Marriage: The Third Entity

Marriage:  The Third Entity

     For many years I have been teaching the concept of marriage as the Third Entity. I see the individuals as the first and second entities and the marriage as something separate and apart, yet together.  By separating out the marriage entity, we can have a better grasp on the care and nurturing of it.  This third entity must be fed, watered, and fertilized, handled with care, in order to thrive.

     Two challenges are inherent in the care of the marriage:  one is to beat it to death with arrows of criticism, cutting deeply into it’s heart, with sharp words and negativity and dissatisfaction.  The other would be to neglect it all together, too busy with other things to ever feed it. Two sides of the coin: abuse and neglect.  Both can lead to its death.

     Take John and Debbie for instance.  He had a big golf hobby so whenever there were some hours on Saturday and Sunday, he was always looking for a way to romance the ‘greens’.  He also never failed to to the annual getaway with the guys when they went to a tournament.  Debbie was enmeshed with her mom who was her best friend.  She really didn’t mind the time John spent at the golf course because she and mom spent that time shopping together.  They loved their girl time.  She and mom and a couple of mom’s friends had an annual trip to the beach every year without fail.  They did occasionally have a date night but were sure to include other couples.  And John had great times talking with the guys about the latest teams.

     Or take Dan and Betty.  Dan was a homebody.  He was a TV sports buff to the hilt. He spent his Saturdays in front of the TV watching college football all fall and Sundays watching the pros.  Then there was basketball.  Then there was baseball.  Betty was occupying herself with her little girls.  They were involved in dance which was a girl thing anyway, so it turned out pretty convenient.  When Dan wanted to go to a game with the guys, she always had things to do with the girls.They neglected the third entity, telling themselves that everything was fine and they would get around to their marriage needs later. They became snappy with each other and had less and less interest in sex.

      From the altar, with all the love and dreams and hopes, to the slow distancing of life as roommates, really doesn’t take that long.  Happens with one decision after another.  Easy breezy.  Actually in this culture, it is the easier path, with so much knocking on the doors of the coupes time and attention.  In fact, if we had nothing more than Facebook friends and internet, the 3rd Entity would be at risk with some couples.  Have you noticed that simple structures like a meal together, going to bed at the same times, have become major challenges for most couples and families?  Well, I have.  I notice it every single day in my office.  Why am I pleading with couples to go to bed 4 times a week at the same time, have pillow talk, snuggle 10 minutes? Hmmmm..... maybe because I am desperately trying to turn the divorce statistics around.

     I am currently rereading The Principle of the Path:  How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.  The principle is so simple, you really want to smack yourself in the head like the V8 commercial.  If you say you want to go to New York and you keep finding yourself headed toward Florida, turn the car around.  He also points to the principle of the harvest:  you reap what you sow.  To ensure the survival of the marriage, it just plainly requires time and attention.  You have to care for it, give it time and attention!  In fact, I would say it is either growing together or growing apart because it won’t just stay neutral.  You could try taking it’s pulse, temperature, check out it’s vitals.  

     I pray that you do some kind of assessment.  Ask some questions: Do I feel closer or more distant from my mate today than a year ago, than 5 years ago?  How often are we ‘dating’?  How is our sex life....routine and dull, or producing some fireworks?  How often do we look each other in the eye and say, “ I love you.”  “I really really love you.” How are my sweet little notes and random cards reflecting my love?  How much thought am I giving to the needs of my mate?  Do I know the challenges of their work, friends, family? What is the condition of our 3 fold cord, the one wrapped with God and prayer?   The information could be lifesaving.

      If your marriage was a plant, it would come with instructions for care.  Why don’t you and your mate sit down together and take 30 minutes to construct such an instruction card.  What would it take to keep this plant alive, growing, and blooming?  

      There is more to follow.....this is the first installment. More to come!

