Marriage

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My husband and I are blessed to have a wide circle of friends, most of who are in the same season of life we’re in: parental insanity. I say that because we all have busy children who need social coordinators, life organizers and personal chauffeurs.

Recently, some friends spent their 21st wedding anniversary at a booster club fundraiser for their son’s football team. One week later, my husband and I welcomed our 14th year of married life at a football game for that same team. We have other friends whose anniversary weekend was a whirlwind—as they followed one child’s travel baseball team from park to park.

We laugh about the craziness and often say, “Right now, it’s mostly about the kids.” Overall, we’re accepting of that because we’re aware that the years are speeding by. Our homes will be quiet soon enough, at which point we’ll have time on our hands, and freedom for lots of one-on-one with our spouses.

It’s a plan with good intentions, but I’m wondering if it’s flawed. The thought occurred to me while discussing with someone my 10-year high school reunion, where I’d been shocked to learn how many classmates’ parents had divorced since their kids left home.

What’s up with that? I wonder if it has anything to do with what a former boss told me about his rocky marriage: “My wife and I spent 21 years absorbed by the kids. By the time they flew the coop, my wife and I didn’t connect anymore.”

That’s something to digest. Children, careers—even outside interests—can become the primary focus in our lives. We start dodging the emotional needs of our marriage or enter what I heard someone call “maintenance mode”, where the marital relationship is all about household operations, schedules and finances. Couples drift apart, and spouses start to wonder, “What am I? Chopped liver?”

If you’ve ever read Song of Solomon, and applied it to marriage, you’ve gotten a poetic picture of the kind of love that’s possible between a husband and wife—deeply attentive, considerate, appreciative, devoted, spontaneous and romantic.

Ask some married folk, and they’ll say that sounds more like the glory days of courtship, not the organizational chart of so-called wedded bliss in a harried world.

Date nights and romantic escapes are advised as healthy treats for marriage. I agree that they need to be done, but don’t think we can rely on occasional injections to boost our marriage for long stretches. While the date night idea might start with a bang, it often gets rescheduled as life in general butts in. As for romantic retreats, they’re usually few and far between—and unpredictable. Ask the couple I know who took a 7-day cruise, anticipating romance beneath the Caribbean moon. Too bad they got caught in the outer bands of a tropical storm, stuck aboard the U. S.S. SEASICK. So much for hot nights on the high seas.

Marriage needs daily care, and it begins with giving our spouse their rightful place on the priority ladder—at the top, right after our relationship with Christ, who I think would advise us to apply His teaching in Luke 6:31 to our marriage:

"Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Wow, imagine how the divorce rate would plummet if spouses treated each other the way they wanted to be treated! Think Song of Solomon…

Spouses would be considered in every plan and involved in every decision. Next to God’s, their opinion would matter the most. They’d know everything about each other—if they separate their M & M’s by color, and how they’d run the country if elected President. They’d praise the positives and get over the nit-picky negatives. They’d smile when the other entered a room, ask about their day and listen to the answer. If they got a rare night home alone, they wouldn’t spend it organizing the basement.

Little intimate acts would abound—holding hands while rushing through the ball park, rubbing aloe on his sunburned nose, nuzzling her neck while she’s slicing tomatoes. “I Love You” would be heard more often, she’d be reminded that she’s pretty and he’d know that not even a NASCAR pit crew has the tire-changing capabilities that he does.

Whether life has them at a science fair or on a second honeymoon, struggling to sync schedules or cuddling before the fire, spouses would have the confidence that comes from “rejoicing and delighting in each other, and praising their love more than wine.” (From Song of Solomon, 1:4)

Just one caution—if you do decide on that romantic escape, check the Weather Channel.


©Donna G. Morton, September 2006

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