Prioritizing the Relationship

It has been said that in marraige, we must place our spouse's needs above our own. However, I disagree with this. I believe we must place the needs of the relationship higher than our needs or those of our spouse.

Here are some ways in which we can priortize the relationship:

• Spending time together
• Serving one another
• Romancing one another
• Sacrificing time for the other individual
• Sacrificing our needs for those of the other individual or children
• Asking them, within reason, to sacrifice their time for us
• Asking them, within reason, to support us in our own needs for personal care - alone time
• Taking ownership for our own needs for personal time - making them known to our spouse
• Setting boundaries - learning to say "yes" when we mean "yes" and to say "no" when we mean "no".
• Directly addressing wrongdoing on the part of our spouse without trying to shame them
• Prioritizing the relationship over our children - by this I mean getting our emotional support from each other and close adult friends instead of getting our emotional needs met by our children
• Working as a team to serve our children - meeting their physical and emotional needs
• Taking time out for our own needs as a couple - date nights without the children
• Honestly making our needs known, knowing they won't always get met by our spouse
• Having a desire to meet our spouse's needs even when we aren't able to meet them
• Taking ownership for our wrongdoings and finding a desire to accept responsibility for change

In short, prioritizing the relationship involves much more than just prioritizing the other individual.  It entails a variety of needs and desires of the couple, of each individual, of self, and our children.

Life Will Never be the Same

Once a person finds the courage to take ownership for his or her actions, refuses to beat themselves up over them, and somehow finds the deep down desire to move towards the one they have harmed to say “I am so sorry. I don’t want to do that anymore.” – life will never be the same. A person with a true heart like this one, a non-defensive and non-avoidant heart, will inevitably begin to change over time, regardless of the pace. They will seek help for the parts of themselves that they have been unable to change. They will find their confidence, love, and power through their vulnerability and the ownership of their responsibility.

Easter and The Fear of God (not exactly what you think)

In Christian theology, we believe that God-in-Christ died on a cross, punished for something He never deserved, namely our sin, descended into hell itself, and that three days later, being God, He came back to life, because of course, death could not contain God.

 

We should fear God on Easter, but not in the way that you think I might mean.

 

There are a couple things God has to say about fear.  First, He says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111).  Okay, so this is the starting point.  What happens when I go to God out of fear of punishment?  Before Jesus went to the cross, he addressed this issue.  He told us not to fear other human beings because they (and we) will all be exposed for who we really are one day.  Instead, he dared us to fear Him – the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  But in that same teaching, he says next that if you come to Him in fear, you will find that he cares for you – that you are valuable and of immense worth (Matthew 10).  That was Jesus teaching before He even went to the cross.  What happens when we meet God at the cross in fear and trembling over our sin, over the harm we have done to others, over the harm we have done to self, and yes – even the harm we have done to Him – brining God to deep anger and sadness over His loss of us – what happens when we meet Him there at the cross?  This is what He says:

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.  There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4).

At this point, the fear of God in relation to punishment is completely eliminated.  Let me stress that again.  The fear of God has 0% to do with punishment.

For the person who goes to the cross to meet with God, fear has to do with what He wants to do with us.  In Romans 6 and Colossians 2, God tells us that when we were baptized, it was as if we were buried with Christ for our sin.  However, He also says that just as Christ was raised from the dead, it is as if we were raised from the dead, so that we may have new life.   

At the resurrection, or what we call Easter, this is fear of God – new life.  New life isn’t about trying to lessen our sin.  New life is about walking into the freedom to try to find our long lost desire to love again.  Often, those who come from severely broken homes and are put into foster care with loving families struggle immensely with the amount of safety, love, affection, and boundaries they find in that home.  Their roadmap has been severely damaged and they feel most comfortable with harm done to them, self-harm, and harming others.  I heard a very harmed and harmful person tell me one time that he felt extremely uncomfortable in loving environments.

