How Do You Have a Strong Marriage?
What the Gospel, Therapy, and Experience Have Taught Me about Marriage
It’s common knowledge that marriage is a risky business. If you’re strictly looking at it from a success rate, you might have better results investing in real estate. Sadly, too many modern marriages just don’t survive. Yet, even with high divorce rates, cohabitation soaring, and marriage rates falling, people are still taking the risk. And for most, I daresay, they don’t go into marriage expecting it to end. They, instead, are drawn to the hope of a love story that will have a happy ending.
Here’s where I’d like to share a few personal thoughts and reflections on marriage. But first a little context about my life. I’m Heidi Morris, and by nature and nurture I am drawn to a good love story. As a little girl, I was enamored with love and marriage, largely spurred by my dad’s career as a professional photographer who has captured thousands of images of brides, grooms, and their spectacular weddings. I relished going to my dad’s studio and sitting down at this big desk he set up for me to play office. One by one I would go through wedding portraits and become captivated with the fancy gowns, beautiful flowers and cakes, and the expressions of love and joy on the happy bride and groom. Who wouldn’t be drawn to marriage? I was too young to understand what it took to really have a good marriage, but I certainly was fascinated about what it took to have a beautiful wedding and the image of being in love.
Flash forward several years, and that little girl at her dad’s studio is now all grown up in her 40s, married with three sons, and working as a college professor and marriage and family therapist. While I still haven’t lost my fascination with weddings and love, I directed my professional pursuits to helping couples have rewarding marriages instead of riveting weddings. No harm in a beautiful wedding, but it’s what comes after the wedding, the actual marriage, that now captivates me. I help couples, pre and post-marital, do the important work of cultivating a lifelong love and commitment in marriage. With a few decades into this work, I’d like to share some observations and reflections about what I see that really goes into creating a healthy and loving marriage. Mixing in a little Gospel, therapeutic experience, and my personal marriage story, here are some points to ponder that I hope will be helpful to you:
A Strong Marriage Needs Both People to Live Unselfishly
One consistent truth I see time and time again is that selfishness left unchecked will kill a marriage. All of us can be self-seeking, myself included. At times I want what I want when I want it, and that begins to diminish the connection with my husband. Left without intervention, selfishness does the nasty work of breeding ongoing selfishness, and being creatures of habit, we reap what we sow. In this case, an eroding marital bond. Like termites left undetected at first, you might not see the walls weakening, but over time the effects of untreated selfishness can’t be ignored. In working with couples in therapy, I see the effects show up as resentment, living as strangers, emotional and sexual unfulfillment, addictions, and affairs, just to name a few. Sinner or saint, unbridled selfishness does not discriminate.
I guess this brings me to why I have come to really value the Gospel’s beautiful message of living a life of love as apprentices of Jesus Christ. In a world where we are saturated with the intoxicating message of living to make yourself happy, and then realizing that at the end of that journey there is still emptiness and some form of despair, our hearts and souls long for something deeper. I know not everyone I encounter will take what follows as truth, but for those who do, I believe what I am about to share is the difference maker in marriage. Friends, it begins and ends with God’s love for us in Christ Jesus, and then living a life of love as followers of Christ. 1 John 4:7-12 shows us this truth.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Seeking and cultivating practices in our lives to live out this kind of love will produce good results in us, our spouse, and our marriage. Guaranteed. But realize, this love is being formed by sacrifice. That’s a dirty little word today because it means denying yourself to be shaped by God’s spirit in you. In the words of Galatians 2:20, I’m choosing to surrender my life in Christ so that I am not living out my selfish will but allowing Christ to live in me and shape me through his love and sacrifice. This love is not rooted in feelings because our feelings are fickle and unreliable. Instead, it is rooted in something formative, and it is practiced through action (read 1 Corinthians 13). Show me marriages where two imperfect people are striving for this type of love, and I bet marriage counselors will be in less demand. Now, I like the sound of that.
A Strong Marriage Needs Two Healthy People
There is something to be said about the ingredients you use affecting the result you get. Whether you are mixing a cake or making a marriage work, ingredients matter. A strong marriage starts with a strong foundation, and part of that involves the health and well-being of the partners. No person is going to be without fault or limitations, but what amazes me are the neglected forms of personal well-being that are compromised or neglected. These health dimensions can range from physical, mental, to spiritual health. Healthy people create healthy relationships. Your individual well-being impacts your marriage. When I’m continuing to live a stress-filled and overworked life, my marriage takes a hit. Yes, we can recover and recalibrate from stressful seasons, but I have to be intentional about self-care and good work habits that contribute to my well-being and the well-being of my marriage. Same is true for my husband. And, well-being is a pretty common concern for couples I see in my office. Take addictive behaviors. I’ve yet had a client tell me that their marriage is better when the other spouse is drinking a lot. Yet, I have heard many sad stories of spouses lamenting about the fracture in their marriage from excessive drinking. Or pornography use or anger issues, or fill in the blank … . Our own forms of brokenness or diminished well-being limit us and spill over into our marriages. Taking care of yourself is not selfish and addressing whatever is limiting your well-being is good. Don’t avoid, settle, or justify. Be willing to pay attention to how you need to grow, heal, or improve. You’re worth it and so is your marriage.
A Strong Marriage Is Not a Perfect Marriage, but You Have to Do the Hard to Have the Strong
The drifting effect, at least that’s what I call it. All marriages are prone to it, but strong marriages course correct. Love relationships go through a typical “honeymoon” stage where the feelings of romance and infatuation are high. The chemical release at these stages creates a bonding effect that can even carry over to the early stages of marriage. Your spouse is the best thing since Texas sheet cake—sweet, fulfilling, and delightful. But no person can impress us for that long, and honestly, our own impressiveness diminishes, too. It can be easy and often subtle, for couples to start drifting away from the pursuit of each other and their marriage. Kids may come along, jobs become demanding, or the hustle and hurry quells our energy and attention. At this point, enter the prevailing message from society: You deserve to be happy. If you are no longer happy with him or her, find what makes you happy and move on.
If we could hit pause at this point in the story, I’d like to offer another perspective. It is common, and most likely inevitable, for marriages to drift off course at times. My marriage is not perfect and neither is yours. But, continuing to drift apart does not have to be the direction you follow. Especially for followers of Jesus, we are called to “fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12), and this also means fighting for our marriages. Through my imperfection and desire to follow Christ, I want my marriage to be part of my testimony. And I pray that for you, too. Yes, it can be hard work, but it is fulfilling and transforming. Do your very best to finish what you started in your marriage. When problems come and you begin to drift, course correct and fight for your marriage. Get on your knees and pray, see a counselor, and be willing to try. Sometimes the hard part means working on ourselves or even addressing issues with each other, but whatever it is, address it. I see too many couples sit down for marital counseling after they have been drifting apart for a long time. Yes, even these marriages can grow stronger if they both want to do the work, but sometimes the drifting has gone too far. Pay attention to where you are in your marriage. It’s worth fighting for.
