You Can Have a Delightful Marriage

by Mike Constantine

Alan and Mary have been married ten years. For most of their marriage, neither of them has felt happy or fulfilled. They seem to be trapped in the grip of a joyless routine. Their marriage isn’t exactly bad, but their marriage is flat, like old Coca-Cola that has lost its sparkle. They endure their marriage, like one endures a gloomy room on a rainy day. The sunshine seems gone forever.

It wasn’t always this way. The early years of marriage held many challenges, but they always found ways to keep their marriage enjoyable. Not now. Now they can’t remember the last time they had a good laugh together. By degrees their marriage has become a little more dreary and a little less delightful. They only see each other at the end of a long and busy day. They seldom talk, and seldom smile either. Alan and Mary don’t have a bad marriage, exactly, just a dull one.

In some parts of the American West, and in most of the Australian outback, you can drive for hundreds of miles, on perfectly straight roads, through a featureless landscape. Nothing unexpected, nothing interesting, nothing but you, the car, and the long, long road. After a few hundred kilometers you start craving something, anything, different and exciting. That is precisely how Alan and Mary feel about their relationship.

A Greek poet (who by coincidence, has the same given name as our surname) wrote these words in 1908:

One monotonous day is followed by another monotonous, identical day.
The same things will happen, they will happen again–
The same moments find us and leave us.
A month passes and ushers in another month.
One easily guesses the coming events;
They are the boring ones of yesterday.
And the morrow ends up not resembling a morrow anymore.

– Constantine Cavafy, 1908 (Translated from the Greek)

Many husbands and wives would say that Cavafy’s words describe just the way they feel about their marriage. It’s a life without real tomorrows.

Monotony leads to apathy, that dangerous feeling that neither of us can do anything to get rid of the boredom. Husband and wife feel trapped. Like a sail boat becalmed on a vast, empty ocean, no breezes come to ripple the sails and refresh the sailors.

For many sailors, the doldrums are worse than the storms. Both have their dangers, but in the doldrums, there is not a breath of wind to move the boat or refresh the crew. Tempers flare, and hope dies. The same happens to monotonous marriages.

Apathy is only one danger of monotony. It can also can lead to unfaithfulness. Please understand. I do not, and will not, condone unfaithfulness, no matter what the cause. Still, if we can do something to prevent it, shouldn’t we? Keeping our marriages enjoyable, and being enjoyable ourselves, brings new freshness every day.

Put Some Wind in Your Sails

Sailing ships differ from marriages in one very vital way. The sailor cannot manufacture wind to move his ship, but any couple can break out of monotony and make their marriage delightful. Here are some ideas to get you going:

Celebrate!

Many couples think celebration is optional, but it is really essential.

When God called the Israelites to be his people, he established, in the rhythm of their years, times of celebration. Those times became focal points of refreshing for them. You can do the same thing in your marriage. Celebrate your anniversary every year. Celebrate birthdays, and give thanks for each other. Rejoice over achievements, accomplishments, or just plain survival. We have friends who really knew the art of celebration. New job? Celebrate! Completed project? Celebrate! They absolutely looked for reasons to rejoice.

Never go into debt to celebrate. Always celebrate within your means. It’s not how much you spend; it’s how much meaning you bring to the celebration that counts.

Develop a Joyful, Positive Perspective

Remember Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street? He is a grumbler, and lives, appropriately, in a trash can. Is that you? Have you lost your joy? Have you become a constant complainer? God can fix your heart, and restore your joy. Get rid of the grumbles, move out of the trash can, and enjoy life with your sweetheart.

Surprise Each Other

Remember that surprises should not put you in debt or overtax your budget. They can be as simple as a phone call, or a single flower. Or your surprise could be something more elaborate, but still not costly. Planning and imagination cost nothing, but they can lead to some great surprises.

Kathy had a really busy day, one of those non-stop marathons that squeezes all the life out of you. Her husband (who was home that day) decided to plan a special treat for her. He filled the bathroom with candles, provided some soothing music, bought some inexpensive, but very invigorating bubble bath, and made a sign for the door that said, “Dead Mommy Therapy Center.”

When she came home he escorted her to the bathroom and told her to take as much time as she liked. Kathy loved it! Total cost: about five dollars. Total value: immeasurable!

He did not do any of that with sex in mind. He did it for her with no strings attached. It is important for us to develop delight and joy in our marriages apart from sex. But I would not be surprised to find out that there were a few fireworks that night.

