What Marriage is and Isn’t

Cheeky Smile by Lydia Selk

It’s interesting to listen to couples in the first blush of love talk about what they want from their relationships. They say things like, “Wouldn’t it be great to be together all the time?” or, “I just feel like I’m dying when we’re not touching”.

I would hope that after ten years of marriage, (currently on year six) that I’d still want to spend the majority of the time with my husband. I know I certainly can’t wait to talk to him any time something exciting happens. As for the “dying when we’re not touching”, well, after several months of marriage and almost constant contact, that particular wish wilted a bit Then, two years later, and after Baby One it certainly reawakened for a while. But that’s a different topic, isn’t it?

The point is that marriage is and isn’t all we expect it to be. At first it is an orgy of togetherness (take that literally or figuratively), a communion of intellect and emotion, and entertainment. It is an endless dance of what he wants and she wants, and massively intense. But two people can only maintain this much closeness before things start to get rubbed raw. Humans do crave togetherness, but they also need aloneness. Two can become one to a point that neither one remembers who they are when apart, and while that may seem magical, it’s also harmful. We need to be united, yes, but we also need to be who God created us to be. And the joining two together can become twisted to the point where one person sacrifices their being and calling for the happiness of the other ─ which kills the union.

In addition, the sad reality is that the miracle of togetherness can often become overshadowed by memories of the first serious fight. Work and family can be very distracting to the point where the marriage itself is shelved as secondary and the closeness and specialness of the relationship is not maintained. And then each partner is left to figure out what marriage really is.

Here are some hints to help: a relationship is not about you. It can’t be, or it will end. Marriage is not about you being adored, you being desired, you being fulfilled, your needs being met. It’s about loving the other person in the partnership and his or her happiness being more important than your own. That means making sacrifices, sometimes going ignored or neglected for long periods of time. Not because it’s okay to do that, but because life happens and in the midst of life happening people can be overlooked hurt. But marriage isn’t about that hurt. It’s about the hope, the faith, the commitment, the vows, the forsaking of all others for the sake of the union. It’s about learning how to truly love someone unconditionally. It’s about learning to put yourself second.
And if you have children….wow. At that point, it’s about learning to put yourself third or fourth (or fifth, or sixth, or seventh). It’s about learning real, real patience. It’s about learning to swallow anger, or only letting it out appropriately. It’s about learning to live without so that your kids don’t have to. It’s about hours, days, months, years, spent waiting for a chance to pursue a dream. Often there are only enough hours in the day for one person to get needs met, or pursue dreams above and beyond their regular jobs at work or at home to maintain the household and family..

In order for a marriage to work, sometimes it seems like the people involved have to practically transcend humanity. And, I emphasize ─ two people. It doesn’t matter how holy and how perfect one person is, if the other person never offers the same sort of transcendental commitment, the marriage will collapse. Rarely is one met halfway, but so long as both keep meeting, things always seem to work themselves out. In a perfect world, you’d have two people so wholly devoted to each other’s fulfillment that neither go wanting. But this world isn’t perfect. Yet, it’s perfect enough and that is what matters.

Not perfection, but having enough, and learning to be thankful for that. The moments of togetherness eclipsing the moments of solitude, the love expressed covering the wounds of anger, the tender expressions taking the place of epic love poems. And in learning to love what is there, we learn about God. We understand why God would send Christ for us, a broken people. And we learn to be like him. For me, that’s what marriage really is.