Stop Trying to Save ‘The Marriage’
by Joe Leavell
You’ve been dreaming about what it would be like to get married since you were little. You wondered what your spouse would look like, about their personality, and where you would live. You mused over how many kids you would want. You imagined those sweet little talks that you would have, laughing late into the night. You thought about both of you cooking together, enjoying sweet kisses and touches as you passed each other in the kitchen. You imagined grossing your kids out one day as they covered their eyes from seeing your passionate embrace. You thought what it would be like to share a knowing ‘wink’ from across the room at a dinner party.
Then you met “the one.” You were so sure of it! I mean, you knew you weren’t going to get EVERYTHING you wanted in a spouse, but my goodness this person had to be handpicked by God just for you!
You were so nervous on your wedding day! What if you were getting it wrong? What if this wasn’t your ‘happily ever after’ after all? So many people start their marriage out so well and end up in divorce! You remained confident that this was the person that would share your dreams, and that your marriage was going to be incredible. Sure, there would be hard times, but you would face them, side by side, joined at the hip.
Now, you’re here, sitting in counseling, wondering how on earth you ever got here. Your marriage is in deep trouble, and you seem to be the only one who really wants to fight for it. Your marriage is worth it though, and you want to do whatever it takes to save it. Things have gotten so bad that you know that if you weren’t a Christian you would want out. God wants you to stay in your marriage though, right? You’ve seen the fallout that divorce has on kids, and you know you don’t want THAT! So you’re here, investing in your marriage, hoping that the counselor will convince your spouse to fight for your marriage with you.
I hear stories like these all the time in marriage counseling with almost every single couple that I work with.
Have you ever said words like this?
Are you fighting for your marriage? Are you getting tired?
I want to encourage you from the bottom of my heart that it’s time to stop trying to save the marriage.
What’s So Wrong with Saving My Marriage?
I can hear the objections. “Wait, so you just want me to let the marriage die?”
1000% yes!
“So I’m just supposed to give up and get divorced!”
Absolutely not what I said in the slightest!
Let me ask, are you wanting to save your marriage…or your relationship with your spouse? Think again about what you are fighting for. Your marriage, or your spouse? Because even though we use these terms synonymously, those two are not necessarily the same thing.
So many come to marriage counseling for help to save almost a third-party entity to their relationship called “the marriage.” One spouse is on one side and the other is on another side. In between them is this important project they are working on called ‘marriage.’ They both work on it, invest in it, spend time on it, and if they do a good job, they will get out of it what they want.
It ends up not going well, so they think communication is their problem. They know what they want in their minds, but trying to get their spouse to understand what it is they’re fighting for and then actually agreeing what ‘the marriage’ should look like has become almost impossible.
I want you to just stop all of it right in its tracks and think about this vital point in your struggles.
The only place where ‘the marriage’ exists is in your mind.
Yes, you read that correctly. The marriage that you are fighting for is not, and has never been real. ‘The marriage’ is simply a desire of your heart, a want, an aspiration. It is a yearning and a longing that only exists as a figment of your imagination.
Let me say it loudly for the people in the back.
There is no third-party entity in your relationship with your spouse called ‘the marriage’ for you to save or work on!
You are investing in a fantasy, and you are using your spouse to attempt to give you something that has not, and will never exist.
What Really is the Difference?
Think with me for a moment. Certainly “marriage” exists so what’s the difference? Is this just semantics?
While Scripture mentions marriage many times, what it is describing? When you open the Bible for the right understanding of marriage, what you find is one man and one woman who have pledged their lives to each other, leaving their families behind to forge a new one. They become one flesh together. This relationship that they share with one another is designed to reflect both God’s character, as well as the Gospel. Ephesians 5 teaches that the husband is to love his wife like Christ loves the Church, and the wife is to submit herself to her husband’s care as the Church does to Christ.
So far, when we’re addressing ‘the marriage’, if this is all we have in our minds, great!
But nowhere in Scripture will you find, “Husbands love your marriage.”
The command to wives, “Wives, submit to your marriage” is completely absent.
Why?
Because there’s just one man and a woman who commit their hearts to God and to one another. That’s marriage. Just you and your spouse. That’s it. Two people who have selflessly given their lives and their hearts for the good of the other.
Why Does it Matter?