Save Some Money for Special Treats

One of our favorite treats is ice cream. We don’t need much; a single scoop will do. We definitely believe that good ice cream is a glorious gift from a loving Creator. A special treat, no matter what it is, can provide a moment of relaxation and refreshment for both of you. You might even find a lost smile or two, and maybe even a great big laugh!

Will those ideas help you fix the deeper problems in your marriage? Probably not, at least by themselves. But they will bring some times of refreshing to you. Then you might find it easier to tackle the deeper issues.

Dull or Delightful? A Short Test

Answer each question Yes or No. Answer truthfully. If you’re especially brave, ask your spouse to take the test on you.

I cannot remember the last time my spouse and I had a good laugh.
My friends often tell me that I take myself too seriously.
I often forget birthdays and anniversaries.
I cannot remember the last time I gave my husband or wife a pleasing little surprise.
I am more charming to everyone else than I am to my spouse.
My voice has developed an edge, like a knife.
I have become a nag.
I have become a bully.
I often hear myself complaining.

The more Yes answers you have the less delightful you are. You’re probably under a lot of pressure, too. Can you find a way to give yourself, and everyone else around you, a break?

The Fallacy of a Stress-free Life

Admit it: life is stressful. As true as that is, some stress is avoidable. Reducing the amount of avoidable stress makes marriage much more enjoyable, even in difficult circumstances.

Think about the difference between avoidable and unavoidable stress. On a sheet of paper make three columns. Label the first column Stresses. In that column list some of the stresses in your lives.
Now label the second column Avoidable or Unavoidable? For each stress mark whether it is avoidable or unavoidable.
Now label the third column, What We Can Do. Think of some ways to eliminate or decrease each stress. For example, it is stressful to have to get up early to go to work. But it is unavoidable (if you want to eat and make the house payment). You could reduce the early morning stress by putting things out the night before, and maybe even getting up just fifteen minutes earlier. That’s the idea.

Think, Act, Pray

1. What are some specific ways I can make myself and my marriage more enjoyable?

2. Why do I forget to make marriage enjoyable? How can I remember?

How Healthy is Your Marriage?

by Mike Constantine

An epidemic is sweeping the world. If this epidemic were medical in nature, if it was, for instance, a deadly virus that brought a painful death, the world’s citizens would fight it with every weapon and tactic. But this epidemic doesn’t cause sickness and death, at least not directly.

This is an epidemic of lifeless, joyless marriages and homes. It represents a social and spiritual catastrophe, a rising tide of broken relationships and broken people. You will find the symptoms in every country, in every culture, in all economic conditions. Sometimes it leads to divorce, sometimes only to chronic tension and unhappiness.

The technical word for this sickness is dysfunctional, as in, “They have a dysfunctional relationship.” But let’s not get too technical. Dysfunctional simply means, according to the Oxford Dictionary, not operating normally or properly. In other words, these marriages are broken and needing repair. How badly broken? How much repair do they need? It varies, but generally speaking, the longer the problems have been neglected, the more damage there is to repair.

You might think that some couples are immune, but that is not true. Whatever their station in life, whatever their financial situation, whatever their religion or spiritual condition, no one is immune. Business leaders or clerks, pastors or church members, rich or poor, marital breakdowns happen to them all. It can even happen to you.

How Healthy is Your Marriage?

Take a look at the statements that follow and evaluate your marriage. But one word of warning! It is so easy to use these statements to find fault with your husband or wife. Don’t do it, please.

Instead, ask yourself what you could do to bring a positive change in each area. Better yet, ask your partner to do the evaluation too. Then both of you can decide ways to make the marriage you have the marriage you really want.

Here are eight indicators that help determine the health of a marriage. After reading each indicator, write down the number that best indicates your rating for your marriage today. Be as honest as you can.

1. A general sense of tension in your marriage relationship. All marriages have tense moments, even tense times, but constant tension suggests unresolved problems. The normal condition of a healthy marriage is peace, not tension.

Tension:

Occasional 2——–4——–6——-8 Constant

2. A decrease in laughter and overall happiness. Joy is also the normal condition of a healthy marriage, yet some couples cannot remember the last time both were joyful in their marriage. Rather than energizing them, their marriage drains them. How about your marriage? Do you laugh with each other? Does anything about your relationship bring you joy? When was the last time that simply thinking about your husband or wife brought a smile to your face?

