. In fact, some anger shows that the couple cares enough about their marriage to fight for it.
I used to get angry when I came home to a pile of dishes in the sink. I had an aunt who would let dirty dishes pile up and almost fill her entire kitchen, and it was such an embarrassment. So I brought that bias into the marriage. Well, to make things worse, my wife worked very hard at all sorts of things, but she hated doing the dishes. I did not discover that until a few years into the marriage. Once I found that out, I decided that my anger was kind of silly since I was a grown man fully capable of doing dishes, especially when it meant just rinsing them off and placing them in the dishwasher. What a sacrifice (not!) I had to make for both of us to feel so much better because there were no dishes piling up in the sink. And this small gesture had quite an amazing impact on our relationship in other rooms in the house, especially the bedroom.
Couples who don’t care don’t bother to resolve their conflicts. Most couples, however, would like to resolve them, but they have not been taught the skills for dealing with anger. They don’t understand how it works, how to control it, how to resolve it, or how to keep it from doing damage. So let’s explore how anger works and see what can be done about it in a marriage relationship.
The Varied Shapes of Anger
Anger shows itself in several forms and at different levels, ranging from simple irritation to violence and physical abuse. Let’s look at some of these individually.
IRRITATION
The lowest form of anger, which you would think causes the least damage to the relationship, is irritation. Sandra was not a morning person. When she crawled out of bed she didn’t want to talk or be touched. She was grumpy, snapped at Ben when he accidentally bumped her slightly, and slammed the door just a little too hard when she finally got into the bathroom after he shaved.
Ben had his own source of irritation. Whenever Sandra bought a pre-packaged cabinet or gadget that had to be assembled, he got grumpy and irritable as he tried to read the directions and make the parts fit like the pictures showed. Sandra learned to stay away from Ben until the project was complete.
No one likes the snappishness and back talk of irritation, but most couples roll with the punches and just take it. It’s part of acceptance. But the fact that irritation is accepted doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be dealt with. We need to be aware that this behavior is a form of anger. If Sandra were to ask Ben why he got so mad when he put together a prefabricated item, he would say, “I’m not mad! I’m just frustrated by these instructions. Whoever wrote this obviously never put one of these things together.” Ben has shifted the blame for his actions from himself to some unknown technical writer. But the truth is, his responses are his own fault. How he reacts to circumstance is his responsibility. He is angry because things are not going his way, and he’s got the drawbridge pulled up. The difference between “I wish you’d quit hogging the bathroom!” and outright violent abuse is a difference in degree, not one of kind. Both spring from the self-centered attitude of wanting the world to be like you want it to be. Innocuous as it may seem, irritation needs to be addressed.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “I WISH YOU’D QUIT HOGGING THE BATHROOM!” AND OUTRIGHT VIOLENT ABUSE IS A DIFFERENCE IN DEGREE, NOT ONE OF KIND.
Overcoming irritation may be easier than you think. There’s a simple principle called acting better than you feel. Anyone can act as they feel. That’s natural. It takes no thought or self-control for Ben to give in to frustration and snap at his wife when the pieces don’t fit together. But as Christians we are called to treat each other with love, patience, and kindness. This call is meaningless if you treat the other with love and kindness only when you feel like it. You don’t need a biblical command to do that. The fact that we have such a command means there’s something you need to do differently from the way that comes naturally. It also means it can be done, and you are called to exercise the necessary self-control to do it.
The apostle Paul lists self-control as one of the fruits of the Spirit: “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).
There’s a strange thing about exercising self-control and acting better than you feel. Do it consistently and you will reach the point where you begin to feel as good as you act. Your outward actions can feed back to your inner self and recondition it, dissolving your habit of irritation to the point where you no longer feel irritated.
PASSIVE AGGRESSION
Another form of anger shows itself in a behavior classified under the psychological term passive aggression. Psychiatrist Richard P. Fitzgibbons, director of the Institute for Marital Healing, tells us the passive-aggressive spouse “pretends that he or she is not angry while at the same time acts passively to vent anger in a covert way toward the partner…. The most painful way in which passive-aggressive anger is expressed in the marriages is by withholding love and by refusing to give in a supportive manner…. They are often reluctant to admit that they are expressing resentment through passive behaviors.”1
For an obvious example of passive-aggressive anger, take the case of Tim and Heather in the aftermath of a high-decibel argument over whether to replace their aging sofa. Heather had found one on sale, but Tim insisted they couldn’t afford it. The argument broke off with both partners entrenched firmly in their positions. Now they were giving each other the silent treatment, not talking except when necessary and then only in cold, snippy bites.
The disconnected silence led to passive-aggressive behavior by Heather. She let bills go unpaid. She didn’t clean house. Laundry piled up. She was in bed and asleep before Tim turned in. When Heather went into her passive-aggressive mode, silence was the least of their problems.
The silent treatment is essentially a power struggle. The clammed-up partner is saying, I am right; I refuse to give in, so there’s no use talking about it anymore. It is also a way of punishing the other by withholding warmth and amiability. The silent treatment glaringly reveals the presence of the egocentric “I,” which cannot be crossed without consequences.
Obviously the silent treatment is not good for a marriage, especially if it happens often or lasts for days. It creates barren gaps in the life-giving flow of love that is vital to the relationship.
A similar example of passive aggression is what I call the “Repeated Nothing Syndrome.” As Carl came home and sat down with his wife, Jacqui, to eat dinner, he tried to chat in a friendly manner. But she responded only minimally and with a slight edge in her voice. Carl said, “Honey, something is bothering you. What’s wrong?”
She replied curtly, “Nothing.” But her cold silence continued. Though Carl tried a few more times to uncover the problem, Jacqui kept responding with “Nothing,” until she finally said, “If you don’t know what’s wrong, then there’s no use telling you,” and huffed off to bed.
Now, Carl may indeed have done something wrong. He may have forgotten their anniversary or her birthday or accidentally backed over the petunias she planted along the driveway. Whatever he did, Jacqui’s cold silence is meant to punish him. The problem is that Carl has no idea why he’s being punished, so her silent treatment resolves nothing. It merely drives the wedge of anger between them.
IF PASSIVE AGGRESSION HAS BECOME A PROBLEM IN YOUR MARRIAGE, THE BEST WAY TO RESOLVE IT IS TO RECOGNIZE WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND RESORT TO MORE PRODUCTIVE FORMS OF EXPRESSION.
If passive aggression has become a problem in your marriage, the best way to resolve it is to recognize what you are doing and resort to more productive forms of expression.
Often, however, passive-aggressive people do not follow this advice because they live in denial and refuse to recognize their behavior as passive-aggressive. Their anger, rooted in some unexpressed grievance, has become something they find pleasure in fondling. Even trained psychologists have trouble getting some passive-aggressive people to let go of their secretive anger. That is why this form of anger needs to be nipped in the bud before it spreads and becomes too much a part of the person to be rooted out.
