Exploring the complexity of marriage …

I’m a believer that we tend to make marriage far more difficult than it is.

But with that said, there are several elements to marriage that are important, at times critical, and always can impact your relationship with your spouse. When couples come to see me for marriage counseling, one or several of these elements are usually central components to the distress the couple is experiencing in their relationship.

Over the years, I’ve often provided couples with a document that reveals some of these key elements to marriage. I’ve provided that graphic for you here, now let’s take a few minutes together to quickly survey the complexity of marriage:

FOUNDATIONAL COMPONENTS
Committed personal relationship to Jesus Christ – The single greatest factor that will determine who you are as a husband or wife is who Jesus Christ is to you. If you live a life committed to following Jesus Christ, your capacity for building a joy-filled, God honoring marriage will be different than if you don’t live a life committed to following Jesus.

Unconditional love – Making love conditional with your spouse endangers the quality and capacity of the relationship. We talk a lot about unconditional love, but we make the topic something mostly theoretical or intellectual — you cannot do that in marriage. Marriage is a relationship where practicing unconditional love is not an option!

Grace – Because both you and your spouse are imperfect people, grace will be a necessary, foundational component in the relationship. You both will have weaknesses, and you both will have failures. You’ll both disappoint each other at some point. Grace brings you through all that your flawed humanity will spill into your relationship.

Commitment – Research has shown (and my own clinical experience substantiates) that no matter how badly a couple may batter their relationship, if there is a sliver of commitment among them, almost anything can be fixed! Commitment is a foundational element to marriage, without which the relationship likely will not last (certainly will not be a joyful experience).

BUILDING ON A SOLID FOUNDATION
Once you have a solid foundation for marriage, what do you build on it?

God’s romantic love cycle – Scripture provides us in Ephesians 5:21-28 with what I call “God’s romantic love cycle.” This passage gives a key instruction to husbands (love your wife as Jesus loved the church), a key instruction to wives (respect your husband like you respect Jesus), and a mutual instruction of always giving honor to one another. How can a man love his wife like Jesus loved the church? If she so respects him like she does Jesus. And how can a wife respect her husband like Jesus? Because he loves her like Jesus loved the church. This creates a cycle that drives the marriage and generates mutual honor.

Joint vision – Amos 3:3 says, “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?” If a woman’s vision of marriage is to move to a big house in the country, have a dozen kids, and a husband who farms the land, but a man’s vision of marriage is to live in a luxury condo in the center of a metropolis with a “trophy wife,” never have children, and be out-on-the-town most nights, this couple couldn’t have a lasting marriage because they don’t agree on the direction. And agreeing on the direction isn’t about one person giving up their vision for the other person’s vision, but with God’s leading, to craft and live out a joint vision for their marriage.

Continued courtship – We’ve popularized the idea of “date night” to the point we’ve nearly trivialized it. But there’s nothing trivial about “continued courtship,” which is simply the living out of the delight you find in one another. Life is not about all the tasks you attempt to accomplish in any given day, but about the experiences in the relationships you build. The relationship you have with your spouse should be second only to God, so always investing in — and enjoying! — that relationship is a key part of everyday life.

Healthy boundaries – This is related to “God’s romantic love cycle” – having healthy boundaries in our marital relationship means knowing how to consistently treat each other respectfully and with honor.

Building shared memories – Spending a lifetime together creates a unique shared history. Finding ways to celebrate your bond lessens the stresses of life and boosts health-promoting energy.

TOPPING OFF A MARRIAGE WITH SOME KEY ELEMENTS
Finally, we top off all those very important elements to a marriage relationship with some components that deeply impact the quality of the relationship between a husband and wife …

Communication – Having well-developed communication skills is the central tool for a couple to be able to build a joyful, lasting, COLLABORATIVE marriage. Most any challenges and problems can be worked through with the use of communication skills, but great damage – even divorce – can result in a lack of skills applied to communication. Scott Free Clinic offers training in the Couple Communication I program, an internationally-renowned, award-winning program which equips couples with communication skills to build a mutually satisfying, collaborative marriage.

Expectations – Expectations can create problems in a marriage in a variety of ways. Having expectations isn’t a bad thing, but not communicating expectations while still holding someone accountable to them creates trouble. The type and content of expectations matter as well.

Creative differences – Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Men and women are different, and sometimes those differences can create problems within a marriage relationship if we don’t work at understanding them.

Rational thinking – Our thoughts create our emotions, and our thoughts and emotions together create our behavior. So much of our thinking, though, is irrational. Imagine bringing that into a marriage! Learning how to consistently think rationally dramatically impacts our marital relationships.

Temperament differences – This may be the last item listed here of some of the key elements to a marriage, but it can be one of the most significant to impact our relationships. Temperament is that God-created, in-born part of us that determines how we respond to people, places, and things. In short, this is how God has “wired” us as persons. Understanding one’s own temperament needs, and the temperament needs of your spouse, is often pivotal in the quality of a marriage, and often is the “make-or-break” component of marriages.

CONCLUSION
After all that, yes, I still believe we often make marriage more difficult than it really is. However, as I demonstrate here, the marriage relationship can be quite complex, containing multiple elements (including others not represented in the above graphic) that are all very important to understand and develop.

If you find yourself struggling in your marital relationship, a skilled, competent Christian clinical therapist can help you identify what the root issue is, and help you collaborate with your spouse to work through those issues so you can enjoy the union you’re blessed to have.

Scotty