Honey, We Need to Talk

THERE COMES A time in every romantic relationship when the two persons have to decide whether to break up or get married. We’ve reached that time in this book. If you are in a significant romantic relationship but not married—if you’re dating seriously, engaged, or perhaps even living together—by the end of this chapter, you’ll be ready to make the decision to end the relationship or get married.

This is the good-news scenario. You have worked your way through the book and feel confident that marriage is the next step. Maybe you have just confirmed what you already knew and the book has only deepened your love. Or maybe the book revealed some areas of weakness yet brought both of you to an increased level of closeness and the realization that you want to get married. In either case, you are now better prepared to move toward marriage. Congratulations!

In this scenario you both have gone through all ten essential areas outlined in this book and done all the hard work I’ve asked you to do (well, not all the hard work; sex is meant to be experienced within the context of marriage). But the result is that you’ve still not reached a deeper level of intimacy. Despite your best efforts your relationship has stayed pretty much the same.

You’ve come to realize there are limitations on the closeness you experience in certain areas of your relationship. You do love each other, and you may want to get married, but I have to tell you: marriage is not the right decision.

Amicably and with great care and sensitivity, you need to end the relationship. It will be hard—very hard—but you will never be able to reach deeper levels of intimacy in your relationship. In my professional experience the honest conversations and intentional actions in these ten areas reveal the quality of your relationship. Either you will connect on a deeper level or you won’t. More time together won’t make a difference. Love is not enough. You can be very good friends, but you’ll never be passionately and deeply in love.

If you are in this situation, your decision is easy—very painful, but easy. This book has been a catalyst to expose your partner as a fraud.

He—and I’ll use the masculine pronoun here, though it could just as easily be the woman—is not into you and does not love you. His refusal to work through this book with you is beyond insulting. It means you are not worth anything to him—not even as little as the work in this book would require to help make a marriage and a lifetime of happiness possible. You are a convenience, not a forever partner, to him.

The truth is intimacy requires commitment. He doesn’t have it. Intimacy requires honest talks about everything in your relationship. He won’t have these talks. Intimacy requires a lot of ongoing, hard work. He refuses to do that work. If he won’t even go through this book with you, based on my experience, he certainly won’t do any other work on the relationship.

Given the present circumstances, he will never be into you and will never love you. He is not committed to you and never will be. It will hurt to say good-bye, but it will hurt a whole lot more to stay with someone like this.

In this case you have been working steadily through the ten essential areas together—that’s no small task; you deserve medals!—but your partner has gotten blocked in one or more of the areas. She—and I’ll use the feminine pronoun here for balance—is unable or unwilling to do all of the work and answer all of the questions outlined in that area.

This scenario is not uncommon, given the challenge this process no doubt has presented to both of you. But it is unacceptable for her not to work through all of the essential areas with you. Every area we’ve covered is important and can’t be missed. Believe me when I tell you that the one area your partner will not address is the same area that will kill your relationship.

At this point ask your partner to go back and work through the challenging area with you. It’s possible that the work you’ve now accomplished in the other areas will give her the confidence she needs to do the work in the sensitive area.

But if she still says she’s unable to deal with that area, it’s clear she has a deeper issue that must be faced in therapy. Ask her to go with you to a Christian licensed therapist. With this specialized help she can—with your full support and involvement—heal from the unresolved pain connected to this area of her life. Without an involved, expert person outside of your relationship, nothing will change.

Here’s the tough part. If she refuses to see a therapist with you, walk away from the relationship. Her unresolved issues will prevent the two of you from achieving real intimacy. Plus her refusal to deal directly with this one area will spread to other situations and problems in your relationship. How many other issues will she refuse to work through with you?

If you walk away and she decides she can’t live without you and will see a therapist, go through the therapy process together. But if she won’t see a therapist, stay away from her and move on.

In this last scenario the two of you have worked through all ten essential areas together and have done well. You have developed a deeper level of intimacy. However, that deeper level of emotional and spiritual intimacy has not translated into a deeper level of commitment.

One of you still is not ready to commit to marriage. Or it could be that neither of you feels ready for marriage.

But it is still true that once you’ve worked hard to create an intimate relationship, the next logical step is marriage. In the world of relationships, marriage is the pinnacle. Marriage is the best plan for two persons who are in love. I say so based on my thirty-three years of marriage to Sandy and my work in private practice with couples for thirty years.

Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

—GENESIS 2:24, MEV

God created marriage; it is His idea. He instituted marriage—a monogamous, heterosexual union. Jesus quoted the above verse and declared that this relationship is to be permanent (Mark 10:7, 9). One flesh describes the ultimate, the best, the deepest kind of intimacy possible between a man and a woman. You can experience one-flesh intimacy only in marriage.

If you genuinely love each other and have achieved intimacy at this point in the book but still aren’t sure about getting married, something’s wrong. To help you get past your reservations, let’s take a look at the classic reasons people give for not getting married—and my responses.