The third form of anger is rage, and it is the most common and troublesome form in most marriages. Rage consists of an explosion of temper, causing the angry partner (or both partners) to raise his or her voice and shout at the other. These tirades tend to escalate, triggering an angry response on the part of the other that expands into an all-out shouting match. Typically in these battles, neither listens to the other, as both are totally immersed in their own viewpoints. Rage often ends with the partners walking away angry and frustrated. In the worst of cases it leads to physical abuse and harm that requires intervention from the legal system. I will discuss the horrific reality of abuse in chapter 6.
Controlling Your Anger
Many people believe they cannot control their anger. But it’s not true: you can. There are effective ways to do it. First, let’s look briefly at a flaw in our thinking about anger that is usually revealed by our own experience. I believe you will see that normal people can and do control their anger.
Paula was easily enraged and quick to explode at her husband, Tony. But she dismissed her prickly nature as “just the way I am” and expected Tony to accept it and not be so easily offended. One Sunday after church she sat in their car in the parking lot waiting for Tony. Most of the cars were gone, but Tony was still on the steps talking with one of the deacons. The church across the street was already out, and soon all the restaurants would be filled.
Finally, Tony began ambling toward the car, still chatting with the deacon. By now Paula was seething with anger. Why can’t he think of me once in a while? When he finally got into the car, Paula unleashed the earthquake of her temper and dressed her husband up one side and down the other. He drove to the restaurant, and when she saw the line of waiting people, she rocked him again with an aftershock. She didn’t speak to him the rest of the afternoon.
The next day, an hour before quitting time, Paula’s supervisor brought in a stack of file folders to process. “I need these back on my desk tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’m on it,” replied Paula, cheerily. But inside she was boiling. He’s had these on his desk all week, and now I have to process them overnight! If I didn’t want that promotion, I’d take this pile in there and throw it back in his face.
Suddenly Paula realized that she was controlling her anger. Yes, she was mad as a cornered rattlesnake, but she kept her anger under control and didn’t strike. In fact, she always controlled her temper at work where kind words kept the boss happy and blowing up could get her fired. She could see that her angry responses were not inevitable; they were a choice. She controlled her anger when the consequences could hurt her, but not when they didn’t.
Then the thought hit her: I should treat my husband even better than I treat my boss. She had proved to herself that she could control her anger, and she resolved to apply personal discipline and the power of God’s Holy Spirit to the problem. In a much shorter time than she anticipated, she quit blowing up at Tony and grew warm and kind, removing a huge obstacle that had long impaired their oneness.
Paula followed the principle of acting better than you feel. The positive feedback she got from her mate’s responses when she exercised self-control began to recondition her mind. The harmony it produced in her marriage dissolved her habit of anger to the point that when things didn’t go her way, she no longer felt the magma boiling in her inner volcano.
Resolve Anger by Resolving the Past
In many cases, simply controlling your anger may not be all that’s needed. When control fails to work, your anger is often more than merely a selfish and automatic response to things not going your way. You may have deeper issues that need to be resolved.
Many who face anger issues turn to anger management programs. But that is not enough. Anger management deals only with the surface problem and leaves the root causes of your anger untouched. Your goal needs to be the eradication of anger itself, which is usually accomplished by facing and resolving some issue in your past. The root causes of anger can be complex. If you are habitually angry at your spouse, it is very likely that you can trace the root of that anger to someone else. The issue at hand may not even be what you’re really angry about.
When Mark arrived home from work, Marilyn came breezing in with a huge smile on her face. “Look at the dress I found on sale today. Do you like it?” She whirled about, allowing the skirt to flare out like an umbrella. A deep scowl darkened Mark’s face. “What in the world makes you think you need another dress? You’ve got more dresses hanging in your closet than Vanna White. Do you think money grows on trees?” He huffed out of the room and hardly spoke to Marilyn the rest of the evening.
Marilyn did not have many dresses. In fact, she seldom bought anything new. Yet Mark exploded all over her every time she bought clothing or spent money on discretionary purchases—the new towels for the bathroom, the shrub and topsoil she bought for the flower bed, and the “unnecessary” pressure cooker she bought for holiday cooking. These tirades came so often that Marilyn began to pull away from him. Finally she told him that she could not go on this way. He had to get over his frequent outbursts of anger, or she was moving out. She didn’t want to move out; she loved Mark and wanted to stay married. But she simply could not live like this. She urged him to get counseling for his anger.
Mark followed Marilyn’s advice, and with the counselor’s help he quickly discovered the source of his anger with Marilyn. It actually had nothing to do with her. When Mark was a little boy, his father had often come home with extravagant purchases—a fishing boat, a new TV, a new car. His mother always hit the ceiling because she paid the family bills and knew the money was not there. She juggled payments and fended off creditors until finally they went bankrupt, losing everything, and his father left. From that time on his family lived in near poverty. Mark never had the clothes or toys or electronic games or money for class trips and the extras his friends had.
It was only a short step to see that Mark’s anger with Marilyn every time she made a discretionary purchase stemmed from the fear that she might plunge them into financial ruin as his father had. His anger with his father was a trigger point for his anger with Marilyn.
Resolving his anger with his father required two actions on Mark’s part. He had to forgive his father and learn to trust Marilyn. He did both. Mark had not seen his father since the day his father left. He had no idea where his father was. But it really did not matter. Forgiving someone does not require tracking him down and having a conversation that might produce more anger. In fact face-to-face forgiveness is sometimes impossible.
But Mark, with the help of a counselor, wrote his father a letter. In that letter he expressed all the anger and disappointment he had felt as a child. He let everything he could think of spill onto the pages. He sobbed as he wrote, and at the end of the letter he forgave his father.
Mark brought that letter into the next counseling session and read it to the counselor, again with tears. Then they went out to the parking lot and burned the letter. With that act Mark was free; the vat of unresolved emotions had been drained.
From that point on when Marilyn made a discretionary purchase, he remembered the trigger point of his anger, stepped back, and reminded himself that Marilyn was nothing like his father. She had never given him any cause to believe her spending was out of control—in fact, the opposite was true—and it was wrong for him to be angry with her over a problem she didn’t have and one he had forgiven his father for having.
Mark’s story makes it sound as if the process of resolving anger is always quick and easy. It seldom is. Angry outbursts become a habit, and habits are hard to break. It takes time and effort. Too many couples, eager to put their problems behind them, expect to resolve long-standing issues quickly and without much effort. It seldom happens quickly, but if the person is open to being taught, anger problems can be fixed. And your marriage is worth doing whatever it takes to make it happen.
Conflict Resolution
Often the big problem with anger in marriage is not that anger sometimes appears, but how the couple handles it when it does. One of the weakest links in most relationships is how conflict is addressed and resolved.
Conflict problems come in two sizes: conflict avoidance and conflict escalation. Either can be the cause of the other. Avoiding conflict allows issues to build to a boiling point, which upgrades them to atomic-level explosions when they come to a head. Conflict escalation, on the other hand, can be such a traumatic experience that it leads couples to avoid facing their issues altogether. The resulting cold war creates an atmosphere of tension that reduces intimacy and builds walls. The solution is not to avoid important differences, but to set ground rules for effective communication when conflict arises. It’s a simple, three-step process.
THE SOLUTION IS NOT TO AVOID IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES, BUT TO SET GROUND RULES FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION WHEN CONFLICT ARISES.
