Common sense talk about marriage

The Word of Truth Ministries

Marriages of Hatred Disguised in Words of Love

Part 4
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Common sense/Godly Talk about Marriage

The marriage is indeed where many saved couples become unsaved, as they wrestle with and against each other. It is this union that must be preserved more than we know. Paul teaches that marriage is honorable in all, and the bed is undefiled. [Heb. 13: 4] Marriage is an honorable institution because it is God originated, as He projects the future role of the church and Christ by it.

But we have marred that great institution, and speak as we may about the unity and tranquility of our unions, many marriages of very fundamentally religious people who claim to love God and obey His word are falling apart because they tend to think that their union will heal itself, promote itself, and that it does not take nurturing and attention. Furthermore, we tend to think that God will bless it so that we need do nothing but enjoy it.

Many who have engaged the institution have seen, after a while, that marriage requires a great deal of managing and nurturing. The first five years it was on automatic pilot. But the Word of God and wisdom must be used as guides for marriages. For in this institution where children are raised, long-range commitments and obligations are entered into, intimate concerns, emotions and sensitivities are revealed and shared, and it becomes a crucible of happiness or pain, depending on what we do.

After the First Five Years
The first five years are usually the honeymoon period that couples experience. Thereafter the marriage is tested and tried for continuity and its conditions. Will it remain romantic, tolerable, or unbearable is often the question.

During the first five years love blossoms, and tolerance has no end. The new lovers are able to leap over walls of differences, burst through barricades and balustrades of incompatibilities. But after a while, those differences and incompatibilities become thumbs that are everywhere, inconvenient, and troubling to the parties in that marriage. This is a condition that comes after the five-year honeymoon.

Usually after five years of marriage a child, or two, is born. That new element into the marriage creates a new dynamic--a dynamic that changes the marriage into a family. And as marriages are more restrictive on the individual's behavior than is true of an individual's bachelorhood, so are families more restrictive of the marriage parties' behavior than is true of marriage. The new addition to the marriage transforms it into a family.

When there is a child, that child needs nurturing because it cannot take care of itself. That usually means that the mother will devote more time to the needs of the child and less time to satisfying the needs to the husband. A husband is, therefore, deprived of the usual proportions of affection and devotion from the wife he normally gets. As a result, resentment and frustration can develop. Second, wives' bodies are transformed by pregnancy and after pregnancy, many of them never return back to the shape, or near the shape, they came into the marriage with. This failure to return can mean other changes as well-changes that are incompatible with the successful management of the marriage.

Weight gain is likely to bring about attitudinal changes as well. The person over-weight is often set for the defense of his/her position because he/she is insecure with the new condition. And because childcare takes a great deal of energy, often the wife will feel justified in not attending to themselves. The husband may become perplexed with that situation and that mindset will not bode well for that marriage that has been transformed into a family.

Also, the wife may become so involved with motherhood that she forgets her first obligation is to be a wife. This is frequently a problem in young marriages: the wife leans totally to motherhood and nurturing the child so that the adult needs of the husband go wanting. That condition can work itself into an avenue for Satan to harm the marriage, the family, and the saved lives of that God-filled couple.

Of course, the husband is supposed to understand and be tolerant of the child's needs and the mother addressing those needs. Yet there is a but that must be considered: the husband still has adult needs that go un-addressed. Those needs are real, and tolerating the mother's vast attention to the needs of the child can be understood, but that understanding does not assuage his needs, it only gives him power to suffer long with his unmet needs.

There is a significant problem with these changes: that they become permanent changes that harm the marriage, and many a wife feel justified and argue, "I have had a baby!" And that argument may seem to be against the man. The alterations that may become permanent are such things as eating patterns that keep the pregnancy weight on and increase it, coming to bed and in-bed patterns, exercise or lack thereof patterns, cooking patterns, attitudinal changes to match weight gains, etc.

There is an entire lifestyle change with the introduction of children into the marriage dynamic. Now there is a family, in that marriage is housed. Human experience teaches that when a significant situation changes, people involved in that situation change to accommodate the new condition. Those changes may be, and often are, disastrous to that marriage if they are not dealt with wisely.

A marriage that has undergone a change into a family unit needs a sound understanding, and the parties to that marriage need to understand the paradigm shift that has occurred with the birth of the child. This reality is often looked over and not discussed thoroughly by many saved parties because they assume God will do all things and they need do nothing because they are "saved." That attitude, too, is why there are so many single-parent households. After the child/children, many marriages are strained and stretched to the point of dissolution.

The above type of response is foolish, but it is a response that is very common among too many saved people who are unequally yoked in understanding and tolerance. The child causes those in that marriage to be born again, according to traditional Jewish law--any profound change of circumstances in one's life was called born again. And just as we had a profound change when we were, in fact, born again into the Kingdom of God, we have a change in situation with the birth of a child. Many marriages cannot tolerate that change and they dissolve.