When we meet God at the cross, the fear of punishment is completely eliminated.  We are instantly sent to the resurrection where God offers us new life.  New life is scary because when we are set free from sin through forgiveness, we can begin to take ownership for our sin and really begin to deal with the harm we’ve done to God, others, and self.  We don’t have to hide any longer.  And this is what is so scary – we don’t have to hide any longer.  God’s invitation to unconditional new life, both now and in heaven to come, requires vulnerability, which means we let God and other safe people into our lives for confession and assistance.  This exposure is so fearful.  That is why many people find it a good start to go to a counselor who will maintain confidentiality.  Then, as the person grows, he or she is able to let others into his or her life with the guidance of a trusted professional.  This is one way to do it, when the fear of new life is so high. 

The other fear of new life is honesty, which entails saying “yes” when we mean “yes” and saying “no” when we mean “no”.  This comes directly from the mouth of Christ himself.  He knows that we only have so much emotional and physical capacity to do things.  His desire is for us to take care of ourselves and our emotional needs.  This means suffering the discomfort of saying “no” to someone’s request instead of suffering from resentment later when we’ve said “yes” but we really meant “no”.  Conversely, there have been so many times in our lives when we wanted to say “yes”, but some voice in our head told us to say “no”.  Maybe we were invited to play volleyball at the YMCA on Thursday nights, but our husband didn’t know how to cook dinner or take care of the children very well on his own.  So, we sacrifice our physical and emotional health by saying “no” when we wanted to say “yes”.   Instead, it would be better to coach our husband on what to do for the evening and say “yes” to volleyball.  Of course, there is a balance here, but we all need a certain amount of time for our own personal things that rejuvenate us.  This kind of honesty is scary because often those around us don’t want this kind of honesty.  We will be tempted to feel false guilt and entering new life in these circumstances will be extremely difficult.

So, we see that new life entails vulnerability, honesty, and courage.  As we try to love others and meet them as equals and within our capacities, we will be exposed for who we really are – those who are trying to find our desire to love people, but who also have imperfections, limited capacities, and even still harm those around them.  Taking ownership for the good and bad in our lives instead of running, denying, or hiding is what God calls new life, at least here on earth.  Such new life is terrifying because it exposes us for who we really are.  More and more over time, we will be truly known, and that is scary.  Simultaneously, it is incredibly appealing because in new life, we find periods of rest, because we don’t have to hide any longer.

Easter is to be celebrated because in Easter we see that death and hell were unable to contain Christ our Lord.  Easter is also to be celebrated because simultaneously, we have been risen from our spiritual death.  God has given us the freedom to try to find our long lost desire to love.  This is to be celebrated, but this is also to be feared.  Such freedom entails so much uncertainty, so many unknowns, so much space that we have never felt before.  The definition of courage is that we do something we are terrified of – this is what God wants to do with us.  He wants us to find courage, vulnerability, trust, and love.  We have to believe that these things lie somewhere deep inside us, even if we are having a hard time finding them. 

Truth, Grace, Fear, and Courage

All of us grow up with styles of relating designed to protect us from harm.  These are fractured love styles that are based upon the ways in which we were betrayed growing up.  Even the healthiest families cannot avoid these dynamics because we all have the tendancy to harm one another.  Harm and hurt are only to various degrees among families and as a result, we develop these fractured love styles that aren't built upon vulnerability and intimacy, but upon self-protection.

Some of us power up and try to force control.  Some of us play victims.  Some of us avoid.  Some of us play people pleaser to keep everyone happy.  Some of us go back and forth between trying to connect and running away.  All of these fractured love styles dampen vulnerability and intimacy.  Unfortunately, in our desire to protect ourselves, we end up feeling isolated and alone smack in the middle of our marriage.

Our greatest fear is relationship itself.  Marriage is an invitation to know and be known, to love and be loved, to risk exposure and vulnerability.  This invitation is both our greatest desire and our greatest fear.  The only way we can risk entering relationship within marriage is through truth, grace, fear, and courage.

Truth means naming our needs and desires instead of self-protecting.  We lay out our needs and desires on the table in front of our partner, and then we give them complete freedom to meet those needs and desires as they choose and/or as they are able.  We risk our needs and desires not being met.  Instead of trying to self-protect in order to prevent betrayal, we risk betrayal and then lay out appropriate boundaries when a betrayal occurs.  This gives our partner the freedom to try to meet our needs without the pressure of perfection.  (If betrayal has already occurred, then we set the boundary immediately and over time widen the boundary as our partner demonstrates trust over time).  In addition to naming our needs and desires, we listen to them name their needs and desires with a sense of openness.