STEP 1: LISTEN
The first rule in effective conflict resolution is to listen carefully to everything your mate is saying—both on the surface and beneath it. Failure to listen is one of the most common causes of miscommunication. As one man told his friend, “My wife says I don’t listen to her. At least, I think that’s what she said.”
To see whether you really listen to your mate, do this two-point check on yourself the next time the two of you attempt to resolve a conflict. First, when your mate begins to speak, do you find yourself getting angry and planning your response even before your mate’s first sentence is complete? Second, do you find yourself interrupting and refuting before your mate completes all he or she intends to say?
These common tendencies indicate that you are not listening. Your castle is closed, the drawbridge is up, and you are notching your arrows for the counterattack. When both partners do this, they might as well be locked in separate rooms for all the good their discussion is doing. Neither is hearing the other.
Observing sound speaker/listener techniques can do much to resolve conflicts effectively. The first rule is that one person—let’s say your spouse—has the floor at a time and holds it without interruption as long as needed to say what she feels.
The spouse should limit what she says to the subject at hand, and it’s important that she avoid being accusative. She should talk about her own thoughts and feelings concerning the controversy and not attack her husband’s point of view or motives. (“Here is why I think we need to buy that new sofa …”) That means using “I” statements instead of “you” statements. “I” statements unite, while “you” statements are interpreted as attacks and create alienation and distance. (“You never seem to notice how ragged and lumpy those cushions are.”) She should avoid name-calling, judgments, criticisms, and all-encompassing assumptions such as “you always” or “you never” statements.
You must remain quiet and listen carefully and respectfully until she finishes. Though you disagree and may be angry yourself, you must not appear bored or show contempt with body language or facial expressions. Disagreement is no excuse for disrespect.
STEP 2: REPEAT YOUR MATE’S POINTS
Before you present your own view of the issue, you must paraphrase what you heard back to your wife to be sure you understood. She listens to your paraphrase without interrupting, and then she either affirms or corrects as needed. To ensure complete understanding, you should limit your paraphrase to a maximum of three sentences at a time before pausing for her affirmation or correction.
STEP 3: REBUTTAL
When your wife agrees that you have understood her correctly, you make your rebuttal to her original statement. As you do this, your positions reverse, and she becomes the listener, making no interruptions until you finish and then paraphrasing your words back to you as you did for her. The two of you continue this process back and forth until you reach some kind of agreement or resolution.2
You may think this procedure seems unnatural. Bingo! That’s the whole point. You already know what happens when you tackle controversy by doing what comes naturally. Having an ordered procedure tends to defuse the powder keg.
The Antidote to Anger
Just as most anger is rooted in self-centeredness, the antidote to anger is humility. That means having the maturity to understand that your own point of view is not the only one in the universe. We all have to get over the idea that we are always right. That person you married, who is so different from you in so many ways, has a point of view as well. Humility says, “I must not assume my point of view is the correct one until I have put myself in the shoes of the other and seriously considered his or her point of view with an open mind, directed by God and Scripture.”
SOME CONFLICT IN MARRIAGE IS INEVITABLE. BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BUILD A WALL OR DESTROY INTIMACY.
Some conflict in marriage is inevitable. But it doesn’t have to build a wall or destroy intimacy if partners manage the process in a way that prevents volatility and hurt. In any kind of conflict or anger between the two of you, it is important to remember the apostle Paul’s admonition, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foot-hold” (Ephesians 4:26–27 NIV). And especially take to heart Ephesians 4:31–32: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
I can’t think of a better verse for a couple to memorize together.
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Won’t Stop Seething in Anger and Resentment
• Evaluate your behavior to determine if there is anything you do to provoke anger in your spouse. Work toward changing those behaviors that seem to be the most upsetting to your spouse.
• Evaluate whether or not your spouse is angry over a lot of little things because of some major thing you have done in the past that has not been resolved.
• Schedule some free time on a regular basis where it is just the two of you with no agenda but to enjoy each other, and during those times steer clear of issues that you know result in angry exchanges between the two of you.
• Seek out a marriage seminar or weekend workshop that could provide some insight into the problem and how to minimize anger in the relationship.
• If there is a serious offense that your spouse is still angry about, be sure you have done all you can to make it right, including some form of restitution that would be appreciated by your spouse.
• If your spouse’s anger ever results in physical violence or the threat of it, take appropriate steps to protect yourself and your children.
• Be sure you are taking the time to connect around God’s truth that always leads toward grace and forgiveness and away from bitterness and anger.
STOP TOLERATING
COMPULS IONS AND
ADDICTIONS
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/6
Buck had been married to Gena for over ten years. Though he was a skilled construction worker and made a good wage, they lived near the poverty line because he gambled away their money and then continued to gamble up fifty thousand dollars of debt. But like so many others with an addiction, gambling was not his only problem. Buck ran around on Gena, drank heavily, smoked, and used pornography. He said he was a Christian, but clearly he had failed to exercise self-discipline to keep his urges under control. And now his life was out of control, putting their marriage in serious peril.
Gena was miserable, but like many women she felt she had little choice but to put up with his destructive behavior. She was paralyzed by thinking she had no options. Her shame stopped her from reaching out to explore what options she did have. She was listening to New Life Live one day and heard us talking about the need to make a bold move to bring hope back into the relationship. We were encouraging another lady to step out of her fear and into the arms of God to do the toughest thing she had ever imagined she could do. Something about listening to that radio show triggered Gena’s courage, so she finally broke through her fears and denial and confronted Buck with the evidence that his life was out of control and insisted that he get help.
Now the relationship between Buck and Gena hangs in the balance, as it does in many thousands of American marriages in which serious addictions create a hell-on-earth for families. What happens at this point—the point of confrontation—is what determines whether the marriage will survive or plunge to its death.
Compulsions and addictions take many forms. We are well aware of many of them because they are so widespread and destructive. These include sexual compulsions, child or spousal abuse, pedophilia, alcoholism, drug addictions, pornography, and gambling addictions. Other compulsions are equally destructive but not so commonly recognized, such as hobbies or career absorption.
What these compulsions and addictions have in common is how they can destroy relationships, especially marriage and family, and the extreme difficulty in overcoming them. A person caught in an addiction essentially loses control of himself. The addiction takes over, and the need for a fix grows so strong that to the victim it seems irresistible. According to some psychologists, a true addiction must have a chemical component—drugs and alcohol are obvious examples. The user’s internal systems come to depend on regular infusions of the substance in order to maintain the body’s chemical equilibrium. Of course, the problem is that while the body becomes dependent on the substance, the substance is also destroying the body and often the mind as well.
Other compulsive behaviors, such as pornography, sexual addiction, and gambling, do not have an obvious chemical component because no external physical substance is being introduced into the body. For this reason, some psychologists do not label these behaviors as true addictions, calling them compulsive behaviors instead. These behaviors, however, function exactly like addictions. The activity triggers a pleasurable mental or emotional high and a corresponding desire to repeat the behavior. And no matter the original source, the mood alteration is a chemical reaction in the brain.
