Marriage is greatbut it rocked everything I knew. I quickly realized
my basic goal in life, prior to getting married, was to simply remain
undisturbed.
This 'disruption' came suddenly and was disguised as a 5-foot-
nothing Swedish-Filipino woman. When I decided I'd rather not live
without her, I proceeded to ask her to marry methat is, to
officially invite someone who wasn't me to be in my personal space
for the rest of my life.
This decision introduced my most significant experiences and most
challenging experiencesnone of which I would trade for the world.
However, I wish I'd had a bit more insight on the front end of our
marriage to help me navigate it all.
According to most research, more than 50 percent of people
who say 'I do' will not be sleeping in the same bed eight years from
now. And though Scripture alludes to the fact that adultery and
abuse may be reasons individuals might end a marriage, I'd be willing
to bet that most challenges experienced in marriage are the result
of unawareness.
Most peoplemyself includedjump into marriage with suitcases full
of misconceptions and bad theology, entirely unaware of the
unique beauty and paradoxical intentions of marriage.Although
happiness is often a very real byproduct of a healthy relationship,
marriage has a far more significant purpose in sight.
The following are three thoughts on marriage that friends and
mentors have shared with me. I remind myself of them often in
hopes of keeping this anomaly called marriage both enjoyable and
healthy.
1. Marriage is not about living happily ever after.
Here's the truth: I get annoyed at my wife. But this is more a
reflection of me than her.
I'm intensely certain that nothing in life has ever made me more
angry, frustrated or annoyed than my wife. Inevitably, just when I
think I've given all I can possibly give, she somehow finds a way to
ask for more.
The worst part of it all is that her demands aren't unreasonable.
One day she expects me to stay emotionally engaged. The next,
she's looking for me to validate the way that she feels. The list
goes onbut never ventures far from things she perfectly well
deserves as a wife.
Unfortunately for her, deserving or not, her needs often compete
with my self-focus. I know it shouldn't be this way, but I am
selfish and stubborn and, overall, human.
I once read a book that alluded to the idea that marriage is the fire
of lifethat somehow it's designed to refine all our dysfunction and
spur us into progressive wholeness. In this light, contrary to
popular opinion, the goal of marriage is not happiness. And
although happiness is often a very real byproduct of a healthy
relationship, marriage has a far more significant purpose in sight.
It is designed to pull dysfunction to the surface of our lives, set it
on fire and help us grow.
When we're willing to see it this way, then the points of friction in
our marriages quickly become gifts that consistently invite us into
a more whole and fulfilling experience of life.
2. The more you give to marriage, the more it gives back.
Over the past year, a few friends and I have had an open
conversation about the highs and lows of marriagespecifically how
to make the most of the high times and avoid the low ones. Along
the way, we happened upon a derailing hypothesis that goes
something like this: If one makes their husband or wife priority
number one, all other areas of life benefit
It's a disorienting claim. Disorienting, because it protests my deeper
persuasion that success as an entrepreneur, or any professional,
requires that career takes the throne of my priorities and remain
there for, at the very least, a couple of years.
However, seeing that my recent pattern of caring about work
over marriage had produced little more than paying bills and a
miserable wife, I figured giving the philosophy a test drive couldn't
hurt.
For 31 days, I intentionally put my wife first over everything else,
and then I tracked how it worked. I created a metric for these
purposes, to mark our relationship as priority, and then my
effectiveness in all other areas of my life on the same scale,
including career productivity and general quality of life.
To my surprise, a month later, I had a chart of data and a handful
of ironic experiences to prove that the more you give to marriage,
the more it gives back.
Notably, on the days my wife genuinely felt valued, I observed her
advocating for me to invest deeply in to my work. She no longer
saw our relationship and my career pursuits as competitors for
my attention, and as she partnered with me in my career, I have
experienced the benefits of having the closest person in my life
champion me.
Of course, marriage requires sacrifice. And sometimes it will feel
as if it takes and takes. However, when we return marriage to its
rightful place in our priorities, it can quickly turn from something
we have to maintain and sacrifice for into the greatest asset to
every other layer of our lives.
3. Marriage can change the world.
John Medina, the author of Brain Rules and a Christian biologist, is
often approached by men looking for the silver bullet of fathering.
In one way or another, they all come around to asking, 'What's the
most important thing I can do as a father?'
Medina's answer alludes to a surprising truth.
In my previously mentioned experiment, I measured the effect that
making my marriage priority number one had on different areas of
my life. One of those areas was my 16-month-old son's behavior.
What I found in simply charting my observations was that the
majority of the time, my child's behavior was directly affected by
the level of intention I invested in my marriage.
Re-enter John Medina, the Christian biologist. After years of
biological research and several books on parenting conclusions,
what is his answer to the question, 'What's the most important
thing I can do as a father'?
'Go home and love your wife.'
Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, the authors of Babywise, say it
this way: 'A healthy marriage creates an infused stability within
the family and a haven of security for a child in their development
process.' They go on to sum up their years of research by saying,
'In the end, great marriages produce great parents.'
The point is that marriage has a higher goal than to make two
people happy or even whole. Yes, the investment we make into
our marriage pays dividends for us. But, concluded by Medina and
his colleagues, the same investment also has significant
implications for our family, our community and eventually our
culture.
So men, women, the next time you find yourself dreaming about
living significantly or succeeding in your career or being a better
parent than yours were to you, do the world a favor: Go home and
love your wife. Go home and and love your husband.
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