Marriage Rebranded
Page 7
Even if you don’t have the money or interest to go to counseling, you might read marriage books together or simply make it a habit to ask, “What did you mean by that?” Regardless of how you write this new language, one thing is for sure: if you are proactive about it, you will save yourself an incredible amount of time and emotional energy that would otherwise be wasted by misunderstanding each other.
3. Sit down
The mid-century French developed a set of practices for marriage. One of these practices is called le devoir de s’asseoir, directly translated as “the duty to sit down.”25 They believed that simply scheduling time to have conversations together could change the landscape of a marriage.
I think anyone who has experienced the effects of intentionally and consistently connecting via conversation with your spouse would agree that it does indeed change everything.
You may want to get your iCals out now.
In the end, you have to find what works for you. But consider yourself warned. Many older and wiser than I have claimed that the long-term health of a marriage lives and dies on a couple’s ability to converse.
SECRETS DON’T MAKE MARRIAGES
How to Cultivate Emotional Intimacy
Do you have to talk about everything? Is keeping secrets from your spouse ever okay? Or are secrets always unhelpful to becoming one?
The issue of secrets in marriage is one of the more divided conversations among marriage counselors today. One camp finds it acceptable, depending on the circumstance and emotional framework of the partners. Others find the very thought of secret-keeping appalling. And though my experience with Analee speaks in strong support of one of these camps, I thought I’d invite a few people far more experienced than I into the conversation.
Lori and Barry Byrne, authors of Love After Marriage, were kind enough to agree to an interview with me, and in our time together, I asked them about secret-keeping in marriage.26
Their suggestion? To first take one big step backward. “It’s not as much about keeping secrets or not keeping secrets as it is about knowing and being known.” Clarifying something I had read in their book, they went on to say, “Knowing and being known is not only fundamental to all of humanity, but it’s the most basic foundation of real, intimate relationship. And healthy intimacy exists between two people who both know and are known by each other in a deep, personal way.”27
As I inquired more about this, three suggestions of how to cultivate this healthy intimacy seemed to emerge.
1. Clean out your closet
We’ll come back to my time with Lori and Barry.
I want to invite one of my favorite people into the conversation. You may know William Paul Young as the author of The Shack. Analee and I know him as the officiant of our wedding. He also happens to be the perfect person to talk to about the significance of secrets in marriage. Over fifteen years ago now, Paul spent four days telling his wife all of his secrets.
“It took me four full days to destroy all my facades and everything she thought she knew and trusted. I hit the bottom and there was nothing pretty about it.”28
I asked him why refusing to have secrets is so important in a marriage, and his response was beautiful: “Can you imagine the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit keeping a hidden life from each other? Love itself is implicitly grounded in knowing. Trust is built around knowing and secrets are always un-knowings. Leanne Payne wrote, ‘The unconfessed is the unhealed.’ You cannot keep secrets compartmentalized in your inside house away from life and relationships. They will pollute even those things that are true and right and beautiful, staining them with its own darkness until one can no longer distinguish between the ‘real’ and the ‘presented.’ Sadly, we—and our marriages—will continue to be as sick as the secrets we keep.”
The Byrnes put it simply: “As George MacDonald says, ‘Few delights can equal the mere presence of the one whom we trust utterly.’ And you cannot trust utterly when secrets exist between you.”
2. Keep an open conversation and practice forgiveness
As Lori and Barry write in Love After Marriage, “While it is true that you can learn a lot by observing, real intimacy requires that you talk openly about your personal thoughts and feelings. It is only by talking openly and honestly that you can really work together on issues that affect your marriage and confirm what you think you know about your spouse.”29
And forgiveness? Yes, it’s easier said than done. But if we are ever going to develop real intimacy with our spouse, we must become a safe place for them. We must learn how to openly accept their attempts to be honest, open, and vulnerable. And we must learn how to genuinely forgive them when their secrets hurt us. If they are brave enough to open the conversation, don’t cut it short—practice forgiveness, and keep the conversation going.
3. Don’t forget to love yourself
“If you don’t like the gift you’re giving,” Lori says, “you’re not going to give it freely.”
In Love After Marriage, Barry elaborates, “The final step in cultivating intimacy is learning to live in such a way that we will feel good about ourselves before God.”30 The truth is that if we feel guilt about something we’re doing or shame in who we are, we won’t ever get vulnerable with anyone. Shame and guilt want to keep things hidden. But when we learn to accept and love ourselves, living openly and intimately with others becomes far more natural.