Many of us know these couples who are married but are functionally divorced. They aren’t friends. They don’t really love each other. They lead two distinctly separate lives. But hey, at least they kept “the marriage” intact.
When you fight for ‘the marriage’, what inevitably happens is that your spouse becomes a means to an end. Rather than investing in the person, you now need something from them instead. Rather than freely loving you from the heart as a gift and a promise, they are now required to work on ‘the marriage’ per your expectations. You have this idea of what marriage is supposed to be in your mind (right, wrong, or indifferent), and you need them working and fighting for the same end that you are! So you go on dates, you go to seminars, read books, and get marriage counseling. Why? Because you both are fighting for your marriage!
Shoot, maybe you’ve given all that up years ago! You’re just fighting to make life bearable, and you need this other person who annoys you to death to step up and work with you!
When “The Marriage” Becomes an Idol
You’ve stubbornly held on for so long through the difficulties, because you refuse to be a statistic. You want to honor God so badly by keeping this marriage from dissolving that you could even reach the point where you despise your spouse and still want to stay married. Why? Because ‘the marriage’ is what you love in those moments, not your spouse.
Inevitably, you depersonalize your relationship on the altar of unmet expectations and desires.
Now marriage is a status symbol. It’s a representation of personal success or failure. Your anger towards your spouse for not living up to their end of the bargain is simply due to their failure to give you your dreams of marriage that you dumped in their lap when you said, “I do!” You’ve grown bitter because all your hopes and dreams for marriage and life have been shattered by this person.
You feel betrayed.
“I expected marriage would be so different from this!”
“Maybe I married the wrong person! I never would have married them if I knew life would be this way!”
Think about what’s being said here.
“I didn’t get what I wanted from you. My dreams for what I imagined married life to be like are unfulfilled. I don’t actually want YOU for better or for worse! I don’t actually love YOU at all. I love my dreams that I expected you would give me! That’s why I married you! Of course I wanted to be with you because I thought you were my best shot at giving me the marriage that I wanted!
I thought you were the spouse I dreamed of having! You were supposed to fit into a pre-filled template called my expectations and instead you turned out to be a round peg in a square hole! No matter how hard I press to get you into my mold and give me ‘the marriage’ I want, you won’t do it! I’m over here doing my best to make sure you’re happy too, but if we can’t figure out how to make this marriage work, I don’t know what to do!”
You let me down.
God let me down.
My kingdom didn’t come.
My will wasn’t done…
What if ‘The Marriage’ is Abusive?
Sadly, many hold on through horrible abuse and betrayal with a similar perspective. When the most loving, God-honoring thing you could do for your spouse is to end the abuse by seeking help or escape, you continue to endure to preserve what is left of ‘the marriage.’ You do so for your children’s sake and because you have built your whole life around protecting ‘the marriage’ to the point where you feel as if you are a prisoner in your own home.
Abusers know this and take advantage of it to keep you under their control. This is why when they threaten you, they threaten some aspect of ‘the marriage.’
Let me say it plainly: you do not love your spouse well when you allow abuse to continue. You are merely seeking to preserve a phantom third party entity. Rather than loving your marriage, love your spouse well enough to end the abuse. Love gives real opportunity for Christ to reign in and through your spouse’s heart.
Jesus Fought For US
Jesus didn’t die on the cross for an institution. He died for people. He didn’t rise again from the dead to save an organization. He rose to give the people He loves new life. He rescued us from our own sin and selfishness, so that now, we aren’t just trying to dutifully meet his expectations. Now, we reflect the personal life giving love that He has freely given. There is intimacy. Love. Joy. Longing for our Groom.
In this way, marriage is meant to reflect that close intimacy of seeing not a ‘marriage’ to save but a person to love.
Look over at your spouse.
Do you love him?
Do you love her?
Do you love the person, or is your love contingent on how useful they are to fulfilling your dreams?
Husbands, don’t love ‘the marriage,’ love your wife.
Wives, don’t invest in ‘the marriage,’ invest in the man.
Don’t fight for your dreams of ‘the marriage,’ fight for the intimacy you can share together as you both submit your hearts to Christ and reflect His love and care into an actual person, regardless of your dreams being realized.
We have no interest in helping you save ‘the marriage’ but have every heart and desire to help walk you through how to love your spouse well through the lens of the Gospel. We hope you will reach out and give us the honor of showing you how from Scripture!