The problem with chemical addictions and compulsions is that in time, the body becomes acclimatized to the substance or activity and demands higher levels in order to achieve the same high. Thus the addiction problem accelerates, requiring ever-increasing substance or stimulation to produce ever-decreasing pleasure.
In this chapter I will show how addictions and compulsions destroy relationships. Then I will give you direction for dealing with them when they arise in your marriage.
The Destructive Nature of Addictions
I have already said quite a bit about accepting and tolerating each other’s flaws and faults. But addictions and compulsions are exceptions. You must not accept just any behavior or condition your addicted mate chooses to impose. Some situations should never be tolerated, even to keep the marriage together. Among these situations are any kind of abuse, chronic alcoholism or drug use, unfaithfulness, and compulsions such as pornography, sexual addiction, or gambling. To tolerate these conditions is not acceptance; it is codependence or enabling.
SOME SITUATIONS SHOULD NEVER BE TOLERATED, EVEN TO KEEP THE MARRIAGE TOGETHER.
Every rational person understands how chemical addictions such as drugs and alcohol destroy the body, the mind, the spirit, and relationships. Other compulsive behaviors, such as gambling, sexual addictions, and pornography are more controversial. Many think porn or lust, for example, is a private thing that hurts no one. But since coauthoring Every Man’s Battle with Fred Stoker,1 I have come to see more vividly than ever how to determine whether pornography is just a private thing that hurts no one. Just ask your spouse. Let your spouse in on your secret of habitual pornography and see if she is hurt. In almost all cases, she is extremely hurt. Most of the time it is as painful as if there had been a physical affair with a person. The destruction is devastating and cannot be denied.
Contrary to the popular image of the typical porn user, pornography is not just a man’s problem. According to Marriage Missions International’s Cindy Wright, women today tend to hide what she calls their “dirty little secret.” She says that “Thirty-four percent of Today’s Christian Woman’s online newsletter [readers] admitted to intentionally going to a website that was pornographic.”2 Note that these are Christian women! This indulging includes both visual images of unclad men and the highly popular genre of erotic novels. Porn for women leads them in the same direction as porn for men—into a fantasized sexual experience isolated from reality and often accompanied by masturbation.
Bob and Lisa were both Christians. When they married, disaster was lurking in their relationship in the form of Bob’s sexual addiction. He would never have called it an addiction; he thought his craving for sex would take care of itself once he was married and had a regular sexual outlet. But when he married Lisa, eating the wedding cake did not produce a magical transformation. The problem persisted. He had fallen for the old bifurcation myth that a person can lust and use women or porn for sexual gratification before marriage, and then once married all of those urges and desires will simply evaporate. As Bob learned, it does not happen that way.
On their honeymoon in southern France, of all places, Bob and Lisa went to a beach where many of the women were topless. When Bob booked the trip, he had convinced himself that being on that beach with his wife, the nudity would not tempt him. But you have to wonder about his reasons for choosing that particular place. On their first day he was able to keep his eyes off the women and focus on his bride. But by day two he was leering, lusting, and returning to the hotel room for repeated moments of self-gratification.
For the rest of the week Bob did better. Throughout the honeymoon and for a while afterward his lust eased somewhat. It was more contained, and he considered this to be progress. Sure, he still ogled. He still sneaked peeks at porn, but not as often as before. He congratulated himself that he was now much better than he used to be and much better than other men he knew. Surely God was pleased with him.
Bob’s better behavior didn’t last. His sexual addiction had merely retreated while his marriage to Lisa was fresh. But with the new wearing off and the ugly foot beginning to appear, Bob began to miss the excitement of new sexual encounters. This led to more overt lusting, more time viewing porn, and finally to his getting caught in liaisons with other women and divorce from Lisa.
Let’s explore Bob’s standard of moral conduct and see how it led to his downfall. It’s one that is common among Christians today. It could be called the “better than” standard of morality, and I regret to say that it is largely the standard by which God’s people now live. The “better than” standard is based on what others do or on what I used to do. If I am doing better than others, then I must be doing pretty well. If I am doing better than I used to do, then I must be close enough to God’s requirement for sexual morality, sexual integrity, and sexual purity that he feels pretty good about me.
But this is not how God sees it. We completely miss the mark of what God wants for us as long as we measure our behavior by the world’s standard of “better than.” It is nowhere close to God’s standard. He requires a standard that far exceeds the “better than” values of the world.
The apostle Paul clarifies God’s absolute standard in Ephesians 5:3: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (NIV). Not even a hint. That means none, nada, nothing, no trace. And it certainly means “better than” won’t cut it. When a man looks at another woman with lustful eyes, the hint of sexual immorality is present. When a woman ogles a man, admiring his face and form and comparing him to her husband, the hint of sexual immorality is present. The hint comes from the heart and blocks the possibility for true and deep intimacy, including sexual intimacy and a solid bond of oneness.
The same principle is true for other addictions. The compulsive gambler must not excuse himself, saying, “At least I don’t gamble as much as others I know.” Or even, “Yes, I do drugs, but only marijuana. I wouldn’t touch the hard drugs like some of those crackheads on skid row.” Excuses such as these don’t wash for two reasons: First, they do not work. A person who continues his addiction because it’s not as bad as others is on a slippery slope. If it’s not bad now, it will soon become so unless measures are taken to stop the behavior entirely. The nature of addiction is always to increase, never to remain at an innocuous level.
Second, in God’s eyes, there is no comparative standard. His absolute standard is purity and holiness. Addictions and compulsions must be dealt with. They cannot be tolerated. And every one of the situations or rationalizations mentioned above is an indication that a person is moving away from recovery and transformation rather than toward it.
Dealing with the Fear Factor
In spite of the pain and dysfunction that addictions inflict on relationships, some married people choose to tolerate the addiction rather than deal with it. They choose to submit to circumstance and accept their spouse’s addiction rather than disrupt their home or jeopardize their security. Their problem is fear, which is in my experience the number-one driving force behind women’s acceptance of their husbands’ destructive behavior.
Fear was Betty’s problem. Her husband was unfaithful, and when she discovered the affair she forgave him without requiring him to get help or counseling. He promised to stop the relationship, and that was good enough for her. She did not follow President Reagan’s sound rule of “trust but verify.” Later she admitted that she had forgiven him so quickly out of fear that he would leave her. But he did not end the relationship; he just hid it better.
Six years later with no warning, Betty’s husband filed for divorce and left her for the other woman. To add insult to injury, he sued for custody of their two teenage children. Betty was devastated, but she mustered up the courage to find an attorney to protect her rights.
Fourteen months later, on the week before the final divorce hearing, Betty started giving signals to her attorney that she was uneasy about continuing the process. On the day before the hearing she told her lawyer she wanted to give up and just let her husband have everything he wanted. Of course, her impulsive and irrational decision was driven by fear. She did not want to go into that courtroom. It was unfamiliar and intimidating, and he would be there. She just wanted it all to be over so she could climb back into her cocoon of false security.
