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Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

ROMANS 12:10

There I would be, snuggled in our warm bed, about to drift off to sleep. And then would come the dreaded question from my wife: “Honey, did you remember to turn out all the lights and lock all the doors?”

That was our story during the beginning of our first year of marriage. One night, though, Barbara’s question took a dreadful turn. You have to understand that we lived in Boulder, Colorado, where the winter nights were cold, and we both loved our toasty electric blanket. I remember the night when I collapsed into bed, totally exhausted, and Barbara brought me back from the edge of oblivion with a light poke and a variation of the nightly question: “Aren’t you going to turn out the lights?”

It occurred to me at that moment that for the past two months I’d been the one getting up and experiencing mild frostbite and that perhaps it was her turn. “Why don’t you turn out the lights tonight?” I retorted.

Barbara replied, “I thought you would, because my dad always turned out the lights.”

Whoa! A shot of adrenalin cleared my head like the sun piercing the fog. And I shouldn’t have said it, but I did: “But I’m not your dad!”

Well, that turned out to be a night when we practiced the scriptural admonition to “not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). You see, two powerful forces clashed on that cold Rocky Mountain night—Barbara’s sense of normal and my sense of normal. She felt it was the husband’s duty to turn off the lights, because that’s what her father had always done. That was normal to her. But in my family of origin, that task was not assigned irrevocably to the male of the species.

Each of you brings a different background and a different set of expectations into your marriage. Your family did things a certain way, and your spouse’s family did things a certain way. Often you don’t even realize what’s normal to you until you get married, and suddenly you learn that your spouse’s family did things differently.

For example, think about some of the normals surrounding your family and dinnertime:

• Was it normal for you to eat dinner as a family on most nights?
• What types of meals did you normally eat?
• What did you drink?
• Who cooked the meal?
• Who cleaned up?
• How did you normally dress?
• Did you open the meal with prayer?
• Did you start eating when you were seated or did you wait until after you prayed?
• Was it normal to get a debrief from everyone’s day or was the television the center of attention?
• If someone called on the phone, would dinner be interrupted by the call being answered?
• Was it normal to have friends over for dinner?
• How often did you eat at restaurants as a family?

You could probably add to that list. And that’s just one set of normals. How about breakfast and lunch? What were your normals regarding family entertainment? Vacations? Birthday celebrations? Christmas gifts? Pets? Handling finances?

In your relationship, you’ve probably already experienced a clash or two between your normals. And you will undoubtedly face collisions in the near future over these unspoken rules. In their book about the first year of marriage, Susan DeVries and Bobbie Wolgemuth write, “Over the years we’ve seen couples in conflict over money or sex or in-laws, but what they’re really fighting about aren’t those things at all. They’re really fighting about normal.”¹ That’s why you should make it a priority early in your marriage to create a new set of normals in your relationship.

First, commit to understanding each other’s normals. Make the normals of your future spouse part of your vocabulary. If you find yourself disagreeing about an issue, ask yourselves, “Is this a question of differing normals?” Create a spirit of discovery, where you can talk about normals in a way that doesn’t feel threatening. Remember that in most cases different is not bad—it’s just different.

Second, make choices together that reflect your priorities and values. Suppose you grew up in a family that gave each other inexpensive birthday gifts, while the family of your spouse-to-be splurged and spent a lot more money. As you consider how to celebrate your birthdays, this is an opportunity to make your own choices that reflect the importance you place on birthdays, and the number of banks you have to rob so you have enough to spend.

As you make these decisions, follow the guidance of Romans 12:10: “Give preference to one another in honor” (NASB). In most cases your sense of normal will not be superior to that of your spouse. If you both determine not to hold too tightly to what’s comfortable and familiar, you will find ways to compromise and honor each other and create your own normal in your new home.

So . . . who’s going to turn out the lights in your family?

Discuss

1. Think over conflicts you’ve experienced in your relationship. Can you trace any of them back to the underlying issue of what is normal to you?
2. Your wedding may be a good opportunity for you to practice establishing your own normal. Start by answering the following questions:
   • How are weddings normally celebrated in your church or community?
   • Who is usually invited to the rehearsal dinner? To the wedding?
   • What will be your family’s expectations about the wedding reception?
   • What is normal for your family regarding the cost of the wedding?
   • In what ways are your normals different as you approach your wedding?
3. What’s most important to you in the wedding? Now see if you can agree upon what is most important to both of you in your wedding. Write it down in a place where you will be reminded what you two agreed to.
4. Pray together, asking God to give you the wisdom to understand your different normals as your relationship grows and matures.

Note

1. Susan DeVries and Barbara J. Wolgemuth, The Most Important Year in a Woman’s Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), p. 44.