You: My parents’ marriage was awful. They were so terribly unhappy. I lived with that for eighteen years, and it has really turned me off marriage. I don’t want to be stuck in a marriage like theirs.

Me: I hear you, and I get it. Who wants a marriage like that? But yours doesn’t have to be like that. Your parents chose to be miserable and do nothing about it. You and your partner can create intimacy and have proven you can deal successfully with the challenges and problems in a relationship. You haven’t completely healed from what your parents did to you, and that is preventing you from building a relationship/marriage that is the opposite of your parents’ marriage.

You: My ex burned me badly, and I never want to go through that kind of pain and rejection again. A breakup is one thing; a divorce would be a lot worse.

Me: The end of a relationship, whether you were married or not, causes a lot of pain. And it might happen again. But you and your partner have done the work in this book, and your relationship is solid. You have examined your relationship and acquired essential tools to keep building it strong and beautiful for as long as you live. Yes, marriage is a risk. But it is a good risk. You shouldn’t stay unmarried because of the risk. Life is full of risks. And you haven’t completely healed from what your ex did to you.

Me: If you’ve been close for at least a year and you don’t know if they’re the one, then they’re not the one. And you don’t love them that much. Do yourselves a favor, and break up.

Me: You can be independent and married. In successful, happy marriages the two persons can handle life on their own quite well but because of love chose to enter a relationship in which the partners are equals. You continue to have your life, but you choose to put your partner’s needs and well-being above your own. If you can’t do that for your partner, break up.

You: I’ve seen too many family members, friends, and coworkers get divorced. It looks to me like marriage isn’t working out for many couples.

Me: There’s nothing wrong with the institution of marriage. The problem is the persons in the marriages. With hard work and God’s help your marriage can be a happy, healthy, successful one.

You: It makes sense to try out marriage by living together first. Most of our friends are doing this.

Me: It seems to make sense, but it doesn’t make biblical sense. God’s plan is marriage, and His Word clearly instructs men and women to keep sex for marriage. And because of this truth, living together violates God’s rules (1 Thess. 4:3; Heb. 13:4). And it doesn’t, in fact, make practical sense. Living together doesn’t, in fact, lead to a stronger and more intimate relationship. How many of your friends are any closer to getting married by living together? Are their relationships becoming more and more intimate and committed? Or are they staying pretty much the same or deteriorating?

You: Marriage just isn’t working anymore. Very few couples seem to be really happy for a lifetime. I just don’t think any marriage can last.

Me: You’ve bought our culture’s lies that marriage is outdated and that marital love never lasts. There are couples whose marriages remain intimate and vibrant for a lifetime. The media rarely mentions these happy couples. Find a few of them and ask them what has worked for them.

Me: With the right person and a relationship based on honest communication and the skills developed in the ten essential areas covered in this book, you will expectantly leap at a life sentence. Since you’ve worked through these ten essential areas and still aren’t ready for a lifetime commitment, get out of the relationship. You’re either all in or all out. You’re all out, so break up.

Me: No, you’re not committed. You have zero commitment. You can leave anytime you want to leave. Commitment is marriage—saying, “I promise I will love you for as long as I live.”

These are the popular reasons I hear from clients who don’t feel ready to move their relationship to marriage. You may have other reasons not to get married. Whatever the case, I want the two of you to have a series of honest talks about marriage. Share and discuss in detail your reasons for not wanting to get married. Lay it all on the table—no holding back to try to protect yourself or your partner.

If these truthful conversations do not lead to a firm desire and commitment to marry, go together to a reputable Christian therapist. Work with the therapist on the deeper reasons for your lack of commitment. Therapy can identify the obstacles to the commitment of marriage and get you past them.

If therapy, both as a couple and as individuals, doesn’t lead to a breakthrough, break up. You’re not that into each other, and you need to admit it and move on.

If your partner won’t see a therapist, break up. By refusing to work with a therapist and explore commitment issues, your partner is sending a clear message: “I don’t want to be committed to you.”

I guess you’ve noticed by now that I am powerfully pro-marriage. Why? Because God is powerfully and irrevocably pro-marriage. Marriage is God’s plan A. Actually, that’s not true. Marriage is God’s only plan for two persons who love each other. He offers no other options.

You and I have a choice. We can trust Him completely, or we can choose not to and follow our own plan. But what is the track record of couples following their own plans? Abysmal.

God is not the God of dating forever. He is not the God of endless engagement. He is not the God of living together. He is the God of marriage.

Marriage offers the maximum amount of commitment, love, passion, joy, and security possible in an opposite-sex relationship. Marriage offers you the best in a romantic relationship from the one true God. Marriage is a sacred relationship in God’s eyes. He will always bless your efforts to improve your marriage and grow your love.

I didn’t write this book so you could have a better dating relationship or a better engagement experience or a better living-together relationship. I wrote it so you could grow deeply in love and make the choice to get married.

I know it’s a tough message, but here it is again in a nutshell: work through the ten essential areas covered in this book, and then break up or get married.