Grace is very similar to truth.  Two sides of the same coin.  In grace, we name harm done to us and lay it out on the table in front of our partner.  We give them complete freedom to take ownership of the harm they have done.  Often we have also harmed them and so we give them the freedom to name our harm.  In grace, we have complete freedom to take ownership without being forced to do so.  In this frame of mind, we see the dignity and value of our partner because we choose to name the harm and yet have already forgiven them by releasing them from any obligation to make up for what they have done.  Finally, one other aspect of grace is to acknowlege that our partners simply can't do everything.  Sometimes, their inability to meet our needs and desires are hampered by ability and/or the fact that they have been harmed so much in the past that it will take a long time for them to be able to learn how to move towards you in love.

Finaly, fear and courage are primary components of marriage.  In fact, the discomfort of fear isn't something we can gloss over, sweep under the carpet, or pretend doesn't exist.  However, healthy fear and unhealthy fear are two different animals.  When we self-protect in order to try not to get hurt, this is unhealthy fear because we inevitably harm our partner and ourself.  However, when we risk moving towards our partner withour needs and desires exposed, then we experience a healthy kind of fear that amounts to courage and bravery.  Moreover, we tell each other that despite our imperfections, we want to move towards each other at the core of our hearts but that it is the most terrifying thing we could ever do. 

In summary, marriage is an invitation to relationship and love through truth, grace, fear, and courage.  Choosing to risk love within marriage is one of the most terrifying things we could ever embark upon, but for those who are willing to risk vulnerability over fractured love styles, it is also the place where we find deep feelings of gratitude. 

The Rituals of Pursuit

Men, our women want to be pursued.

Our pursuit sometimes involves flowers, an evening out on the town, and a candle light dinner.  However, a stronger form of pursuit involves the daily rituals we practice over and over again to show our women that we think about them, want them, and continually want to do so.

Every morning I wake up about 2 hours before my wife due to my work schedule.  I get ready and then I make sure to do something very specific every morning.  I climb back into bed, put my cheek onto her cheek, kiss her several times, tell her I love her, and then keep my cheek next to hers for ten or fifteen seconds.  Sometimes I stroke her hair.  She stays half-a-sleep so she doesn't wake up, but she acknowledges my presence and lets me know she feels thankful for my presence.

When I get to work, I always try to send a private Facebook message when I arrive.  Sometimes it's very short like, "Hi! I just got to work and I was thinking about you.  I love you." Or, sometimes, it is more profound or creative.  Maybe I thank her for a conversation the night before and how it impacted me.  Something like that can be a short paragraph.  Sometimes, for fun, I write a rap song of my love for her.  Sometimes, I write something showing her my sexual desire.  This morning, I sent her a picture of two Panda bears cuddling with each other and I told her I loved her.

Later on in the late morning, I almost always give her a call for no reason from work.  If she answers, I say, "Hi.  I was calling just to say 'hi'. How are you?"  That's where we start.  I try not to have an agenda.  I try not to have anything we need to discuss like finances.  I just call to say "hi".  We go from there.  Usually, our phone call is only 3 minutes, but that is all she needs to know that I love her and want to pursue her.

Your wife, fiancee, or girlfriend wants to be pursued.  She doesn't just want the flowers and romantic dinners, although that is important as well.  She wants the daily rituals.  It won't get old for her.

What are some of your rituals? Feel free to submit a comment.

Trust: More Than a Character Trait

"Most psychologists and other social science researchers regard trust as just one of many qualities that determine a relationship's strength, rather than its foundation.  Some exerperts even consider trust a character triat - you either have it in you or you don't.  But I don't believe that.  I am certain that the majority of couples can maximize their loyalty level and therefore guard against betrayal and improve their odds of a happy future together.  Trust is not some vague quality that grows between two people.  It is the specific state that exists when you are both willing to change your own behavior to benefit your partner.

"Trusting each other doesn't mean that [a couple] will always put the other's needs ahead of their own - that is unlikely to be healthy.  But it does mean that their happiness will be interconnected.  They will each change their owwn behavior to increase the other's payoffs. 

-John Gottman in What Makes Love Last?