by Tyler Ward
This statement marked the first moment in history when a human being would not look to God for wholeness. Now, men and women both would try to find their fulfillment in another person or in the works of their hands. This marked a massive shift in what it meant to be fully human post-garden and it effectively began the perpetual slide toward the make-me-happy brand of marriage or singleness we find ourselves chasing today.
Skip several thousand years.
Free Market Capitalism and Happiness-Based Love. Modern consumerism offers an abundance of choices for anything in life, which, as psychologists have noted, can create problems for relationships.3 With more choices come more progressive filters to help us make those choices. And the most popular of these filters today is known as the inherent rights of every American to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Necessity is no longer the issue when trying to determine which car to buy or restaurant to eat at. That’s why, whether we are aware of it or not, most decisions many of us make from day to day are often made through the lens of a simple yet telling question: “What will make me happiest?”
In this consumer-like quest for happiness, it is easy to make marriage more about what makes us happy than the object of our affection.
Hollywood and Happily Ever After. As soon as we’re able to understand bedtime stories, Cinderella and her friends tell us that love is about happiness. As we become teens, Hollywood takes up Cinderella’s campaign inundating us with the idea that marriage—and sex—is our gateway into happily ever after.
Many of us then spend our dating relationships subconsciously asking if this one could be “The One” we get to dance with in the rain and make passionate love to for the rest of our lives. It’s not until months into marriage that most of us realize Disney and Hollywood were full of it. At that point, our frustration with Cinderella is only rivaled by the disillusionment we feel in our marriage.
Obviously, I’m stereotyping and exaggerating the point. But social and scientific observations confirm this phenomenon, as well. According to a recent study, 67 percent of unmarried people believe they’ll one day find their soul mate—an ideal largely perpetuated by Hollywood—and the same study shows that those who inherently expect this happily ever after are 150 percent more likely to divorce.4 Additionally, science proves that the happy feelings in early stages of love have been proven to be a consistent neurochemical reaction, which biology calls the state of infatuation. This reaction—and all of the exhilarating emotions it offers young lovers—can’t sustain itself any longer than twenty-four months, confirming that the unnatural reality of life in marriage can’t hide behind happiness-based affection for very long.5
This is nothing new to you if you’re a married individual. Like Sam and Amanda, anyone who has braved the commitment can validate that marriage doesn’t always feel like the meeting of soul mates, nor is it always butterflies and sipping wine on the back porch. Marriage can at times feel more like exactly what it is: the very unnatural, and sometimes unhappy, reality of two unique people—with all of their beauty and dysfunction—attempting to love each other and navigate life together.
Sadly, many couples get stuck on these unnatural times. We are products of a culture that brings the hope of never-ending happiness to a relationship that isn’t designed to primarily make us happy. As a result, we end up severely disappointed.
I’m certainly not assuming that all of us have bought into Cinderella’s happiness-based hopes. But for those of us who have brought expectations of marriage being happy and easy—whether or not we’re aware of them—it may be time to reevaluate. Perhaps it’s time we realize that even though happiness has proven to be a very real result of a healthy marriage, true love has a far more significant purpose in mind.
THE MICHELANGELO EFFECT.
As legend tells it, the story of Michelangelo and his sculpture of David has something to say to us about what marriage is really for.6
As Michelangelo walked the art market, he passed a stone that had sat for some time, unwanted by anyone. Apparently several artists had tried to use the stone previously but found it had too many veins to produce anything of value. As Michelangelo walked by this rejected rock, he claims the stone spoke to him saying that David was inside of it. As he inquired about its price, the shop owner gave him the stone for free—simply wanting to free up space for a more sellable piece.
Michelangelo used the friction between his chisel and the rock to chip away—piece by piece—at this “useless” stone. Michelangelo didn’t sculpt like other sculptors. No, he didn’t believe he was creating something from nothing. Instead, he believed his slow, deliberate chiseling actually liberated what was already inside of the stone. He saw beautiful figures beneath the surface and considered it his responsibility as an artist to simply set them free.
Michelangelo described his unorthodox sculpting philosophy saying, “Carving is easy. You just have to go down to the skin and stop.”
Two years of chiseling later, Michelangelo had set David free—and in the process, he sculpted this unlovely piece of rock into one of history’s most renowned pieces of art.
I think there’s more truth about marriage in this story than in most of our modern ideas about relationships. Marriage isn’t, in fact, our gateway to happily ever after. It’s more like a chisel in Divine hands. And though there’s plenty of friction involved, it’s designed to chip away at all the dysfunction in our lives and free the beautiful statues inside.7
Interestingly, the Bible seems to agree with this picture that Michelangelo’s carving philosophy offers us. In fact, if you’re ever wondering who you can blame for this chiseling sensation in your marriage, Adam—the first human in the Bible—is your guy.