Joyful:

Usually 2——–4——–6——-8 Seldom

3. You are easily distracted and find it hard to give one another your complete attention.Occasional distractions happen to everyone. If you have children, you will have more distractions. Wise couples learn how to focus on their relationship, planning time to pay special attention to each other. Couples in danger believe the lie that there is no time to find. Can you identify with this comment from one of our seminar attendees?

I cannot remember when we had our last heart-to-heart talk. We act like everything else is more important than special times for ourselves. Our lives are a swarm of urgent demands clamoring for our attention.

Distracted:

Seldom 2——–4——–6——-8 Usually

4. Electronic media takes the place of face-to-face communication. TV can entertain, educate, and enlighten. But do you ever use the TV to avoid each other? Does the TV or the internet dictate your daily schedule? Do you have the willpower to turn them off and do something more helpful for your marriage?

Electronic Media:

Right amount 2——–4——–6——-8 Too Much

5. As a couple, you are not communicating effectively. Every couple develops their own patterns of communication, but sometimes those patterns are unhealthy. If you have put each other in solitary confinement, if you no longer take the time to discuss important concerns, you are in danger.

Communication:

Discuss 2——–4——–6——-8 Avoid

6. Sexual intimacy has become more a bother, less a blessing. Sexual fulfillment is one of Gods most exciting gifts to married couples. A healthy sexual relationship strengthens intimacy, relieves tension, and is fun! Do you both feel sexually satisfied in your marriage?

Sexual Satisfaction:

Fulfilled 2——–4——–6——-8 Frustrated

7. Little things make you angry. You are easily irritated. Irritability develops when we neglect intimacy. We find the tone of our voice becoming more sharp. We get offended easily. We avoid each other.

Anger and Irritation:

Seldom 2——–4——–6——-8 Chronic

8. You and your spouse have separate agendas, but no common activities. One couple we know look great to casual acquaintances. Nice home, prosperous, active in church and very involved in their careers. But if you scanned their date books you would notice that they have no time for each other or for their relationship. In fact, they had developed separate lives. It doesnt happen in a moment. It happens when we stop thinking as a couple and only think about our individual lives, careers, and activities.

Togetherness:

Healthy 2——–4——–6——-8 Little or None

Now add up your score. If you scored:

20 or less- You have a great marriage and are mutually fulfilled in it.

21 to 39- You have a good marriage, but it could be great with just a little extra attention.

40 to 49– You are experiencing significant stress in your marriage, and little fulfillment.

50 and Above- You are probably unhappily married. Scores this high usually indicate a severely neglected marriage.

Can couples have a high score and still stay together? Yes, for divorce is only one way couples deal with a declining marriage. Some remain married legally, but let their marriages die relationally. They keep up appearances, but there is pain in their eyes and voices, especially in their unguarded moments.

Good news! You can change if you want to change.

How do you show each other you really want to change? Pick one area in your marriage that needs work and find something you can do to make it better. For instance, if you’re having too much face time with Facebook, turn it off, find your spouse, and do something together that you will both enjoy.

Take a walk. Have a talk. Watch a movie. Read a book. Sit quietly and closely. Dream together. Then, do it again tomorrow. Use your imagination. Just make sure you both do something that helps. And keep it positive.

You need to rediscover each other as friends, so can the criticisms. Some of your irritations will die on their own if you starve them.

Think, Act, Pray

1. Which warning signal would be the easiest one for you to improve in your own marriage?

2. Which warning signal do you think would be the hardest to improve? Why?

3. What could both of you do, starting today, to make your marriage more healthy?

Marriage by the Book

by Mike Constantine

Ideas bombard us like a monsoon rain. Unless you live in a cave and wear a tin foil hat, you cannot get away from them. We need a standard for comparison, a final authority. For many people that is the Bible. So let’s take a few moments to understand a biblical model for marriage. Some of the principles that follow are directly stated in the Bible; others are deductions I make from my understanding of the Bible. But when you put them together they paint a beautiful and appealing picture of what a marriage can really be.

Marriage is Designed by God. This is the Principle of Origin. You can find it stated in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Taking this biblical idea as stated, marriage is much more than a sociological necessity that has developed through an evolutionary process. Marriage was instituted by God when He created the first man and woman.

The verse I mentioned talks about leaving your father and mother. Does that worry you? I can tell you this: it does not mean that you have to abandon your parents or ignore them. The Asian idea of filial devotion and honour is not replaced by the Bible. It is upheld by the Bible.