This self-love is counterintuitively a key to a successful modern marriage. We find its basis in the nuance of Jesus’ second greatest ask of us. In Matthew 22:39, He says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The implication here is that we must first love ourselves to genuinely love another person.
NEVER STOP EXPLORING
Why You Will Never Fully Know Your Spouse
Jonathan Jackson is an actor (currently playing Avery Barkley in Nashville), musician and songwriter, writer, poet, husband, father, and a close friend. He also happens to be an Eastern Orthodox Christian with some refreshing perspectives on life.
Today we tend to bring a destination mentality into marriage. As we’ve discussed, we fall “in love” while dating and then celebrate our arrival into this love on our wedding day. Our marital life then becomes about little more than maintaining this state, rather than progressively growing in intimacy.
In my opinion, this destination mentality kills marriages—though I’m not exempt from it myself. So in an attempt to change my own mind and see loving my wife as a journey of continual exploration, I landed in a conversation with Jonathan about the Orthodox belief of Apophatic theology.
I know, it’s a big word—so I’ll let Jonathan explain.31
Jonathan, you’ve mentioned how healthy it is to avoid thinking you fully know someone and to keep a level of mystery in any relationship. Does this thread of thought come from anywhere in particular?
“It does, but I’ll have to give you a quick history lesson to explain.
“Over the centuries and particularly after the Great Schism in 1054, Western Christianity became more and more scholastic in nature. It embraced systematic theology and rationalism and slowly developed away from what many call ‘the mystery of faith.’
“The Orthodox Church [historically identified as Eastern Christianity], on the other hand, maintained this element of faith, more specifically, known as Apophatic theology. This essentially means that man cannot ever fully know God and especially not through rationalism or abstract study alone. But by humbly professing what we cannot know about God, it places the human heart in an atmosphere capable of encountering God experientially, as opposed to intellectually or theoretically. In essence, man and woman will spend eternity growing closer to God, but never exhausting the mystery.”
So what does this belief have to do with marriage?
“Every human is created in the image of God. We see throughout Scripture how the mystery of God is within each one of us.”
Jonathan pointed me to several examples:
“The kingd
om of God is in your midst [or, ‘within you’]” (Luke 17:21).
“To [the saints] God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).
“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
“The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10–11).
“Orthodox thought supports that the fullness of another person’s identity is a secret between them and God. This means that no matter how close I get to someone—I will still only ‘see through a glass, darkly’ [1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV]. In the book of Revelation we read that Christ will give each person a white stone with a secret name written on it, which only the recipient and God can know. This reveals the intimacy each person possesses with God. It is an intimacy that someone on the outside can only partially know.
“More so, in order for marriage to truly reflect the kingdom of heaven, it must be infused with this mystery. Salvation, in Orthodox theology, is an ongoing participation in the divine nature. We do not arrive—we continue. Even if you don’t subscribe to the Orthodox faith, you can see this sense of faith as continuous growth in the concept of sanctification—in the sense that we are continuously invited to grow deeper and deeper with God.
“In the same way, becoming one in marriage is an ongoing journey marked by one of the strongest ingredients of an eternal romance—mystery.”
So how does this play out practically in your marriage?
“Mostly, it keeps romance alive and my pride in check. When I begin to think I’ve got her pegged and I can predict her answers or thought process, I step back and remember the mystery of this woman. Her life is hidden in Christ and even though we are becoming one, there is an inexhaustible mystery to her being.
“Also, people are constantly changing and growing. Rather than fearing this, the Orthodox Church teaches us to embrace growth and transformation. This helps me embrace the mystery of myself as well. Only God fully knows me. Repentance means that I am letting go of my illusions about myself—and embracing the image and likeness of Christ within me. It helps me receive grace for myself, which in turn helps me give grace to my beautiful wife.”
READY FOR THE JOURNEY?
I know that for me, this mystery Jonathan speaks of makes the journey of marriage inexhaustibly exciting. Analee and I are in a long and beautiful process of learning each other, becoming one, and cultivating true love. This has a way of invalidating any stagnation or monotony that can creep into a marriage.
So whether we’re four years in or twenty, or haven’t started yet at all, let’s change our minds about love. Love is not something we arrive at and spend our marriages maintaining. As Jonathan alludes, love is a journey marked by mystery and the continual intention to learn one another.
And if you ask me, that’s what makes it such an adventure.
COUPLES THAT PLAY TOGETHER STAY TOGETHER
Why Sex Is More Than a Pleasurable Perk of Marriage.
So when the emotions of infatuation fade, are we to simply resolve to a chemical-reaction–free marriage? I certainly hope not. If you do, do so at your own risk because researchers have long understood the secret to keeping a chemical and emotional connection alive and well in a marriage.