     

       

Principles of Nonharm/Nonviolence Applied to Marriage and Relationships

  margaret's musings on....the Principles of Nonharm/Nonviolence Applied to Marriage and Relationships

     I have been trying now for 25 years to convince premarital  couples that one of their purposes in marriage is to be part of the "healing" to the holes in the souls of their partners.  I try to persuade them in the concepts of nonharm, to become Jesus' hands, feet, and voice, to their mate.  My rationale says that people have been hurt enough by the time they get to us, so can we just commit not to rip and tear and gouge their wounds, but be part of the healing balm in their lives?  It is found in the Biblical principle of letting our words and actions edify (build up) each other rather than tearing down?

Though not a perfect man, but a fallen human, Martin Luther King, Jr. has long held a place of honor in my heart as he put forth and lived by a central principle:  nonviolence and 'nonviolent resistance."  The core of his teaching was the power of love as a change agent.  He believed it to be the most influential change agent.  There were 6 pivotal points to his philosophy:

      1.  The stance of nonharm is courageous, requiring emotional and spiritual strength to "stand" against injustice.

      2.  The person taking the stance of nonharm seeks to understand his oppressor, not to shame him.

      3.  the nonviolent person keeps focus on the inherent evil, not the person or people who do evil.

      4.  Nonviolent resistance commits to accept suffering without retaliation.

      5.  God is always on the side of truth and will ultimately bless those on the side of truth.

     6.  And the central point is that love can conquer bitterness and hatred.

Years before King's philosophy was articulated, the words to "Were You there When They Crucified My Lord" were sung by a group of American blacks to Gandhi, setting off an internal explosion in his own soul.  At the end, he said:  "Perhaps it will be through the Negro that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world."  For Gandhi, the philosophy of "ahimsa" did not mean mere peacefulness of the absence of nonviolence, but was used to denote active love. Gandhi believed that ahimsa is the most powerful force in existence.

   

     This all seems consistent to the greatest teacher ever on the earth.  Jesus:  "and now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.'  And the words of John ring out, "He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him."  In the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "But I say to you who hear:  love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.  To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also.  And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either."  What a radical teaching!

     My focus right not is not necessarily on taking the path of nonviolence in the face of oppression.  My focus is on taking the stance of nonharm and nonviolence, "active love" if you will, with those we are in relation, especially marriage.  What would nonharm look like in marriage:  It would be the opposite of active harm for sure.  Active harm is cutting, biting words.  It is gouging with sharp sarcasm, it is mocking, it is calling attention to weakness.  It is shaming.  it is intimidating, being forceful, and threatening.  It is screeching out of the driveway.  passive harm, which is more often the "Christian" way, is cold and withholding.  It might be silence, silence that I call quiet violence.  it might be ignorming, walking away, and shutting down.

      God's legacy of one of longsuffering, tender love (read Song of Solomon), pursuit, serving (taking up the towel), amazing love and amazing love.  Even the physicians take the Hippocratic oath which includes the heart of nonharm.  So the encouragement is , when in relationship, dedicate yourself to be a blessing, not a curse.  It is not a cure, but a way of life.

     

LESSONS YOUR MARRIAGE CAN LEARN FROM THE TITANIC

The world has been fascinated with the Titanic long before the recent movie made its debut. In fact, Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember, has undergone 65 reprints. Several weeks ago we heard Jack Deere deliver a cutting-edge message at our church on the Titanic as a prophetic symbol for the church. You may easily extrapolate the basic message just upon hearing the subject matter.

However, since much of my life is given to another great institution called marriage, I could not but muse and mull for quite a while on the similarities between the gigantic ocean liner and many of the marriages I have encountered. One such tragedy is indelibly imprinted on my life, or I grew to personally care a great deal for this couple. In fact, they lived in a home and in the midst of a lifestyle that would be quite representative of a luxury liner. They had been married for nearly 35 years. For their entire married life this couple and their children, while they lived at home, were found on the church pew each Sunday morning. He, a leader in the church as well as in the business community, was a favored Sunday School teacher. She was a fervent student of the Bible and could sharpen her Biblical sword with the best of them.

