Mom’s Official Guide to Choosing a Mate (or, Proof that Mom Bursts Bubbles Well) - II

Dear TEAMS,

Here is the Introduction to this Series. 

In my last post, I made it clear that marriage is not about anything you are trained by certain media to believe.  It is so much richer!

So, conceptually, a rich marriage contains items in 3 categories:  business, friendship, and romance. 

Friendship contains the stuff you do that you do with friends:  recreational activities, social activities, sitting and talking together about common interests, getting coffee, etc.  It’s feeling comfortable with that person all the time, usually because you have similar interests and convictions about life, religion, politics, and a similar sense of humor.  As with any friendships, as one person grows in their individual interests—or, conversely, becomes more selfish or ingrown—the other party is affected by those choices and must adapt to that person’s state of being.  In the friendship aspect of marriage, since there is an understood lifelong commitment, both parties must work through the changes so the marriage remains mutually beneficial. 

Reception Hall Getting Set Up for A's Wedding!

Romance contains the physical attraction you have for your spouse, the airy-fairy feeling (that, I might add, ebbs and flows from day to day, week to week, and year to year but when it comes back is strengthened by the foundations being built and added to from the other circles).  It contains the sexual part of marriage, where you are relating to each other in a way you do not relate to anyone else in this world.  It is the flirting and the personal displays of affection that are appropriate in our culture.  We have brought you up to believe romance’s place is strictly for intentional dating and that sex is for marriage alone.  We did this for the same reason we taught you to respect a hot stove, to look both ways before crossing a street, and kept you from using a chain saw before you had the maturity needed to operate one—as much as you begged to and tried to convince us you were ready.

Business is what consumes most of a marriage.  It is the day-to-day, administrative “stuff” that is always in our lives.  It revolves around finances, kids, housing, food, career, religious involvement, academics, work, etc.  Your father and I are constantly trying to answer questions about what our next move is in x, y, or z.  You kids are constantly needing a game plan about your own xs, ys, and zs as well, and so we try to get on the same page about it all.  Business is probably the least romantic of the three, especially to the woman.  But where both of you come down on these areas warrants careful consideration to keep conflict in the acceptable range of marriage.

Here’s another thing the movies don’t tell you:  because we are fallible humans, rarely are all 3 areas strong at the same time in any marriage.  However, when two are exceptionally strong and the third is  And sometimes, especially in years of great stress and growth, only one area can be relied upon by both parties in marriage to sustain the marriage.  This can be incredibly hard and create cracks and opportunities for bitterness and malice to creep in, or what the Bible refers to as “giving the devil a foothold.”
being nurtured, the marriage is life-giving to each party and is a “successful” marriage.

This is why I mentioned in my first post that the only reason your father and I have some authority in this area is because we chose to stay, even when life got hard.  And let me tell you why…something that the world cannot understand until they get over themselves and start to believe God is Who He says He is:

Your father and I actually were married to Another before we married each other, and our loyalty remains to our first Love.

The minute your father and I chose to believe the Bible was true—even if we could not understand everything in it—we married our Creator.  We chose to have and to hold Him, from this day forward, ‘til death do us finally meet.  We chose to believe He loved us like no other person ever would and that He alone would be our sustenance and supply all our needs according to His amazing wealth and what was done through Christ on earth.

So, despite the way I swoon over Jerry telling Dorothy in Jerry Macguire that “you complete me,” there is a fundamental error in that saying.  Of course, I wish I was a princess 100% of the time in your father’s eyes, as much as he wishes he felt honored by me 100% of the time.  But there was ever only one person who walked the earth that could do that, and we missed meeting Him in person by 2000 years.

Of course, the good news is that we can get to know Him even now.  The Bible declares that my Maker is my husband (Is. 54:5), and that has been my solace many times in my marriage…as it has for your father.  No one person will ever be the perfect spouse for you, and marriage isn’t about that.  Marriage is a cherished, exclusive, intimate relationship you can only have with one other.  But it cannot ever satisfy every whim and desire and “should” you feel is owed to you as a spouse.