But we don’t need researchers to tell us, either. What we’re talking about, of course, is sex.
Analee’s Point of View. Sex is one of the most beautiful gifts I think God gave us. It makes me sad that so much negativity can get tied to the subject. Things like shame and abuse are things that certainly need to be addressed and healing sought out in those areas to experience the redemptive gift of what sex is meant to be with our spouse. There is something so powerful in the vulnerability and beauty we get to share with our spouse. I personally think that it is the best form of stress relief, a way to fight spiritual warfare, and a way to protect your marriage. This most intimate act is designed to knit us evermore into oneness—and it provides many health benefits as well. You can’t go wrong. When in doubt, I say, “Have sex.”
During sex—and especially during orgasm—a hormone called oxytocin is released by both parties. As it turns out, this “hormone of love” happens to come with all kinds of side benefits proving that sex is far more than a pleasurable perk of marriage. It’s an imperative practice to keeping a long-term connection alive in our marriages.
SEX BONDS.
Prairie voles—small, burrowing mammals that you might see at the zoo—are well-known among the animal kingdom as serially monogamous, making them unique among most other mammals.
I know, this doesn’t sound romantic at all—but bear with me a moment.
In a study, these prairie voles were injected with chemicals to neutralize their oxytocin.32 As a result, these faithful lovers lost all partnership bonding and did not stay together. On the other hand, when oxytocin was injected into prairie voles who were not mating, the same partnership bonding that typically occurs while mating was induced.
Dr. Hans Zingg, a professor at McGill University and a longtime student of the “love hormone,” described these results as follows: “There’s convincing evidence that oxytocin is involved in mediating stability, pair bonding, and monogamy; the enduring parts of love.”33
Obviously, we’re not prairie voles, and we’re not part of a science experiment. So what does this mean for us?
Here’s one example. When a test group of people were shown an emotional video documenting a terminally ill cancer victim with his young son, their blood samples showed a 157 percent spike in oxytocin.34 What’s more, their oxytocin levels showed a direct correlation to feelings of empathy.
This experiment and many more all point to the fact that our ability to empathize with others is the basis for all emotional connection. More specifically, oxytocin plays a leading role in our ability to connect to and understand our spouses—and it all starts with sex.35
SEX PRODUCES TRUST.
A common practice in the field of psychology is the documenting of the various stages of intimacy in a relationship. Though there’s not a universal map to what those stages actually are, all experts seem to agree the most intimate emotional stage requires an excessive amount of trust. This only further proves that years of commitment and supporting experiences are necessary to establish a lasting emotional connection. Yet commitment and years of experience may not be the only thing that can assist in building this kind of trust.
Biologists have observed that humans show abnormal levels of trust after oxytocin is released in our bodies.36 Interestingly, men and women often try to separate an emotional connection from physical intimacy. Yet science tells another story.
SEX GIVES.
Neuro-economist Paul Zak handed a test group some nasal spray.37 Half of the bottles were filled with oxytocin, and the other half were filled with salt water. The subjects were then told that they would be given $40 and the chance to give a certain percentage of that money away to another subject, whom they would not meet. Those who snorted oxytocin gave away 80 percent more than those who snorted mere salt water.
Love is not the emotions we feel for our spouse. It’s the everyday choices we make to give our lives to them. And it just so happens that sex—by unleashing this incredible force of oxytocin—can make that giving just a bit easier for us.
So the next time your spouse isn’t in the mood, feel free to offer them an argument backed by science.
CHAPTER FIVE
YOU, ME, AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
What Happens at Home Doesn’t Stay at Home
“The happy state of matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting cause of all good order in the world, and what alone preserves it from the utmost confusion.”
—Benjamin Franklin
When I was
a kid, I told everybody I wanted to be a “Dowboy.” That’s cowboy—with a speech impediment.
On most days, you could find me strutting around my house in my fake snakeskin boots (size 4), a brown polyester cowboy hat, and a pair of old jeans with holes in the knees.
I wasn’t an outspoken kid. That was mostly because my older sister found it personally gratifying to guess what I was thinking and speak for me. However, when I did talk, I would typically mumble something I picked up from one of The Young Riders, my favorite Western show.
The hat and guns were cool to a young wannabe, no doubt. But what really captivated me was that cowboys were always doing something epic. Every episode of an old Western was about a cowboy dueling another cowboy, or protecting his people from danger, or somehow winning his lady’s love via an extraordinary act of heroism. I wanted to duel, to protect, to be a hero. I wanted to live that life.