She had another kind of sword in her arsenal as well. It was her tongue. This tongue could be sweet as honey, quite full of wit, yet could whip out some of the most cutting, biting remarks I've ever heard. And the main one on the receiving end of this sharp sword was her husband. Her critical eye rarely missed a thing about him--his tie, his shoes, his car, how he spent his time, how he did his work, how he sat, where he sat, and the list seemed to be endless. I guess he felt that way. After a multitude of warnings, begging, counseling with professionals and the pastor, suddenly the ship sunk. She arrived after a Bible study one morning, and there on the dressing table in the bedroom lay a piece of paper: "I love you and always have, but I can't live like this any longer. You can have everything. All I want is peace." And as she looked around, everything of his was gone as if he had never existed. Her world crumbled. Suddenly everything was clear, but it was too late. No chance for further discussion. No chance to renegotiate. No time for I'm sorry.

At 11:00 p.m. when Jack Phillips received the seventh warning from the Californian stating, "Say, old man, we are stopped dead in a field of ice," he radioed back, "Shut up, shut up," and went back to communicating frivolous messages from passengers to their friends and relatives on shore. Phillips had sent the first five messages regarding "a field of ice" ahead to higher ranking officers, but they were totally ignored, so he ignored the sixth and final warning. After all, "the ship was unsinkable."

What made the four-block-long ship unsinkable? The main argument made for this seemed to be its sixteen compartments which could be shut off individually. The ship could sustain water in the first four compartments and still stay afloat. No one could imagine an object large enough to hit all four. The iceberg, however, towered 100 feet above the water and 800 feet below. It managed to cut a gash in the first six compartments. I believe couples are deceived the same way. After all, there are many compartments that would seemingly sustain the "marriage ship"--the vows taken in the presence of witnesses and God, the children, friends and family, joint finances, church relationships, memories of Christmas, vacations, on and on.

Believe me, I have seen marriages be able to take some really hard hits--infidelity, abuse, and the list goes on--and still stay afloat. But I've seen that no marriage is unsinkable and that a relationship can only sustain so much damage. One should not be so naive as to think that just because it survived a really bad swounding, it will keep on surviving more and more damage. Not all marriages end in overt divorce, you will notice. Some die a quiet, unnoticeable death.

One could say that pride sunk the Titanic. Everything seems to lead back to that culprit. Even the fact that there were no binoculars aboard seems to be traceable to pride. Who could imagine that on this oceanliner, Frederick Fleet, the lookout perched in the Crow's Nest, had made a request for a pair of binoculars! Someone felt so cushy and secure that this provision which would appear to be a necessity was, in fact, not provided. In my musing on this subject, I keep hearing, "You have eyes to see, but you do not see. You have ears to hear, yet you do not hear." How many wives and husbands have, in fact, tried over and over to explain a particular area of dissatisfaction, only to have a gesture of change made, a mere tap of the little finger on the table of life.

I so believe that marriage is a garden to be tended, especially in our day and time. Maybe Albert and Etherl who lived out on the farm and were concerned about getting the crops planted and having shoes for the kids weren't facing the troubled waters marriages face today. There was a day and time where Etherl probably wasn't going anywhere even if Albert never said, "I love you," or even kissed her goodnight. That era is bygone. Proactivity is the only course open to those who want to strengthen and thrive. Binoculars. Wow! Do you have some? A man told me last week that he should have gone to a marriage seminar every six months, should have read some of those books that his wife kept bringing home, should have gone tot he classes offered at the church on relationships . . . but . . . well, you know the PRIDE word. The sixth compartment may have been hit. Time will tell if it's too late.

And then the end of the story--the lack of adequate lifeboats, only enough for 1,178, only half enough. In the fury, only 28 were in the first boat that held 68 passengers. Only 12 in another one. What a disaster! Unlike the Titanic, the children are the ones left on the sinking ship of divorce. Sometimes a wife or husband. . . while one is so selfish that he or she jumps into the lifeboat and leaves the others on the ship. But in my experience, the children are always left on the ship. They are, without fail, the victims.

Urgency. Vision. Humility. An equipped lookout. Eyes to see. Ears to hear. Diligence. All around us the messages are coming, "Say, old man, we are stopped dead in a field of ice." Are you apathetically throwing the messages away? I hope not.