Which brings me to my next point.  Someone wiser than me once said, “Love can’t wait to give, lust can’t wait to get.”  I talk about this in my next post.

Love, 

Mom’s Official Guide to Choosing a Mate (or, Proof that Mom Bursts Bubbles Well) - I

Dear TEAMS,

I guess it’s that time.  Without any warning or sign, you all are growing up and venturing into relationships with significant others.  It is what we have prepared for as parents personally (as we have to let you go), and what we have prayed for you, what we have wished for, and what we have equipped you for all your lives.

And it’s here.  Just like that.  In 5 days, Daddy will put A’s hand on his arm, walk her 45 feet down an aisle, and declare we are releasing her for the rest of her life into the arms of a fine young man with our blessing.  Even as I type, my eyes are tearing up.  As I have often said to you about situations like these in life, “I am happy for her, and sad for me…but the happy outweighs the sad.”

You have seen in previous posts things about dating and things about your romantic relationships.  After having many long, fruitful discussions with E about her own pursuits, I thought it was time to write down some of what I have said.  So, I’m calling this series of posts, Mom’s Official Guide to Choosing a Mate (or, Proof that Mom Bursts Bubbles Well).

Before I begin, I want to clarify that I am not perfect, and your father is not perfect, and Daddy and I don’t have a perfect marriage.  We have our own problems and continue to work on them.  But, we are committed for life to each other.  That’s the purpose of a wedding, despite what Bridezilla and Disney™ and American culture portrays.  And, given that about half of the population has faced some of the problems we have had in our marriage and decided to end their relationship over those   I say this with deep respect for those who decided to end their marriages, because the pain and betrayal and overwhelming confusion was tangible.  I validate their very real pain.  And some of them had Biblical authority to end their relationships, which is a topic for another time.  

A's Wedding Dress, awaiting the big day!

problems, I believe I have some authority in this area simply because I chose to stay and continue to choose to stay.

But, I just want you to understand that when you are wishing us well on our 70^th anniversary, it was not some random accident or that we were “highly compatible” or that we're just really nice people that we ended up that way.  It was because we chose to stay, pure and simple.  We chose the institution of marriage over ourselves, which was hard when injustice at the hand of the other was occurring and we had no guarantee—save our faith that God wanted the best for us in life and for our marriage—that it wouldn’t remain as draining as it was.  I have counseled women who have left their husbands because that man didn’t pay attention to their needs (which is tragic and unBiblical) and have yet to hear a good answer when I ask them, If you didn’t mean what you said on your wedding day, why didn’t you just live together?  Because the answer to that negates the reason they choose divorce over staying and making it work.

I caution you that what you are about to read is going to sound as about “unfun” as it gets.  The temptation will be to attribute what I am saying to some Puritan or ascetic viewpoint on marriage.  I am not saying anything of the sort.  Any one of the three circles I will mention provides so much life, satisfaction, and enjoyment, it is hard to limit them by mere words.  My purpose is to provide some practical advice to you as you approach a lifelong relationship.  I will use text from this series in the near future in my letters to you, I am sure.

So, here is my version of Marriage 101.  Move over, Cinderella, because your fairy godmother needed to give you more than a dress...

Love,

The Case for Premarital Counseling

Dear TEAMS,

I had the sad event a couple weeks back to hear that a sweet friend of mine was struggling with circumstances in her marriage.  It was such a tragic thing to me, really, in that I attended that wedding several years ago and everyone seemed so very happy and supportive of the union.  We all rejoiced that she was getting married—a true desire of her heart—and that she had found someone who had such similar tastes and passions as she and came from a pastoral family.

What made me saddest of all is that when I was informed of this, I wasn’t surprised.  I’d seen this coming and had hoped against hope the pattern wouldn’t be repeated yet again…not with her of all people!

The culprit that tipped me off?  They both had rejected quality premarital counseling when they got engaged for a number of reasons, not the least of which was pride.