The change in the husband as the center of the wife's affection may be too much for him to tolerate. He has gone out and found a wife, as the scriptures say, now that wife is focused on the child. A husband may be able to understand and tolerate this to a limited extent. This is a fact that a wife who is wise must understand and work with. There are ways to handle this seeming rejection and alienation of affections, as the husband may see it. Intelligent couples can see the methods needed to overcome this hurdle.

For a pastor or a teacher to simply say that such a person is not saved, is not wise, is not behaving according to the scripture, etc., is no help. Matter of fact, these types of remarks lack the wisdom and understanding of God, and if these teachers were altogether silence that would be their wisdom. [Job 13:5] This marriage situation has to be and can be dealt with successfully. To tell a husband the above things do not assuage his very real feelings so that he can live with them.

Then there is the problem of caring for the child by the mother/wife. Often the wife who becomes a mother is so emerged into motherhood she forgets that she is, in fact, a wife first and foremost. Such behavior on her part works in that husband a sense of justification (albeit untoward) of being released from his obligations of a husband, or it inflames his passion and allows Satan an occasion for sin. The fact that a wife is a wife to her husband should never be forgotten, but always given attention to, lest the child becomes fatherless and she becomes a single parent.

In a marriage that becomes a family, neither party in this family must forget that each one is party to the marriage. The children are not party to the marriage. That is a special relationship between the adults of that family; the children are only party to the family, not the marriage. And the marriage is the key to the survival of the family. The marriage must take precedence and be preserved that the family may be a successful family.

Nature of Relationships: Marriage/Family
The distinction between the marriage and the family needs to be made and clarified. Tragically, many never make this distinction, and they see their families falling apart and cannot figure why. Look at the health of the marriage; that may give some indications of why.

A marriage is a relationship that two adult people engage in. It is a nurturing relationship for adults, taking care and attending to adult needs. Adults have different needs from children. God saw that Adam had certain needs that could only be satisfied by a female adult. [Gen. 2:18] He did not make a helpmate that was a child or an adult male. (Not withstanding the current trends in society, I speak concerning Godly marriages not social marriages.) God took a rib from an adult Adam and made the adult female Eve as Adam's companion--an adult female, not a female child! [Gen. 2:22]

Many a men have assumed that because they are heads as designated by God, somehow their wives are children and are to be treated as one of the children. That is a mistake that can be a fatal one. That attitude is also naïve and one that is exercised by a novice drunk off a certain limited authority he probably should not have. When a man has an attitude that his position over his wife in a marriage is some great and lofty position of authority in life that he can vaunt himself over another, that person is immature and unaccustomed to exercising any form of power. He is a dangerous man with any power; the more limited the power, the more dangerous the man. God's Word does not prompt him, instead the raw exercise of power has intoxicated him. That man is a fool.

When David had asked Nabal, a man of worthlessness and wickedness, for food to feed his men, Nabal would not give that food. He was foolish and unwise, not perceiving the force before him. But he had a wise wife, Abigail, who later became the wife of David; she recognized that her then husband was an unwise and foolish man and that his foolishness was about to get them all killed, so she exercised wisdom in his stead and saved the house of Nabal from certain death. [1 Sam. 25] That may be the condition of a many marriage situations where the partners are unequally yoked with ignorant mates bent on power and not on wisdom, the principal thing. [Prov. 4:7]

We are to wise as serpents but harmless as doves. When a man does not respect a wife of wisdom, it is because he has no wisdom himself. He is a Nabal and will surely get himself, his wife, and his family into dire straits; he is a foolish husband intoxicated by the small authority he exercises as head of the wife. Many men/husbands have not behaved as wise, even though Christ has been made unto us wisdom, they have behaved, too often, as fools. [Matt. 10:16; 1Cor. 1:30; Eph. 5:23]

I repeat for emphasis, marriage is a relationship of adults to satisfy adult needs. It is a pool of resources for meeting the needs that adults experience. Make no mistake about it, the husband is the primary one whose needs are supposed to be met by this relationship. It was not Eve that God looked at and determined that she had a need; it was Adam, and for that cause God made Eve to attend to his adult needs. That includes, but is not just about amorous needs. There are many needs a mature adult male has that outweigh sex. But to say that the husband is the primary one the marriage is to attend to is not to say the only need. The wife has needs that a husband should and must attend to also, lest he give an occasion for Satan to bring in his historical influence.

The marriage relationship is a vital one to a family, and it must be maintained and nurtured so that it grows as the two parties grow. (I emphasize two because everything goes today in this society. But this is not true with God, and He is not going to adjust His standards for us because we veer from His word to accommodate certain worldly and fleshly desires.) Marriage is of two people: a male and a female. They are ideally mated/yoked together not only in the Lord but also in temperament, likes and dislikes, education and intelligence, values and focuses, etc. This type of mate-matching will usually stand a better chance for success in life than a relationship based on carnal desires.