A HEALING FIRE.
It all started when the first human on earth decided to name his wife after a hazardous chemical reaction.
After having just been introduced to the only other human being on earth, he says, “She shall be called ishshah—woman, because she was taken out of ish—man.”8
Ish and ishshah. I assume that though they have a certain ring to them, these won’t be topping your list of names for future kids. Even so, they paint a picture about marriage that answers many of our modern questions.
To start, both words are derived from the root word and Hebrew character esh, which means fire.9
This means that the original word picture we have for the relationship between a man and a woman is an all-consuming, tireless-in-nature, potentially hazard-creating fire. And though this picture lends itself to the modern concept of heated romance or passionate love, the Bible consistently points to a different purpose of fire.
Fire happens to be one of the Bible’s primary metaphors for purification and personal development.
Jesus promised us, for example, that “everyone will be salted with fire.”10
God points to the purpose of fire when He says, “I will put [them] into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver.”11
King David, too, alludes to the intention of fire when he reflects in the Psalms, “We went through fire and through water, yet you brought us out into a place of abundance.”12
It would seem that the relationship between two spouses—fire—as depicted by biblical accounts, is a source of personal refinement, designed to play a significant role in one’s process of growth and maturity. But hang with me—the biblical picture gets better.
In the New Testament, Paul the apostle goes on to compare love in marriage to the love Jesus showed humanity. He says (emphasis mine):
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her [literally, purify her internally by the reformation of her soul], having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, … having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.13
This idea was beautifully expressed in a recent Orthodox Christian wedding we attended. During the ceremony, they acknowledged
that Jesus did everything He did—including death on a tree—for our salvation. Then the priest looked at the couple and, borrowing Paul’s comparison of marriage to Jesus’ love, said, “You’ve been given to one another for the other’s salvation.” Not salvation in the sense that only-Jesus-can-save, the priest clarified, but the kind of salvation that’s alluded to by the original Greek word soteria—meaning one’s holistic healing, deliverance, and prosperity.14
Now that’s a picture of marriage worth fighting for.
Marriage is actually about you and your spouse’s holistic healing, deliverance, prospering, and growth. And similar to our former picture from Michelangelo, the Bible alludes to this unnatural relationship as a sort of tool in Divine hands to help us become increasingly beautiful—increasingly our best and brightest selves.
HAPPINESS < BEAUTY.
So what about this modern idea of happiness? Does it have a place or do we abandon the idea altogether to embrace the refining fire of marriage?
Not at all. Happiness is a very real result of a healthy marriage. Even modern social research shows that marriage historically offers more happiness than singleness or divorce.15
However, as we’ve seen from Michelangelo, Adam, and Paul, happiness is not the primary goal of your marriage. Becoming more beautiful by becoming your best self—more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, faithful, gentle, self-controlled—is the goal.
Marriage—like fire—can be an all-consuming and potentially painful substance. But also like a fire, it can refine us. And like a chisel liberating the figures inside of a rock, as it would seem, marriage is a tool that the Divine uses to make us beautiful.
Dan Allender and Tremper Longman, the authors of Intimate Allies, explain this paradox well: “Marriage is where depravity is best exposed … and because it, more than any other relationship, bears more potential to draw our hearts to heaven, it can more readily give us a taste of hell.”16
I know that marriage can be one of the more challenging things we experience in life. And I know that at times, it demands far more than we feel we can give. I know there are moments when walking away seems like the only sane and rational thing to do. Yet I also know that marriage multiplies what we can become—both as individuals and as couples.
Marriage, even though it will introduce us to some of life’s most arduous moments, has brilliant intentions in mind. It’s unapologetically interested in chipping away at our dysfunctional thoughts, patterns, and postures in life and inviting us—and our spouses—to become the best version of ourselves.
When we remember this brilliant intention to liberate us—the beautiful statues trapped within our own mess—we begin to see a hopeful view of the relationship, even in its darkest times.
This vision of marriage takes the expectation off of our spouses to make us happy and re-creates the expectation that our marriage exists to help us grow.
It turns our focus from personal fulfillment to mutual personal development.
It exchanges our goal of happiness for the far more valuable goal of wholeness.
And yet …
As any growth in life, our “becoming” is dependent upon our choices and engagement. Once we understand this unique intention of marriage, the journey now becomes about learning how to participate in the liberation process.
LOOK IN THE MIRROR
How Your Spouse Helps You Become More Beautiful
“One of the best wedding gifts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse. Had there been a card attached, it would have said, ‘Here’s to helping you discover what you’re really like!’”—Gary and Betsy Ricucci
“[Marriage] is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature.”—Katherine Anne Porter
I used to think I had my stuff together. Then I got married and quickly realized that I was simply undisturbed. Of course, I didn’t stay undisturbed for long. But as it turns out, I was never meant to.
