5 Things That Make a Good Marriage, Hope, Cummunication, Relationships, Wellness, Happiness, Joy

Marriage is an Endangered Institution

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In a selfie-punctuated world it is not difficult to understand why so many marriages suffer abbreviated life spans. Yet in spite of the statistics that argue against it, the institution appears healthy. Against opposition that previous generations could not have anticipated, it remains an admirable estate, a magnificently resilient estate we can’t seem to get enough of. Love, hope of a family, convenience, companionship, intoxication, boredom; there are many reasons why we marry. But the institution cannot maintain its own health independently. Like godliness, charity, virtue, vocation, or even genius, a good marriage is something you have to exercise. You have to watch over it, speak life into it every day. Here are five suggestions to help cultivate a healthy marriage.

Take Your Vows Seriously

This may sound oversimplified perhaps, but a marriage is only as good as the strength of the vows that gave it life in the first place. Some vows last. Others lose grit and steam with the first hard storm. Love deflates with the realities of life, leaving only silence where there once was conviction, belief, mutual possession, warmth and tenderness. Too many of you know this by experience. The first defense against this deflation of love is to take your vows seriously. Like the Word of God, hide those vows in your heart for safe keeping. And, like the Word of God, remember them, rehearse them, treasure and defend them, exercise them daily, keep them before you always.

Love Is Not a Negotiation. It Is a Surrender.

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Two people who live together, who plan and hope together are always negotiating something. “Your turn to make coffee,” or “I vacuumed last time,” or “It’s your turn to walk the dog,” and so on. In that sense, marriage is inspired dialogue. In love, however, there is no negotiation. It is not a bargain we strike. Love is a surrender. It is not a cause. Love is not something we do. It is a state of being. It is an absolute surrender, a complete giving of my complete self to another. I entrust my soul to something I do not fully understand, to something larger than my one life, and with no acceptable middle ground, no margin of compromise.

Always Prefer Your Spouse First, Above All Other Considerations.

The intoxication is sweet, and, as the intoxicated well know, irresistible. Couples often keep to themselves in the early stages of a marriage, in the swaddling warmth of its nativity. Eventually they will have to step outside and react with the world around them. The point is, whenever there is a third party, even if a child, it is easy at times to overlook the one you came in the door with. Always put your spouse at the front of the line, however that applies. There is a life between you, a living seal, a contract God has not only ordained but delights in. Let the child know mom and dad are inseparable—a temple, impregnable, protected of God. Honor that.

This Day I Put to Death All Other Options

Death binds us to God. To say, “This day I put to death all other options,” is to obligate both your soul and your marriage to the keeping of God. It is, like faith itself, a contract we enter by way of a death, a baptism. Two people come together at the intersection (or collision) of two worlds, two histories, of two independent psychologies, and so on. Add passion and desire, and healthy or unhealthy, civilized or not, it’s one big bustling package. The successful marriage gives itself no options. It is always watching, listening, always hoping, trusting, believing. Words like divorce, affair, neglect, unkindness, alienation are given no soil or water, that they might undermine and destroy a good thing.

Put God before All Things

Marriage is a divinely inspired nakedness between two people. The successful marriage recognizes the miracle in its heart (the miracle of union) and lives in its warmth and light, its hope and its protection. They trust God with the details and by a wisdom as deathless and as certain as he. Allow him access daily, continually. Allow God to be the adhesive, the strong connective tissue, the paste that keeps your little house together, the uprightness in your walls. Put him before all things, including your beloved. He will be your defense, your advocate in the day of doubt or calamity. God is, Shakespeare said, the best maker of all marriages. Give him the permission he needs.