Making Marriage Work

This is not Eden. This is not what God had in mind when He made us. Our mortal existence is a punishment, God’s curse on our choice to trust our capabilities over His revelation. As fallen humans, we must contend with a lot of Edenic desires that cannot be fulfilled in this world. A critical element in restoring Eden is recognizing that our expectations for this life must match what God is offering.

As the song says, we stand on the unpleasant bank of the Jordan, casting a wishful eye to the Promised Land. Crossing the Jordan means leaving this fallen existence; we are obliged to accept what God offers us now until that crossing comes. This applies in every part of our mortal existence. The language of nailing the flesh to the Cross includes the idea that we must discipline our fleshly nature and keep it in subjection to what God has revealed.

False expectations are the scourge of marriage for believers. I said this back in college before I was married; it was a prophetic word as much to myself as anyone else. Romance had been quite unkind to me up to that point, and somehow God got through my hard head that this part of my life must be surrendered to Him in order to have peace. That surrender included all my expectations of what romance, and eventually marriage, should accomplish for His glory.

Jack shared a video (about 10 minutes) on his blog that is one of the best statements of reality I’ve seen regarding marriage. In it, Dr. Orion Taraban explains that our cultural and social expectations for marriage are massively overloaded. It’s quite obvious that this is a historically recent development, and it’s the cause of much unnecessary suffering. Previous generations would not even recognize our social concept of marriage today.

You can lay the blame where you like, but the solution is the bigger issue. From the short video presentation, we learn that all the other stuff we pile onto our marriage expectations were part of the packaging of a different society. Our society today cannot deliver because it has discarded everything that provides the added benefits of what marriage enabled in previous generations.

Dr. Taraban mentions very pointedly that the extended family household structure is absolutely necessary for marriage to work as God intended. It’s not that you cannot find great satisfaction from the person you married, but that you must already have most of that before seeking a spouse.

I grew up in an extended family that remained geographically close. Sometimes we did live together in the same house; usually it was a simple matter of being next door. Failing that, my parents simply spent a lot of time with their siblings and in-laws. Most of them had all grown up together as cousins and neighbors themselves.

I can testify that, while I eventually rejected a lot of the cultural baggage I gained from this upbringing, the essence of the experience itself prepared me for a very blessed marriage. I wasn’t burdened with a load of need that demanded too much from marriage. I was equipped to make the most of what marriage could actually do. By instinct, I chose to marry someone whose expectations weren’t so extravagant, either. This left us free to make more of our marriage than most people do.

By God’s mercy, I chose wisely. My wife qualifies for the mythical “unicorn” label. After 45 years together, I bear no marriage scars. Whatever solutions we build for reclaiming the lost heritage of the Covenant, it must include the wisdom of people like Dr. Taraban.