Some years ago when I got married, a particular brother would offer what I assumed was a compliment. He would frequently say to me, "The Lord really blessed you, brother." He placed special emphasis on "really." But in retrospect, I realize now that he was referring to my wife's appearance. But she was much more than looks to me. Yet that is how many marriages are founded: on looks. And that is how they die, for the looks will surely change. And it is usually those other more profound qualities that will preserve the marriage, if they are there.

When that marriage is in tact and the adult needs of the parties are met, they will be satisfied and able to successfully and joyously accommodate the vagaries and stresses of family life. But if their adult needs are not met, the family will suffer greatly because they will not be able to successfully and joyously address the family needs that are outside the marriage. That is why, in a family, the most important aspect of that family is the marriage. That institution must stay in tact--continually address the adult needs of the two parties of that marriage.

The family is a different relationship from the marriage. The marriage begets the family; the family does not normally beget a marriage--excusing untimely pregnancies outside of marriages that cause parties to marry. The family begins with that first child as an addition to the two. In love the married couple comes together to beget a child of themselves, from God. The two produce a third person, of them but an independent individual. This is God's edict to man, to be fruitful and multiply. It is the way of the world also. [Gen. 1:22]

Once the child is introduced into the marriage, I repeat for emphasis, that relationship is transformed into a family, and families have a set of obligations and responsibilities that are different from those of a marriage. By law and the Lord, the parties in a family are teachers and guides so as to rear a child in the correct ways of the Lord and the correct ways of the world. That raw human being must be civilized and humanized by the parents. That is a tall order indeed. An order so tall that many never understand and take it seriously. This is often where unequal mating brings in the difficulties of marriage and child-rearing.

Teaching and guiding a child cannot be done simply by precept--telling the child what he/she must and should do. The most effective teaching is through modeling. The proverbial little boy said, "Your words may be wise and true, but I'd rather get my lessons from the things I see you do." Modeling behavior is the most effective method of teaching. And to model a loving, healthy lifestyle, the marriage in that family must be healthy. For children, parents are their first world that socializes them into the broader world. Parents should not be dysfunctional; dysfunctional parents produce dysfunctional children; dysfunctional children are placed into institutions society has organized for them. Such offspring disgrace the family from which they come, and that family disgraces the name of Christ.

Raising a child is about more than teaching that child; it is also about projecting your seed into a world that you will not live to see. It is about positioning a child into a world different from yours, in a way that the child can function and achieve in that or any world. It is about those children being models of Christ in that world, as you are a model of Christ in this world.

My father often said to us, his children, "I want my children to be bigger than me, smarter than me, think better than me, do better than me." That is the wise goal of any parent for his children. That idea stuck in me, and I was, by the grace of the living God, able to allow my father to see that I eclipsed him, to his great delight. But not only was that idea held and partly achieved, it is an idea I hold and instill in my children as well. And any parent should maintain this notion for his offspring. (See my essays of Positioning the Child for Success. Click here.)

To achieve that ideal, a family must be a pool of resources that nurture and nourish the children of that family. Not only must the family provide by law and the Lord the basic needs of that child, but that family must provide for the emotional, spiritual, educational, goals, and value needs of that child. The Apostle Paul argues that the man who does not provide for his family denies the faith and is worse than an infidel. [1 Tim. 5:8] Furthermore the marriage couple who do not provide for the growth of the children in a family has no idea what they are doing.

I was head of a Juvenile Court system for a large county in California for some six years. During that time, I saw case after case of delinquent behavior in children who came through our courts as a result of parents who had no idea what they were doing to their children. And since they had no idea, they were actually killing those children and condemning them to dysfunctional lives for the rest of their short lives and condemning their children's children to dysfunctional lives as well. They were preparing them for the prison institutions that society has constructed for them. This sickness and this ignorance run deep into the family tree and will kill generations to come.

The family, as the marriage, is s sacred institution that holds the lives of children in its hand. That is why the marriage is so important a relationship to keep in tact so that the fruit of a marriage may be given a fair chance.

I have seen supposedly saved, Holy Ghost filled parents function almost at a retarded level in parenting their children. That is one of the reasons so many saved parents' children are in prisons and dead. But this behavior and condition is blight on the faith. Too many parents have not positioned their children wisely. And it is almost impossible to generate wise children out of unwise parents. Yet Christ is made unto us wisdom as well as sanctification. Sadly, many in the church representing themselves as saved are neither wise nor sanctified. They are just in the church representing that which they are not!

A good marriage breeds a wise and healthy family. That is why it is crucial to have a vibrant and healthy marriage. But to have one requires that the marriage partners work at it; be husbandmen. It will not attend unto itself; it will not be attended to by God; it is a gift from God and you must work it that it may grow and satisfy the adult needs of each part and that it may made the family flourish. Therefore, dig about it and dung it to make it grow, lest it be cut down! [Lk. 13:8-9]