In the meantime, she did muster up enough courage to call our New Life Live radio show. We helped her see what was driving her decision and how unfortunate giving up would be, not only for her own future but for her children’s as well. We encouraged her to act in the best interests of her family in spite of her feelings, and then we would help her with her fear problem after the dust had settled. She took our advice and instructed her attorney to fight for what was rightfully hers. By overcoming her fear, she got an excellent settlement and retained custody of her kids.
Some women tolerate addictions because they fear for their financial security. One woman called New Life Live and explained why she had to submit to her husband’s serial adultery. “I’m miserable putting up with this,” she said, “but I can’t confront my husband about it because I have no options. I can’t risk a breakup because I have no place to go and no way to support myself. So I’m stuck living with an unfaithful spouse.” Like Betty, her problem was fear. But unlike Betty, she refused to face her fear and overcome it. She thought she had no choice but to accept her husband’s destructive behavior.
Even in situations like this, women do have choices, as another caller effectively demonstrated. Her husband was an alcoholic who refused to do anything about his drinking. “It’s the way I was before we married,” he told her, “and I don’t see any need to change.” She found this answer unacceptable, so she took decisive steps. She went back to school and, though it took three years, got her graduate degree in counseling so she could support herself. When her husband realized what she was doing and why, he took the necessary steps to turn his life around. Sometimes all it takes is for the addicted spouse to realize the consequences of his or her behavior.
Women trapped in untenable situations have other options as well. If she can’t go back to school or if children are involved, she can go online or to the local library and look up legal aid sources in the city or county. She can find agencies that provide monetary support during separation from her husband. She can check into women’s shelters, some of which also provide legal aid. She can locate and attend an Al-Anon group for codependency. She can develop church-related friendships to find people who can help her with other options. Taking steps toward such radical changes may seem daunting, but it is far better than remaining submissive to the situation and enabling the destructive behavior to continue until it destroys both your spouse and yourself.
Dealing with the Addiction
It might seem that bending over backward to keep peace in a home with an addicted spouse would be a positive action instead of a negative one. But this is not the case. The attempt to keep peace can actually be a home wrecker because sometimes it’s necessary to disturb the peace in order to achieve peace. Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the peacekeepers.” He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9 NIV). If there is no peace in the home, you must make peace before you can keep it.
Some marriage partners become enablers because they think their addiction-impaired mate really needs their help and support to live day-to-day with the effects of the addiction. They cannot stand the thought of hurting their spouse. But this desire not to hurt the other, though it springs from a good heart, is misdirected. The spouse is enabling the evil to continue—and in nearly every case, to worsen. Though it sounds like an oxymoron, not all hurt is harmful. Surgery to remove a cancer causes pain, but it’s a lifesaver. Inflicting pain on a spouse in order to address a harmful behavior can be a lifesaver for the marriage.
People with addicted mates should muster up the courage to make a bold move and disturb the peace by refusing to accept their mate’s destructive behavior. Some who have tried everything else go as far as to tell them, “Either you get professional help for this problem or I’m going to leave you.” This last-resort ultimatum is not intended to result in divorce (though sometimes it must), but to help the other see the reality of the situation and its consequences and to motivate him or her to change.
If you are married to a mate with destructive or addictive behavior, it is vital to the marriage that you do not allow the behavior to continue. You must confront your spouse. No matter how much you hate the idea of inflicting pain on someone you love, you must issue an ultimatum: “Either you take positive and visible steps to change, or there will be consequences. I love you and I want to remain married to you. But what you are doing now is unacceptable, and I cannot allow it to continue.”
This kind of ultimatum sounds harsh, but it’s really the path of love. As C. S. Lewis noted, we sometimes make the mistake of equating love with kindness. “Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness,” Lewis says. “Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.”3 Lewis goes on to explain that love demands transformation into what God created us to be. Sometimes love must be tough and pain must be inflicted in order to bring about healing. It can work. This kind of tough love can be the bandage that staunches the bleeding in a wounded marriage, rebinding it for complete healing.
When you confront your mate, you can generally expect one of three responses. The first one is, “Well, this is just the way I am. You married me for who I am; now your job is to live with it.” This response will likely include excuses for the behavior. “I get pleasure out of looking at these pictures. I can’t see how it’s hurting you.” “I like the way I feel when I’m drunk. I’m happier; it calms me down; I have more fun.” Or even, “I’ve tried to stop, but I just can’t. So I have no choice but to go on like I am.”
There is a second likely response of him projecting the problem onto you. You might hear things like, “I wouldn’t have to obtain sexual gratification outside our bedroom if you’d be more willing to meet my needs.” Or, “I wouldn’t have to drink so much if you would quit nagging. When you change, I won’t need to drink. Anyone living with you would have to drink just to survive. Quit focusing on my drinking and get your own act together.”
The third likely response is remorse and promises. He may be truly sorry you caught him looking at porn. He will probably be genuinely remorseful and ashamed, and he may vow to stop. She may truly be remorseful about her drinking problem and promise never to do it again. And those promises may be sincere. But don’t believe them. Addicted persons can almost never follow through on such a promise and will revert to their former behavior. The person who has already gone over the edge into addiction cannot be trusted to correct his or her own behavior. As someone has said, “Don’t expect functional behavior from a dysfunctional person.”
THE ONLY RELIABLE WAY TO ADDRESS AN ADDICTION IS THROUGH OUTSIDE PROFESSIONAL HELP.
The only reliable way to address an addiction is through outside professional help. I have heard of a few people—very, very few—who were able to stop dysfunctional behavior, including addictions and compulsions, on their own without outside help. But believe me, such cases are as rare as white crows. Most people who stop their own addictions are like Mark Twain, who bragged that for him, quitting smoking was easy. He’d done it a thousand times.
The trick is getting your spouse to agree to professional help and follow through. Elsewhere in this book I warn mates not to resort to criticism when trying to get a spouse to change behavior. It almost never works, and it usually creates resistance or passive-aggressive behavior. Lecturing has the same results. Both criticism and lecturing produce a you-against-me attitude with the added disadvantage of putting the two mates in a superior/inferior position.
There are better and much more effective ways to bring about change. In an intimate relationship, you can talk to each other and discuss your problems without resorting to criticism or lectures. Let’s assume you’re a wife with a husband who is an alcoholic. To bear down on his behavior with criticism will likely drive him deeper into his problem. You could threaten to leave him, but if you have strung along with his drinking over a period of time, then leaving him is not the answer—at least not immediately. Leaving would be unfair because it’s probable that you have inadvertently trained him to continue in the behavior you are now rejecting. The better way is to approach him without criticism by saying something like this: “I really miss the way we used to be. I would love to have those days back, and I believe if we work at it together we can get them back. Why don’t we start by talking with a counselor or a pastor?”
With this kind of response you are not rejecting your husband or saying he is evil or worthless. Instead you are asserting that you value him and your relationship with him. You are saying that relationship has deteriorated, and you want the two of you to work together toward fixing it. That is accepting the person without accepting the behavior.
This approach says, “We’re in this marriage together, so together let’s work through the problem and get things back the way they should be.” You can find a counselor and attend appointments together. You can find a support group for the addiction and attend meetings together. If the addicted mate refuses, then the victimized spouse can locate an Al-Anon chapter and attend without the partner until he or she learns enough about the addiction to proceed to the next step.