When I speak of quality premarital counseling, I’m not talking about 3 sessions the pastor spends with the couple talking about love, divorce, and the Bible and then the third session is planning the wedding.  No, I’m talking about the down-and-dirty, practical stuff that most couples who are still in the airy-fairy stage of their relationship have not considered could ever be an issue.  Because make no mistake:  the garbage still needs to be taken out whether you are into each other or not.

It is said that most marital difficulties are the result of children, finances or sex.  It has been my experience with your father that all of our difficulties instead have been because expectations were not met (and because of lack of humility—but that’s for another post!).  Sometimes, we didn’t even realize we expected what we did…and that’s where quality premarital counseling comes in.  Quality premarital counseling involves the process of discovering where your expectations lie and where your partner’s expectations lie, and if those two conflict with each other enough to cause frustration or anger.  A highly generalized example would be children:  if you expect to have children, but your partner really doesn’t want to, that’s a problem because one of you will not get what you expect.  And worse, if the person who doesn’t want to have children decides later on that he/she should for the sake of the spouse…it sets up lots of difficulty when said child arrives on the scene and that person who “gave in” realizes the amount of self-sacrifice , time, money, and effort that child takes.

When someone says they don’t need premarital counseling because “they love their fiancé/e and know they always will, so everything will work out” and that “we’ve seen really good marriages and think we have a handle on those work,”  I quietly bite my tongue, because 1) they make a mockery of what God’s infinite love is by equating it to their own, and 2) they are making an assumption that watching is the same as doing, as if watching a lifetime of neurosurgeries would qualify you to perform one.  To think that a human being’s love is enough to ”make things work out” when 2 of the kids individually simultaneously vomit and get diarrhea that explodes out of their diaper, all while another child is panicked because he can’t find his shoe and the dog is whining at the door to go out, and your spouse has had a horrific day and can’t stand coming home to no dinner and the house mess from tending to sick kids all day and you cannot wipe your nose that is literally dripping on the carpet from your allergies…well, let’s just say that you’ll see how far human love really goes and how no amount of watching has prepared you.  You will also see how valuable the conflict resolution part of your premarital counseling was.

My friend is now in a marriage that she has had to lay down all of her dreams of having children, dreams of how she would spend time with her husband building relationship in specific ways, and dreams of vocational pursuits that might never come true, all so that she can Biblically show her husband an example of submissive love.  For now and what appears to be the next several years, that is her lot in life.  Can God change all this and do the impossible?  Absolutely, and I pray that He will.  Will God be redeeming this situation and growing her even deeper in her relationship with Him through it?  Hallelujah, yes—much to her credit of deciding to accept her situation and apply Biblical wisdom to it.  But her wide-open eyes could have been opened earlier and perhaps different decisions been made, all for the want of a little quality premarital counseling that was shunned by two prideful hearts that believed they knew what they were doing even though they’d never done it, and that their love was equal to God’s and could fix anything.

Love, 

Words to a Wife in a Troubled Marriage: Part II

Dear TEAMS,

Here is the second part to the letter I wrote to our dear friend who is having a hard time in her marriage right now. You can see the first part here.

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2)  Being submissive has noting to do with laziness or giving up.  Submission is willfully laying down what you deserve or expect or want in order that the greater good might be accomplished. It is an extremely active response, and it is birthed in your heart. Submission that doesn’t have the heart attitude of “I love this person and because it is important to this person that I do this, I will” backing it will backfire and cause the user a whole lot of pain and damage. If I do not actively do the work to make sure my heart is right, I am merely being legalistic and reinforcing the bars on the prison I feel trapped in. 

I am the one in control when I actively think through and lay down my rights because it is important to [my husband].  One example of this in our marriage has to do with Puffs vs. store brand facial tissue.  [My husband] really, really wanted me to buy Puffs when he had a cold.  I couldn’t justify spending that much money on something that held snot and was thrown away, especially when he would get on me about how much I spent.  When I really started understanding the concept of true submission, I laid down my right to have cheap tissue, even though it was extraordinarily expensive to buy the Puffs brand.  I didn’t just “shut up and buy the tissue and be silent about how much it annoyed me,” nor did I play the nobly wronged person saying, “That’s fine…I’m above all this, so if it’s important then I will do it” martyr act.   I actually realized that by spending my household expenses on Puffs, I was honoring God because I was laying down my selfish desires (which were rooted in trying to controlling money, anyway!).  I would not have had that realization had I not been willing to do it God’s way.  God would provide the finances taken from my spending on the Puffs.  Just writing this, I realize it’s such a silly thing that I ever spent my emotional energy on.