When we see that marriage is actually a divine tool for our holistic healing—this in itself is a life-altering truth. It’s often even more than we signed up for—because it implies that our spouse is a God-given gift to help us “work out [our] own salvation.”17 It implies that regardless of his or her own jagged edges or even lack of intentional participation, our spouse is a chisel in Divine hands used to liberate us into becoming our best, beautiful selves.
THE MIRROR PHENOMENON ACCORDING TO A KING AND A JEWISH RABBI.
One of the especially unique dynamics of this new—and often ironic—role our spouse assumes is what Solomon of the Bible alludes to when he says, “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man.”18
Shalom Arush, a Jewish rabbi and counselor, paints the picture of what I like to call the mirror phenomenon even more clearly. He says, “You didn’t get married to correct your spouse. You got married to be corrected, by using your spouse as a mirror.”19
I know. I didn’t buy it either. The suggestion that she—with her free choice, separate past, and unique set of issues—was a mirror for me to see and deal with my own issues felt far-reaching and irrational at first. Yet after experimenting with the idea, my practical experience seems to agree with the rabbi’s bold idea.
To the open-minded, here are a few pieces of advice I’ve been given that are worth experimenting with when it comes to this mirror phenomenon. In fact, the more I’ve tinkered with them, the more obvious it becomes that I really do wake up every morning next to a mirror—and she shows me the good, bad, and ugly.
1. Don’t criticize—internalize
In The First Two Years of Marriage, Kathleen and Thomas Hart write, “Sometimes what is hard to take in the first years of marriage is not what we find out about our partner, but what we find out about ourselves.” They give the example of a woman who has been married about a year, who says, ‘“I always thought of myself as a patient and forgiving person. Then I began to wonder if that was just because I had never before gotten close to anyone. In marriage, when John and I began … dealing with differences, I saw how small and unforgiving I could be. I discovered a hardness in me I had never experienced before.’”20
If we look in a mirror and see that our shirt is wrinkled, we don’t iron the mirror. No, we iron our shirt.21
It’s the same with our spouse.
Internalizing is all about taking inventory of the things our spouse does that we’ve been quick to criticize or be annoyed by in the past and to ask, “How might my spouse’s action or attitude be a reflection of my own dysfunction in the way I treat them?” The point is to transmute the very natural critique of our spouses into a self-evaluation that inevitably identifies broken thought and character patterns within us.
2. Don’t try to fix him or her—take 100 percent responsibility
Marriage is not a fair deal and has little to do with equality. Though a popular sentiment, you don’t simply take 50 percent of the responsibility for the relationship and expect your spouse to meet you halfway. From my observation, the healthiest marriages are the ones when both spouses fully own the relationship and take 100 percent responsibility for its condition.
The mirror phenomenon tells us that our spouse’s dysfunction is not our responsibility to fix. Once we resist critiquing and make the correlation between their actions and something that needs to change in us, our job is to simply own our issue and fix us—to take 100 percent responsibility.
“Every married individual should feel,” says Rabbi Shalom Arush, “that he or she alone bears the responsibility for peace in the home. Neither should police the other because a person that’s occupied with finding fault in someone else fails to see his or her own faults.”22
3. Watch your marriage change
“A fundamental law of relational theory,” renowned psychiatrist Marina Benjamen reflects, “is that when any part of a system changes, the entire system—meaning all other parts—will be forced to change in response.”
So what does this look like in marriage? She continues: “What this means in a marriage is that if I create a change in my own attitude and behavior, my spouse and the marriage itself will automatically be forced to change. This is a powerful truth to embrace but, unfortunately, most of us are so busy blaming our partners for their shortcomings that we neglect to assert our power to create the very changes we want.”23
The best part about the mirror phenomenon is that, according to relational theory, the more we fix ourselves, the more our spouses change as well.
Marriage is committed to making both you and your spouse more beautiful, more functional, more vibrant people. And the sooner you accept that you wake up every day next to a mirror exposing all of your personal good, bad, and ugly, the sooner you will begin to take advantage of marriage’s beautifying intentions.
FEEL THE FRICTION
How to Leverage Conflict for Good
“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.”—Leo Tolstoy
We all bring our baggage of bad choices, unhealed hurts, and ungodly beliefs to the marriage altar. Unfortunately, most of us—including me—have no idea we’re carrying this baggage until the covenant is made and the chisel starts chipping.
Conflict in marriage isn’t a fun pastime for anyone. And though everyone has their own way of dealing with it, we must learn to leverage conflict in our relationships as an opportunity for growth. Why? Because without friction, those beautiful figures inside the rock won’t ever have the chance to exist.
Jared Black is a speaker, author, and long-time friend and mentor.24 In fact, he and his wife were the ones who hosted the marriage day that proved so important for Analee and me.