If the addicted mate does not agree to any change and insists on persisting in the destructive behavior, your only option may be to ask your spouse to leave for a time of separation. If your spouse will not leave, state that you will leave unless he or she takes effective steps to treat the problem. Before you make this threat, be sure you are willing to follow up on it. Make sure you have secured a place where you and your children will be safe. Never make a threat you don’t intend to keep. And never make a threat without considering all the aspects, including your children, if you have to follow through. You hope the prospect of your leaving will wake the other up and turn him or her around. But if not, you must make good on your decision. Leave and see whether your absence provides enough consequences to force a change.
Rebinding Broken Trust in a Marriage
What can couples do to rebuild their marriage when trust has been destroyed? When he discovers she is having an affair? When she discovers his secret addiction to pornography? When gambling destroys the home’s financial stability or alcoholism destroys the family?
If you are the person who has broken the trust, you can expect your mate to stop listening to anything you say or promise. That is what a victimized husband or wife should do, and I hope, for your sake, that your mate does it. You have already deceived your mate, so why should anything you say be credible now?
From this point forward, it’s only what you do that counts, not what you say. You can repeat the words, “I will never do that again” as often as you like. It means nothing. You can promise all kinds of reform and change: “I’m going to attend Sex Addicts Anonymous today, set up weekly meetings with a professional counselor tomorrow, and join a Bible study on Sunday.” Those are the right words; they sound wonderful. But until your mate actually sees you taking these positive steps, your words mean nothing. Remember, you have broken trust, and you no longer have any credibility. You have no right to expect your mate to believe anything you say.
It’s only when your mate sees you actually doing these things you’ve promised over a sustained period of time that your word will begin to mean something. If you live up to your promises for six months, your mate should begin to risk trusting you again. Only a sliver of a percentage of people who last six months revert to their former, destructive behavior, because new pathways have formed in the brain. New ways of dealing with stress and conflict have been developed. And new habits can be secured in a six-month period. If you last that long, your success will show your spouse that you are serious about rebuilding trust and saving your marriage.
Addictions in Perspective
Your mate may sin grievously, inflicting on you deep hurt and almost unbearable pain. But usually that hurtful behavior comes from only one part of the person. In dealing with addictions, it’s important to remember that the dysfunctional behavior is only one part of the person’s total being. Ninety-five percent of him may be exemplary, with truly outstanding qualities. The simultaneous existence of sin and good qualities within the same person is not a sign of hypocrisy or total ruin. Remember that terrible, wonderful passage in Romans 7 where one of the finest Christians who ever lived spoke of the despair he experienced when wrestling with the persistent sin principle that plagued him. To paraphrase the apostle Paul’s agony, he said, “No matter what I want to do, I have this impulse inside me that prods me continually to do what I hate.”
Or remember the great king, warrior, musician, and poet David. This man committed the worst kinds of breaches of trust and the most horrendous crimes—adultery, deception, lying, and murder. You can’t do much worse than that. Yet David was described as being a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:27).
Then there’s the great apostle Peter, Christ’s right-hand man who at the moment when Christ faced the first stages of his greatest ordeal, publicly denied his beloved Master three times. Yet Peter became the strong pillar of the early church.
God did not accept these flaws. He dealt with them in order to root them out. King David’s family fell apart as a result of his sin, as he coped with rape, murder, and rebellion among his own children. Jesus had Peter make three affirmations of his love and commitment to counter his three previous denials (John 21:15–19). These dark moments in the lives of the apostle Peter and King David did not define who they were. Their flaws and struggles were only a part of the whole person.
The same is true with you or with your mate. If one of you has committed a sin that has breached the trust of the other, it’s only one part of who you are or who your mate is—only one part of your relationship with God. That is why it’s incumbent on all of us to see the other person through God’s eyes. That means when your mate sins, even grievously, you say to yourself, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Yes, it means taking firm steps of repentance and reform under the power of God’s Spirit. It also means forgiving as you want to be forgiven.
I will close by once again focusing on Proverbs 10:10 as a stark reminder that in the face of addiction, action and not a wink is what is called for to produce a lasting peace in the relationship: “People who wink at wrong cause trouble, but a bold reproof promotes peace.”
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Is Tolerating Your Compulsion or Addiction
• Ask yourself this question: “Haven’t I had my share of [this compulsion or addiction]?”
• Ask yourself why you believe you are entitled to continue in this even though it is damaging the closeness you have with your spouse.
• Ask yourself if this would be part of your day if you awoke to Jesus at the foot of your bed wanting to spend the day with you.
• Ask yourself if you are living in survival mode rather than thriving.
• Ask yourself why you have not taken care of the problem if you are so convinced you don’t need help.
• Study this passage: “The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes. He trusts something that can’t help him at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask, ‘Is this idol that I’m holding in my hand a lie?’”(Isaiah 44:20).
• If you are a Christian and you know that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, ask yourself if addiction could be the reason you don’t have self-control in this area.
STOP FOCUSING
ONLY ON YOUR INTERESTS
To watch a short video on this subject, go to
7MinuteMarriageSolution.com/7
When I am alone, I am just about the most wonderful human being on the face of the earth. I really have it all together. I find myself exceptionally easy to get along with. In fact, I get along with me better than just about anyone I know. I make no undue demands on myself, and I find myself in full agreement with everything I think (at least, almost everything). I treat myself very well; thus, I enjoy my own company immensely. In short, when I am by myself, I am one incredible human being.
But put me in a relationship with another person and all that changes. I find myself in disagreement or even outright conflict over opinions and demands. I get irritated, frustrated, impatient. I resent the expectations put upon me, and I resent it when what others say and do doesn’t please me.
You may think that relationships cause most of your personal problems and create most of your unhappiness. But the truth is, it’s not relationships; it’s your own self-centeredness just as it is my own self-centeredness. Relationships simply bring to the surface the truth about who you are, because relationships mean you can’t always have things just the way you want them. You must either consider the wants of another or plunge into conflict. You have to stop focusing only on your own interests. In a relationship, self-interest must give in to “we-interests.”
A primary reason for marriage failure today is that fewer people are willing to give up their self-interest. Without relationship you are in total control. But it’s the total control a hollow tree has over its growth. The problem is, a hollow tree doesn’t grow, and neither will you unless you are in relationship. Those who close themselves off from relationships tend to develop odd eccentricities, and when you encounter them you sense something hollow at the core of their being. Unless you are submitting your will and desires to another, you won’t grow and mature to become the person God wants you to be. It is in relationship that you meet your biggest challenge to dig deeper and scrape out the flaws and weaknesses you’ve collected as a result of your egoism and self-worship. Relationship, especially the marriage relationship, forces selfishness out of you.
RELATIONSHIP, ESPECIALLY THE MARRIAGE RELATIONSHIP, FORCES SELFISHNESS OUT OF YOU.
In marriage two separate egos enter a bond with the intent that two “I’s” will become a “we.” But the bond seldom happens smoothly. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, humans have always been naturally self-centered. Though unspoken, the attitude in the heart of each of us is, I want you to see me as the center of the universe, just as I do. Each gives little consideration to the other’s opinions, needs, and wishes, and both resist compromise.
