Why We need to be Prioritizing Our Marriages
What are some words that come to mind when I say Marriage? Team? Financial stability? Kids? Headache? Divorce?
Every one of those things is valid, and we completely understand why you would think that way. Our culture today has given each and every one of us a skewed idea of what we should expect when we get married to the person we “love”.
It is so amazing that we all can fall into the lie that we are supposed to think that the rest of our life with another person will just work because we love each other. We all soon realize that while yes, we do love each other, it takes work, and some people go into marriage thinking that there is always a way out.
God never intended for us to get married with any consideration of thinking that there is a way out of this covenant we have made to another person. Genesis 2:24 says “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
This idea of being one flesh with someone else is to make us understand that this is an eternal bond that should not be broken. Imagine that you are born, and you grow up to be a healthy, well off person. Then imagine that sometime in the middle of your life, your creator comes to you and says “I am going to need to split you in half because I don’t think this is really working out.” You would never be the same after that, if you could even function at all.
I know this is harsh and sounds a little “preachy”, but I just want to emphasize how important this covenant really is.
So, how can we view our marriage in a new light in order to be better individuals, and a better family unit in this world?
Back to the Basics
Why are we married in the first place?
We are Stronger Together
We as humans are not meant to be in Isolation
Lets start with this idea that we are all stronger together. I’m sure that you’ve heard the expression “many hands make light work”, or “teamwork makes the dream work”. While both of these ideas are kind of cliche, and seem silly, there is a truth to what they are trying to convey.
Why wouldn’t we take these ideas that you would typically hear on a sports team, or in a squad, and apply them to our “marriage team”. You can’t deny that we all thought at one point or another that there would be an advantage to living life with another person. Whatever that advantage may be, just living with another person will not help either of us as individuals.
We as married couples need to take that commitment seriously, and need to be investing in each other, so that as a team we can accomplish so much more than we ever could have individually.
Now… Isolation is a tricky one. Especially us introverts can fall into that trap that we can “handle it alone” because working with other people simply exhausts us. We can’t allow our spouse to fall into that category of “other people”. If they are doing their job as a partner on this team, we should feel like being with them doesn’t make our life harder.
Even if you truly believe that working on anything alone is easier, the reality of it is that isolating yourself from human contact will eventually grade on who you are as a person. God designed us to be in community with others. This alone is a huge advantage to pushing into building up our marriages. Your partner should be your ultimate partner, and supporter through life.
Some questions to consider if you really want to improve your marital relationship.
Does my spouse feel like a safe space for me to be vulnerable?
Can I rely on my spouse?
Do I feel like my spouse and I have drifted apart since we got married?
Does it feel like my spouse and I are fighting constantly?
We simply want to come along side each and every one of you to help support one another, and give you the tools to start on a path towards further oneness. Regardless of where you and your spouse are on the spectrum in your marriage.
