Marriage
Marriage without Love
The first few months of your marriage are wonderful.
You learn that your new wife has some habits that annoy you, but all-in-all, it’s a sweet life.
Then, as time goes on, it becomes the new normal. It is your life and you move through it with the same attention to detail that you used to.
There’s only one small problem.
That plan won’t work.
I was watching a video recently that had two Evangelical Christians discussing how the Catholic Church teaches that the faithful merit Eternal Life by Works alone. Aside from the severe doctrinal inaccuracies of the statement, it got me thinking.
Faith, without Works, is dead. What good is it to have the gift of Faith and not do something with it?
In the same way, Marriage, without Love, is dead. Love is an action verb. It’s not how you feel. It’s a state of being.
Love in Marriage is the complete surrender, a daily life of joyful self-sacrifice. Love in Marriage is the active reminder to your wife why she is the only possible woman in the world you could ever enter into a lifelong commitment and raise children with.
It’s everything.
There Will be Problems
There is one thing that you can count on in marriage: there will be problems. If both of you are the same, then one of you is unnecessary.
Many people view problems or conflict as a sign of failure. I don’t think that’s true. Problems are a direct result of each of you being unique individuals.
Problems aren’t a failure. They are an opportunity.
I use the word opportunity a lot in my posts. That is because marriage is full of opportunities.
We have the opportunity to love well or to cause injury. The reason I use the word is because I firmly believe that opportunity abounds in places that we don’t go looking for it. We are constantly given chances to improve our marriages, to strengthen our bonds, to go deeper in friendship. Opportunity just usually presents itself as pain.
You cannot avoid problems in your marriage. If they are not present on the surface, they are eating one of you deep inside. The best thing to do is to prepare yourself for them.
You can’t be ready for every contingency, but you can be prepared to see problems as opportunities.
Each problem is different. Each problem requires you to react and maneuver in a different way. Being ready for them to arrive can help your emotional response. Instead of reacting in disgust, anger, or fear, you can react with confidence, trust, and patience.
You have not failed because you have problems. In fact, I could make the argument that you have succeeded. No problems happen without action. Action brings results and consequences. Action brings problems.
What is the alternative to action? Stagnation. Your relationship is never tried, you don’t learn to work together, so your marriage is just bland. Who wants that?
Yes, there will be problems. Yet, through those problems, you can go deeper into your marital bond. Who in their right mind would pass up a chance like that?
Keeping Romance Alive
Having just celebrated our one year anniversary, I admit that I’m not an expert on the topic of romance.
After a year, things are still pretty fresh.
What I do want to point out is that the relationship between you and your wife is what sustains all other relationships in your house.
Infants and children understand that they are loved only in as much as they see the love between their parents.
The overall happiness in a household is largely guided by the happiness of the marital bond.
It is easy to let the marriage take a backseat to the activities of the house, but it is a mistake to do so.
We must be intentional in maintaining our life-long relationship with our spouse.
More than just our own happiness and fulfillment rely on it.
The Joy of Weddings
Now that I have been married for almost a year, I have had the pleasure of experiencing several weddings of family and friends.
There is such a rejuvenating energy that comes from experiencing a wedding. You get to be an observer to that which you undertook. The great memories from your own wedding day come back into your mind.
You get to share in the joy of two more people starting the journey of a lifetime.
Going to a wedding provides you the chance to reflect back on what your goals were for your marriage, the goals you set for yourself as a husband. It gets you back on track.
Society has become jaded to weddings. We’ve made them about extravagance and showmanship. There have been a slew of articles recently that have discussed the fact that people pay ridiculous amounts of money for their wedding and spend the next ten years paying it off.
Dumb.
When my wife and I were planning our Wedding, we took special care to make sure that our day was about the Sacrament, not how big a party we could throw. All (well, most) of our favorite people were in the room. They witnessed our Covenant and then took time to celebrate with us.
When you go to someone else’s wedding, take the time to reflect on what Marriage is and how the Sacrament has impacted your life.
Uncrossing Your Signals
It has been my experience in former relationships that when communication breaks down, the end is near.
As social beings, we value quality communication. To prove my point, name the top three things your employer could improve.