Let’s say you want to spend your vacation at the beach and your spouse wants to spend it in the mountains. Vacation time is precious, so neither of you wants to give up your own preference. Neither can yield ground because it’s a matter of control, and to give in is to lose—to lose power and to become the subsidiary partner in the marriage. It’s silly to think the two of you couldn’t agree to go one place one year and the other place the other year. But easy solutions don’t surface when control replaces love.
Sometimes the conflict is not over preferences, but over who is right. Typically it is still over preferences, but those preferences are camouflaged in the language of absolutes. People mired in self-interest tend to see their own opinions as fact. In other words, they tend to be “always right.” Thus she refuses to budge on her insistence that they buy a hybrid car because it’s right to be green. He insists that the right thing is to buy a gas-powered car because the efficiencies claimed for going green do not work. They could compromise, of course. But compromising couples often end up like the husband who loved whole milk and the wife who loved skim milk; they compromised and bought 2 percent. That way neither lost the argument, but on the other hand, neither was happy with the result.
It’s true that compromise can resolve the conflict, and sometimes it works out well. But more often the better way is for one to submit to the other for the greater good. In a mature relationship where love for the other prevails over self-interest, the question becomes not who wins or who is right, but rather what is right. What is best for my husband or my wife? For our marriage?
Remember what I and many psychologists and counselors often point out: successful marriage is not a 50/50 proposition; it is 100 percent from both partners. That means it won’t work if you are in the habit of thinking, Why should I be the one to give in? Why must I be the one to do this? Isn’t it his turn? Shouldn’t she meet me halfway? If you married to be served rather than to serve, there is not a lot of hope for you possessing a daily sunny disposition. You will be stuck inside the prison of self, which is the loneliest, most isolating prison in the world.
How Self-Interest Produces Conflict
Most conflicts in marriage follow a common pattern of attack-and-defend. It’s the natural response of the egocentric self. The castle of self is threatened, so the self-protection instinct kicks in to defend the self and counterattack. Once begun, the process tends to escalate.
According to psychotherapist Elizabeth Dickson, to prevent or defuse these conflicts, “You must be willing to temporarily leave your position (even when it feels unfair, which it usually does), so that you can spend some time exploring your partner’s position with them.”1 In other words, get outside your own point of view. Step into the shoes of your mate and see the issue from his or her perspective. It’s called empathy, and it’s a vital component of love. Empathy helps to get you outside your egocentric self and place the other at the center. By exercising empathy you often find that the thing you feel most entitled to is the very thing you need most to surrender. When you are willing to submit your point of view to your mate, it allows him or her to open up and reveal deeper needs that should be considered.
Okay, I can just feel it as I write the words submit and surrender: some of you women readers are getting wary. When Christian men write about submission, you may think it’s sure to bring bad news, putting women in a position not far removed from slavery and indentured servanthood. If you are a man, don’t get too excited. This chapter is not going to affirm your male right to trample on a doormat wife. Instead, I think it is going to bring you both together, closer than you ever dreamed.
I also think what I am about to say goes against a lot of teaching on this subject. But I guarantee it is right out of the Bible. I intend to show you how your natural selfishness has got to go if you expect to have a loving and satisfying relationship. And the key is in learning not to do it “my way,” as Frank Sinatra crooned, but rather to learn how to submit to each other.
The Antidote to Self-Interest: Mutual Submission
As I get into the subject of submission, I have to make a confession—something I have not shared with a lot of people. (And I have shared a lot of stuff over the years.) This confession may cause you to question my manhood or my taste in sports. But here it is: I love to watch figure skating, especially pairs skating. Think of me whatever you will, but I like to watch two people gliding over the ice in perfect synchronized movement.
Just in case you are not familiar with it, pairs skating may be the most beautiful of all sports. It’s an elegant tour de force on ice in which a skilled couple performs a themed program to stirring music.
Pairs skating also displays the inevitable difference in masculine and feminine roles. The male skater demonstrates the strength and leadership of the masculine, and the female models the beauty and responsive power of the feminine. The male is the presenter and the female the one presented. He often holds her high overhead with one hand as they skim across the ice, enabling her to assume various positions that display her grace and beauty in astonishing spins or by conforming her body to the shape of a celestial star. At other times he hurls her through the air, spinning her twenty feet across the ice where she lands as lightly as a feather. Or he anchors himself firmly, takes her hand, and spirals her in wide circles as she floats on one skate with her body hovering horizontally mere inches above the ice like the sweeping hand of a clock.
In these moves the male and female roles are not interchangeable. It would be impossible for the woman to lift the man overhead with one arm, hurl him across the ice, spin him in the air, or anchor him in the horizontal circle. Even if it were possible, it would look silly to have the muscular, angular man presuming to display beauty and the smaller and curvaceous woman attempting to display strength. Pairs skating provides an accurate reflection of realities inherent within the sexes.
Now, here’s the thing I want you to notice about pairs skating. When the man lifts the woman high overhead as she assumes various breathtaking positions, who is submitting to whom? Well, you might say, clearly the woman is submitting to the man, allowing him to take control by lifting her, spinning her, and hurling her across the ice. On the other hand, you might as easily say the man is submitting to the woman by assuming the less vivid supporting role and placing her in the spotlight. You can see it either way. Yes, the man is “in control.” He’s doing the lifting, keeping the pair in balance, and propelling them across the ice. But all eyes are focused on the woman. That’s where the central activity occurs that brings beauty and grace to the performance.
Pairs skating illustrates two points that are vital to the content of this chapter. First, just as the man’s directing role in pairs skating does not mean he is the center of the performance, neither does the leadership role of the man in marriage mean that he is the center of the relationship. According to Families.com, up until the mid-twentieth century the man was the one who typically supported the home as the primary breadwinner, and it was the woman who was typically the keeper of the home. But now nearly half of homes with children have both parents being breadwinners for the family.2 Now, in most cases, if both are earning the dough, they both need to take on mutally submissive roles and responsibilities in the home. As they say, “The home is where the heart is.” It’s the home and family that is the heart and soul of the marriage. And since so often both are involved in supporting the home, both need to be involved in taking care of responsibilities within the home.
The second point I want to draw from pairs skating is that mutual submission is built naturally into the very design of the male and female. Each sex has parts and functions designed to be submitted to the other. The male has the sexual apparatus, musculature, and hormonal influences that dictate his role as the one who begets, provides, and protects. The female has the womb, breasts, and hormonal influences that dictate her role as the one who bears and nurtures. These complementary attributes enable each to submit to the other their special uniqueness in order to achieve a shared harmony.
A prime example is how the woman submits to the activity of the man to conceive a child. Then once conception occurs, their positions reverse as she takes center stage and he submits to her role in the bearing and birthing of the child by supporting her as servant, protector, and provider. Mutual submission works like the steps in an intricate dance between two partners, each with special attributes that dictate differing moves, but all combining to achieve a thing of beauty.