Again, though, I want to really focus on where the heart is with this action.  If your heart isn’t really doing the hard work of “Boy-I’d-really-rather-not-be-[doing x, y or z]-but-I-want-to-honor-God-and-He-sees-this-sucks-and-I-trust-Him-to-take-care-of-me” each and every time you submit to something [husband] wants, it’s just legalism.  If your heart isn’t sincere when you say, “Wow-I-can’t-believe-he-just-[talked to me that way/treated the children that way]-but-God-tell-me-how-I-can-show-him-your-love-right-now” and you give a gentle response in word only without your heart, it will not do the transforming work that will change the situation in the future. 

3) Being a wife and mother is extraordinarily hard work, but “escaping” is no longer possible. I’m not talking about the logistical stuff of actually getting a divorce. I know your heart is to trust God’s word with that. I’m talking about what gets you up in the morning. We live in a world where marriage is seen as an antiquated concept and women staying at home is seen as being equivalent to them being lazy. I didn’t realize how much that seeped into my daily thinking, even though way deep down I knew that was not true. I know things are really hard for you right now, and that your present situation consumes your thoughts. But I got to the point where I wondered at what if instead of feeling I was stuck, I instead put my heart into my work with a renewed passion to be an even more terrific wife and even more wonderful mother than what I was. I realized this was my present lot in life and would be for a while until the Holy Spirit really got ahold of [my husband]. I didn’t surrender; I accepted. I realized I put a lot into my job when I worked outside of the home, but didn’t approach this the same way. So, I started to do that. I actually got up every morning at 6:30 and curled my hair and everything, just as I did years before.  It helped me find more pride in my work, and knowing I was performing for my First Husband (Who loved what I did!) really gave me a boost.

So many women feel this is subjugating themselves, when it is the most empowering position to be in. We actually, with our words and deeds as a fruit from a pure heart, have the capacity to literally change a person’s reactions and position before God. Because make no mistake, that is exactly what happens when sinners such as our husband sin against us and are greeted with pure, loving grace and kindness. Or when our children disrespectfully relate to us, or even rebel against us. My children and husband are better off today because of every time I was wounded because of something they said or did and I asked my First Husband to help, actively laid down my desires from a loving heart, and took my job seriously.

I owe you and apology and a huge THANK YOU. When we first came, you said that you don’t see [my husband] act the way [husband] does, and I said you were wrong. Then I said it was cyclical, but less. However, on real reflection I realized I am really wrong and have misrepresented my husband completely now. What I should have said was, “Yes, he used to be [husband], but now he is changed.” His awful times are few and far between, and I now can speak with him privately and let him have a day to lick his wounds and he turns around. THAT is because of the choice I made to realize the 3 things I talked about above. God did that through me! I thought he had to change, and what I didn’t realize is that I needed to change and that would initiate change in him (the Bible repeatedly talks about this). It has taken years, but I will say that I am very much a different person than the woman who felt so dead and lost and hopeless that stabbing myself with a knife just so I could feel something—anything—seemed enormously appealing to me. So, please forgive me for being so self-pitying that I would completely miss how much my husband has improved, and thank you for presenting me with that opportunity to see that.

I see this is page 4 of 4. Thanks, too, for reading this all the way through. Again, I really care that you are so miserable. I hope this letter will lead you to greater discoveries about yourself that will transform your whole family. Even if it doesn’t, you will find tremendous freedom and coping for your present situation by these things. Never, ever feel like you can’t call or write.

Love,

[Me]


Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.” ~Maria Portokalos, My Big Fat Greek Wedding


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Love,