Putting Stock in Marriage
Last week I participated in a panel discussion with an organization called Young Lives, a ministry under the parent organization of Young Life that focuses on supporting teen moms. My wife, Chris, is the Area Coordinator for Greater Holland Young Lives and her idea was to have a single guy, a young married guy, and an older married guy on a panel to field questions the girls had prepared. Yes, I was the old guy on the panel. The audience was made up of high school girls who had one thing in common with each other - they all had a baby and were navigating their teen years, school, relationships, and family dynamics all with a little one on their hip. I could barely manage my own life as a teenager, much less the responsibility that these young ladies have to carry. This is where Young Lives comes in. They pair older women with teen moms to offer support, encouragement and mentoring. Sometimes this is an SOS diaper run late at night or questions about parenting, but sometimes the emergencies are much more dire.
The panel event was intended to give these young women an opportunity to ask questions about relationships to men at different stages in life. The questions varied, but here is a sample...
How did you know she was the one for you?
What do you think is the most important aspect in a relationship?
It seems like guys only care about sex, why?! How do I respectfully say no?
What do you argue about and when there is an argument, how is it resolved?
Do you feel that a father who is serving jail time can be redeemed?
What did you do to prepare for marriage?
What is the key to making the relationship last for years, and making it happy and healthy?
I really enjoyed answering these question (I didn’t touch the ones on sex). It was a chance for me to reflect on my marriage. A chance to consider the advice that had stuck with me through the years. I knew that some of what we shared with these young women could be pivotal now, and also hopefully years down the road. There are nuggets of truth that I have either read, heard, or thought of that have helped me through rough patches in my marriage. I like to refer to them as “silver bullets” of wisdom that bring perspective and insight into building marriage longevity. Here are a few:
My Silver Bullets
Good people make good marriages. It may seem overly simple, but it’s really profound. Work on becoming the person you would desire to marry and then find someone who is a genuinely good person. Chances are, your marriage will be a good one.
Marriage is like the stock market, it is always moving up and down. The key is to remember to hang in there when things are down. They are going to come back up just like the stock market. And, like the stock market, over time the investment value is higher than the previous year. However, if you panic and bail out at the low point, you miss the upswing that was coming and you will never experience the heights of where it was going. It’s often hard to imagine it getting better in those low moments...but it always does.
“In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage.” - Robert Anderson
Always enter marriage with your eyes wide open but live in marriage with your eyes half shut. This is a bit like shopping for a home. You try to find the best one for you within those available on the market and are diligent to look for flaws at the open house, but after you have moved in you accept the items you can’t change. I was reminded of a photographer friend of mine who once said “the secret to marriage is low expectations.” That was really funny to me at the time, but as it turns out he’s right. It’s amazing how focusing on self improvement vs. spouse impromprovement, will actually improve your overall marriage.
It’s not the mountain you climb together that makes marriage tough, it’s the pebble in your shoe. People get annoyed by the little things. Keep the small stuff small.
Pour yourself into others, not just yourselves. We love to share war stories with each other from our time in the trenches alongside hurting people. Caring for others’ burdens not only lifts both parties, but also lifts your marriage because it has a way of shrinking your problems.
Keep Jesus at the center of life. Chris is never more attractive to me than when she is pouring through the Bible and praying for the many people in her life – including me.
Marriage should be viewed as a long race. Anyone who has experienced long races has had this thought…”why did I sign up for this?” followed by, “I want to quit!” But sticking with it results in a second wind and the exhilaration of crossing the finish line. We have both been at a place where we simply didn’t like each other and, if we’re honest, quitting loomed in the back of our minds. But knowing we will have these feelings normalizes them and helps us to press through toward the finish line. Desiring to quit is not wrong, but quitting is. Jesus desired to have the cup of suffering removed, but he pressed through.
Whether you’re in year one or sixty one…hang in there, your stock is on an upward trajectory. Don’t let the downward blips derail you.