Headship and Submission
By now it may be you men readers who are uneasy. The Bible makes it clear that the husband is given a headship role in marriage (1 Corinthians 11:3). How does this square with the idea of mutual submission between a husband and wife? The apostle Paul addresses this question in Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” How does submission to each other show reverence for Christ? We find the answer in John 13, where Jesus and his apostles prepare to celebrate Passover. John tells us that Jesus, who was God on earth and the acknowledged leader of the group, took a towel and a pan of water and performed the lowly servant’s task of washing the dirty feet of his followers. We show reverence for Christ by following his example of submission.
THE PURPOSE OF LEADERSHIP IS TO SERVE THOSE WHO FOLLOW—TO GUIDE, PROTECT, AND LEAD THEM TO A BENEFICIAL GOAL.
As Christ’s example shows, it is not inconsistent for leaders to be submitters. In fact, that’s what leadership is really about. Leadership is performed not for the benefit of the leader’s self-interest—to give him power or control or elevated importance. The purpose of leadership is to serve those who follow—to guide, protect, and lead them to a beneficial goal. We elect leaders of our cities, states, and nation to be our servants—to do the essential, unglamorous work of keeping water, sewers, highways, and commerce working smoothly and to provide protection for communities so we can get on with the really important things of life, like establishing homes and raising families.
All too often our elected leaders forget that they are called to be public servants. Instead of submitting to us and attending to our needs, they use the power of their political office for their own self-interests—to enhance their reputations, their pocketbooks, and their ambitions. Power lends itself to that kind of abuse.
Sadly, many husbands do the same thing in their marriages. This tendency to abuse power for the benefit of self distorts the meaning of relationship, headship, and the mutual submission built into our God-given complementary attributes as male and female. No doubt that’s why Paul goes to such great lengths in Ephesians 5 to stress the meaning of headship and submission. After urging husbands and wives to practice mutual submission in verse 21, he follows with about sixty words admonishing women to submit to their husbands. (The number of words varies with different Bible translations.) Guys love to stress this passage, and many have used it to browbeat wives into submitting to whatever they choose to impose on her.
For some mysterious reason, however, many men stop after reading Paul’s charge to women and ignore the verses that follow. Beginning in verse 25, he continues to define mutual submission with about ninety-five words telling men to love their wives so much they are willing to die for them. Did you get that? Paul uses about sixty words telling women to be submissive to their husbands and about ninety-five telling husbands to love and die for their wives!
Now, if you turn legalist and start looking for the word submission in this passage, you won’t find it. But think about it: What does a husband do when he dies for his wife? He submits his life to hers. It’s the ultimate submission, just as it was the ultimate submission of Christ to die on the cross for us. It’s the kind of submission in which you count the value of the other to be so high that it puts things in proper perspective to sacrifice yourself for her. If a woman is married to a man who is willing to die for her, she would be foolish not to submit to him. If a man is married to a woman who submits to him, he would be foolish not to die for her.
Men, if you really want to be the kind of leader who blesses your wife in the best way possible, allow me to offer a suggestion: Short of putting your life on the line, here is the best thing you can do for her—provide her and your family with spiritual leadership and stability. You don’t know where to start? Here are five suggestions to get you going:
1. Do what it takes to develop a good knowledge of the Bible. This is a must.
2. As you learn about God, begin to submit yourself to him more and more.
3. Be consistent in your prayer and devotional life. Your consistency will instill your wife’s confidence in you and inspire her to follow.
4. Go to church consistently and worship with your wife and family. Your wife will benefit greatly from watching you worship and worshipping with you.
5. Be quick to forgive and seek her forgiveness when you need it. Your honesty and humility will speak volumes to her.
Male spiritual leadership is a primary need in every marriage, every home. The best way a husband can submit to his wife is to serve her diligently by supplying that leadership through his own example. You will bless your wife by leading her. If you do it tenderly, wisely, and by example, she will follow.
Mutual Submission in Action
To explore how mutual submission works in practice, let’s start with flexibility in husband/wife roles. As I noted above, it’s obvious that some male/female roles are fixed and unalterable: women are not going to beget children and men are not going to bear them. But not all roles in marriage involve our male/female differences. Pairs skating involves many moves that don’t depend on the differing attributes unique to each sex. At times both partners skate in parallel, each making the same moves as the other. In a similar way, men and women are called to give up their self-interest and submit to each other in ways that don’t involve their differing attributes.
Harmonious marriage requires self-interest to be subjected or at least balanced with the happiness and well-being of the other. Typically, for example, neither the husband nor the wife really wants to go to the other’s high school class reunion. He doesn’t know her school friends, and she doesn’t know his. But because they love each other and each desires happiness for the other, she attends his reunion and he attends hers. Self-interest yields to mutual submission.
Maybe he doesn’t like the color of the carpet she wants in the den. He could (erroneously) invoke the headship clause and reject her choice. But instead he lays aside his preference and accepts carpet color as more in her domain than his. Maybe she hates the moose head he wants on the wall of his study. But she swallows hard and submits amicably to his choice. After all, he’s the one who has to work with the monstrosity hanging over his head.
WHAT LITTLE THINGS CAN YOU DO TO IMPROVE YOUR MATE’S LIFE OR TO MAKE YOUR MATE’S DAY BETTER?
To enhance your relationship even further, take this principle beyond just solving self-interest problems. You can solidify the bond between the two of you by devoting part of your time and attention to simple things that increase your mate’s general well-being and happiness. What little things can you do to improve your mate’s life or to make your mate’s day better? What comforts or attentions does your spouse value that you could supply?
I remember going to a speaking event and opening up my notes—and there was a little note from my wife telling me she loved me. When I got to the hotel that night I opened up my overnight bag and there was another note. In the morning when I went to grab a fresh pair of underwear, I found another note telling me she loves me. Those little actions go a long way toward melting this man’s heart.
If you are a man, it really is the little things you do for your wife that add up to move mountains. That little note left on the table in the morning can make her entire day. Sending her off to do whatever she wants to do at night while you take care of things at home can transform her world. Start thinking about the creative ways you can give happiness to the other person. Do what you want to have done to you. It really is all about those little things—acts of thoughtfulness that create positive attitudes in your relationship.
The bottom line is that marriage was never meant to be a one-way relationship as with a boss and servant or a master and slave. That kind of relationship reflects the tyranny of self-interest, and neither the oppressor nor the oppressed can find joy in it. The way of Christ is for the other’s interest to be placed above your own.
But won’t submitting your self-interest keep you unfulfilled and unhappy? No. Try it and you will find that it’s the sure but seldom-trod path to true relational joy.
THINGS TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE
Won’t Stop Focusing Only on Self-Interest
• Remember that the goal is peacemaking, not peacekeeping.
• Rather than suggest counseling for your spouse, suggest that you both get it together.
• The more self-centered the wound of your spouse the deeper it is, so try to understand it and connect with it.
• Refuse to put up with self-centeredness that leads to controlling or demeaning behavior and be willing to take action when it occurs.
• Be sure you express your boundaries and follow through in enforcing them.
• One way to enter into a conversation about your unbalanced relationship is to start with: “This is not working for me.”
• Rather than nag or complain, express your desire to be close and connected.