Marriage is Designed for Covenant Intimacy. That is the Principle of Connection. One rather graphic reference to that is in Genesis 2:25, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

The nakedness described in these words is much more than a prelude to sex. It describes a marriage that is so secure that the man and woman could be completely uncovered without embarrassment or fear.

In other words, they experienced covenant intimacy. They could trust each other so much that they could be completely uncovered. For Adam and Eve that was easy because they had never sinned. For us it is not easy, because we have sinned and received wounds from other people’s sins.

We all enter marriage with the hope of developing the same intimacy they experienced automatically. It is a struggle, but it is attainable and worth the effort.

No matter how may stories you’ve heard or broken marriages you have seen, you can develop a marriage that makes both of you glad you have it, all the time. So don’t give up. Grow together instead of growing apart.

Marriage is Designed to Make Both Partners Better People. That is the Principle of Development. One place the Bible speaks about that is in I Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”

You probably know some married couples who have become bitter, not better because of their marriages. It does not have to be that way. We really can build one another up. This does not mean that you marry a construction project. Never do that! It does mean that you can both become better people because of your marriage, not in spite of your marriage.

Healthy marriages build healthy people who are more likely to fulfill their God-given purpose. As the Bible says, in Proverbs 27:17, New Living Translation, “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”

Marriage is Designed for Joy! That is the Principle of Cheerfulness. For a detailed discussions of that, see this article: You Can Have a Delightful Marriage.

Proverbs 15:15, in the Message Translation of the Bible, expresses that joy as it applies to human relationships- “A miserable heart means a miserable life; a cheerful heart fills the day with song.”

Every marriage will face challenges, but in good marriages couples develop a deep joy that is part appreciation, part affection, and part commitment. That joy is like a deep spring that is always with them, sometimes in quiet contentment, sometimes in laughter. When marriage is joyful, men and women do not look elsewhere for exhilaration. They find it in their life-long covenant relationship, their marriage. When they have children the kids can catch the joy their parents’ experience.

Marriage is designed to have a positive effect on the world. That is The Principle of Influence. Look at the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Some marriages spread darkness. They are like an evil fog that chills everyone around them. Who would want that? God’s design is to fill two people with his light and truth (they always go together) and make that marriage like a lighthouse on a dark and dangerous coast. Do you think that is just poetic language? Not at all. Our marriage has been spreading light for over 50 years.

Marriage is designed to last a lifetime. That is the Principle of Permanence. Here are the words of Christ from Matthew 19:6, “And He said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’” Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.

In virtually all developed and developing countries, divorce is on the rise. It has become so common that some authors feel the need to make it seem like a reasonable decision without any painful consequences.

We know couples who have divorced, yet even when it seemed that there was no other route open to them, it still introduced pain into their lives that lingers till now. As Margaret Atwood said, “A divorce is like an amputation; you survive, but there’s less of you.”

Now, this is not the place to discuss whether divorce is right or wrong. It is the time for you to decide that you will marry for life. If you plan for lifelong success and keep to that plan, you’ll have a lasting marriage. But if you keep the idea of divorce as an option, that may undermine your efforts to succeed.

Marriage is designed for child-bearing. That is the Principle of Reproduction. Here is just one biblical expression of that idea from Psalm 127:3, “Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a real blessing.”

It is God’s intention that children grow up in a secure family with a mom and a dad. That means that you will want to develop the areas of your life that will make you a good parent.

To be truthful, I did not want to be a dad. The idea scared me. But even though I could not see myself as a father, my wife did. She knew I would make a great dad. I do not know if I have been a great dad, but by God’s grace I have loved my two sons all of their lives.

Some couples find they cannot have children for medical reasons. If conditions exist that might make having children impossible, remember that there are thousands of children who need parents who will adopt them and love them.

For some people, adoption seems to be a thing to avoid, not a thing to embrace. But adoption is very near the heart of God, who calls us to love the outcast and the unwanted. Personally, I would love to know that you and your spouse had taken an unwanted child into your heart, as God takes us into His heart.

As you think about the points I have just shared with you, keep in mind that nearly all of them are vigorously opposed by contemporary ideas and cultural concepts.

Throughout your life– in your single years, your courtship, and your marriage– you will have to decide which ideas will rule your life. I highly recommend the Bible and its Author as the source of ideas that will never disappoint you.