Was one of them communication? Exactly.
Marriage is no different. But, in a marriage, you are dealing with two distinct types of communication.
I’m going to cover two levels of communication. I didn’t base these on any scientific study or related research. I name them Type 1 and Type 2 for the sake of understanding.
Type 1 is the information level. It is mostly superficial. What are we eating for dinner this week? Are you working late any nights? Who is picking the kids up from dance class/ soccer practice/Scouts?
Type 1 communication is top-level maintenance. It is the communication that is required to keep the wheels of the household turning. If you don’t have Type 1 communication, your marriage needs serious, professional help.
Type 2 communication is not found in every sentence or even every conversation. Type 2 communication is sharing feelings, emotions, and dreams. This type of communication is speaking from personhood to personhood. It is very deep.
Type 2 is also your opportunity for growth. It is your chance to discover new things about your spouse. It is your time to share with her how you’ve grown and matured.
If you do nothing other than Type 1 communication, then you and your wife are business partners. You share enough information to keep things moving, but not enough to forge a deeper bond.
If you do nothing other than Type 2 communication, then you and your wife will isolate yourselves from the world. And nothing will get accomplished!
Too much of anything is a bad thing. You must balance the practical Type 1 with the life-giving Type 2.
Communication is Critical
Communication is key. But what if you don’t have the keys to your communication?
By now, you realize that both you and your spouse communicate in different ways. You also (hopefully) realize that in order to successfully navigate a lifetime of wedded bliss, you need to understand when she is communicating a particular emotion or when she is just communicating using her natural style.
For example, you may interpret your wife’s short stories about work as being closed off. Why doesn’t she want to share about her day? Her natural style may cause her to be brief and just hit the high points. She may have given you all of the facts she deemed relevant. In her mind, the story is over. In yours, you’re wondering if she’s mad.
There are several tools and scientific tests on the market to determine personality style and communication method. My favorite is the DiSC profile.
No test is better than the other, they’re just different.
Regardless of which test your choose, you need answer questions about yourself honestly. It isn’t helpful to anyone if you answer the way you think you’d like to be perceived. Honest answers give you insight into who you are as a person.
Once you have both completed the same test, share the results. You might finally understand her quirk or why that coworker is always driving you insane.
Communication is vital to the success of your marriage. Ensuring that you understand the communication style of your spouse will help you communicate more clearly.
Skip the fights. Stop translating mixed messages. Be open, clear, direct, and always loving.
In Sickness
On your Wedding Day, you promise to take care of your wife, in sickness and in health.
That’s kinda cute. We think that means buying her soup and putting a cool cloth on her forehead. Boom, vow fulfilled. Check that box and we’re moving on!
But wait! Is that what we’re actually promising to do?
When your wife is sick, and I mean seriously ill, you have to do more than just take care of her. All of the responsibilities of the household fall to you. Suddenly, you’re the only one cooking and cleaning. You’re the only one shuttling your kids around and you’re sure as heck the only one doing all of the shopping (with a kid or two in tow).
On top of that, your wife is not able to show her love for you in ways that she would like. That will be little cuddling. She won’t be able to perform any acts of service. You will be constantly miserable because she feels miserable and there is nothing you can do to change it.
You start to feel lonely.
What we fail to consider is how radically our lives change when our spouse is ill.
Bottom line: we take our good health for granted.
As the illness drags on, the stress and pressure start to get to you. You may even start to blame her for it or become resentful. After all, you’re picking up her responsibilities! You are literally living in the land of temptation.
When the day comes, how will you respond?
If marriage was simply friendship, you would just walk away. Sadly, we have heard stories of spouses stricken with cancer and, after a time, the husband runs off with another woman. How can this be? The marriage was seen as convenient. It served it’s purpose for a time, but when things got tough, it was time to exit.
This is why it is so important to build your marriage on unconditional (to the degree that you can) love. Your marriage should be 100% about your wife and her well being. To your wife, your marriage should be 100% about you and your well being. It is only through this mutual love that your marriage can survive.
When you are 20, 25, or 30, you cannot foresee what your wife will be like at age 80 or 90. If you build your marriage on physical attraction, you’re going to have a hard time even 10 years down the road. If you build it on love, you’ll be able to transcend all of life’s challenges.
There will be hard times in your marriage. There will be serious illness and you will have to carry the household. Prepare for those days by loving your wife well today.
Do you pray for the health of your spouse daily? Maybe today is a good day to start.
Husband as Protector
As a husband (and father, too!) we have a very important role to fill. It is one that we simply can’t abdicate. It is the role of the protector.
The first criteria of a protector is that they are able to protect themselves. It would be quite useless if you needed help, and the knight in shining armor who came to your rescue also fell victim.
We need to evaluate where we are in our lives. How is your faith walk? Are you taking good care of your body? What things are you doing to grow your mind and expand your horizons?
Before we can defend from the enemy on the outside, we have to defeat the enemy within.
I have struggled with this issue. I’ve started workout plans or routines. I’ve tried different ways of praying. But, like New Years Resolutions, most didn’t last.
Until I learned this little secret.
As I started to initiate a change, I would plot out the course months, even years in advance. I’d see where I was going and what I would accomplish along the way.
There was one small problem.
I didn’t manage the process daily.
I made the big decision, but didn’t follow through on the steps to fulfill the big decision.
I can’t guarantee that I’m going to want to pray tomorrow. But I know I can decide to pray today. Tomorrow’s weather might be crummy so I can’t exercise, but it’s beautiful right now.
When you take things one day at a time, they are achievable. Don’t think about yesterday’s failures or tomorrow’s hurdles.
Just manage today. And, as Scripture says, let tomorrow take care of tomorrow.
Speak Well of Her
How you speak about your wife when she is not around says a lot about the kind of man that you are.
Early in my marriage, people in my life, especially at work, would ask me about the “old ball and chain.” They would use other typical phrases, too. It wasn’t meant to be mean spirited, it was meant to be a joke.
I’m sorry to say that I went along with the joke. I wasted a perfect teachable moment. I was not honest with them.
I should have answered that things were going well, because we had both entered into the Sacrament with maturity. I should have answered that we were learning more about each other each day.
Instead I let it be dismissed as a joke.
Just as we are given the opportunity to witness to our Faith on a daily basis in the public square, we are given that same opportunity to witness to strong marriages.
The way you speak about your wife matters.
If people hear you do nothing but complain about her, then you are part of the problem. You are justifying their unreasonable assumptions about marriage. You are confirming in their mind that marriage is a trial and not worth their time.
If instead you share the glorious moments and conversations; if you share the acts of service and love, then you do everyone a favor. You communicate truth and honesty.
By speaking well of your wife, you are convincing people that marriage is something to be cherished. You are demonstrating how life is beautiful. You are witnessing to the true essence of marriage: love.
Of course, if you always use flowery words, people will dismiss you as still in your “Honeymoon Phase.” There is certainly a balance. You should share some challenges, but note that there is a difference between sharing a challenge and speaking poorly of your spouse.
Be mindful of this opportunity. When people ask how the married life is, be honest and share with them the joy that you have experienced as a result of the Sacrament.
She’ll Drive You Nuts
It is getting pretty hard to find a guarantee anymore. But I’m all about adding value, so I’ll give you one right here.
Your wife? Your one true love? The one made for you? She’ll drive you nuts!
I know, it’s hard to hear it from me. It’s worst coming from a guy who just a few weeks ago posted an article called “She’s Perfect.”
Well she is perfect. But living together in matrimony, let’s just say there’s an adjustment period.
You don’t notice you own habits while you’re living as a single man. But boy do they come out in your first weeks of marriage.
The things you do are going to drive her crazy. The things she does are going to drive you crazy.
If you’re neat, she’s a mess. If you can’t clean to save your life, your pad is going to be sparkling and you won’t be able to find a dang thing.
No matter what, you’ll hate it.
But don’t miss the point.
The point is not how we organize our stuff or on what schedule we clean.
The point is that you are now a Domestic Church. The point is, now you are joined as one.
Habits and idiosyncrasies, those are superficial. Your love, your true, pure love, that’s deep.
So, when she’s driving you crazy, realize you are seeing this on a superficial level. Go deeper and respond in love.