CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• FEATURED STUDY "HOW CAN WE STAY MARRIED?"

This week our study involves the difficult task of staying married to the same person over the long haul. We're not talking about maintaining an unresolved cold war; we're talking about building quality, satisfying marriages that last for a lifetime. The kind of sensitivity that's being promoted in the Promise Keepers gatherings is much needed in all our homes if we are to build quality marriages. You don't have to go to a meeting in a football stadium to build a quality marriage. In fact these huge gatherings of men aren't really my cup of tea, but if attending one helps your marriage, I'm all in favor of it.

I would really like to hear some success stories along this line. If you've managed to have a long lasting relationship with your spouse, would you consider writing a brief summary of how you made it happen (no more than 200-400 words)? I'll reprint them in our "From the E-mail Bag" section in a future newsletter. If "Promise Keepers" or something similar has made a difference in your marriage, write and tell us how it turned things around for your family. We're not really interested in what the event did for you emotionally, but how your involvement changed your family. We're not in the business of promoting Promise Keepers. They don't really need our help, but if you've learned something from the program that will help us, please share it.

Norman

Marriage is a continual process of adjustment. We are constantly making changes. According to an old Chinese proverb, "you can never step in the same river twice." So it is with the dynamics of our lives and relationships. We experience movement in:

Physical Appearance and Condition
(weight fluctuations, changes in hair color and volume, wrinkles, muscular changes, diseases of various kinds, etc.)

Social and Cultural Development
(education, friends, work, relocation, etc)

Number of Family Members.
The dynamics change immediately when we marry and change again with the birth of each child. We all acquire a new set of relatives when we marry. We call them in-laws.

Religious Situation.
Some people change churches when they marry. Others stay in the same congregation, but accept different roles.

Personal Growth.
We are constantly changing in terms of our interests and skills.

Married couples must decide how they are going to cope with these changes, how much change they will tolerate, how rapid change will occur without threat, etc.

QUESTIONS THAT MARRIAGE COUNSELORS HEAR

From Younger Couples.

1. How can we learn to get through to each other?
2. Why do we get angry every time we try to talk?
3. Why do we fight so much when we really love each other?
4. Why is it that nothing ever seems to get settled?
5. Why won't my spouse talk to me? Why does he/she clam up, and his/her feelings get hurt every time we try to talk about something that's important?

1. How can a person live in the same house with me for 20 years, sleep in the same bed, use the same toothpaste and not really know me?
2. How can we keep our relationship from going stale?
3. What do we have in common now that the children are gone?
4. Why does our relationship seem so shallow after all these years?
5. What's wrong with our love life?
6. How do we get over the hurts and the resentments that have built up over the years?

These and other questions would seem to indicate that we never reach the point when we can afford to stop adjusting. I own a car that has 200,000 miles on it. It's a good car. It has given me excellent service. To keep it that way, I take it to the mechanic for periodic tuneups, put new spark plugs in, put some new parts on from time to time. Marriages also need periodic tuneups. Let's consider some areas in which we need to tune up our relationships.

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1. It starts with commitment. Within the next few months, Ann and I will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. We have not stayed married because we've had a perfect marriage without any trauma. As a matter of fact, we've has some significant trials. We are married today because we decided to stay married. We believe what Jesus said in Matthew 19:6 "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." It is our commitment to that principle, which gave us the courage to make the painful adjustments necessary to maintain our marriage. Without an attitude of commitment, you'll find a way to leave the marriage when the going gets rough.

2. It requires acceptance of the existence of tension. Tension develops in a marriage for many different reasons. Some of them involve personality differences, background, family of origin, temperament, assumptions and expectations. Tension is normal in this life. Paul counseled Christians to expect ". . . tribulation in the flesh." Relationship tensions should be accepted as a normal part of the pattern of living. They can even provide a certain benefit. My car rides better because there's tension on the springs.

Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

It becomes necessary for a married couple to work out a mutually agreeable pattern of sexual behavior. They will have to negotiate such matters as frequency, preferences, and dislikes. Many married couples never talk about their sexual involvement and thus deprive themselves of the opportunity to make healthy adjustments.

Fair Play.

I once heard a seminar speaker address the subject, "How to Fight Fair." He said, "You either learn to fight fair or one day you'll fight with everything in the kitchen sink" There is a third possibility. Sometimes a person will outwardly surrender to the will of the other spouse in order to avoid conflict. That's usually not a satisfactory solution. The person who yields too quickly, in order to establish peace, may become depressed, bitter, unresponsive and cynical. They become emotionally detached and withdraw from dynamic interaction in the relationship. Rarely does such a person experience a sense of fulfillment in the marriage relationship.

It would be unusual for two people to marry who have exactly the same interest, tastes, and objectives in the use of leisure time. It would probably also be very boring. The key to marriage adjustment is not to eliminate separate interests, but to find new interests in things the two of you can do together.

Sometimes married couples set out to build their own personal island of bliss in the ocean of chaos that surrounds them. They want to put up a chain link fence eighteen feet tall with three strands of barbed wire on top of that around their island. They don't want to be contaminated by the world, so they avoid leaving their island and they try to keep the world away. This goes against the principles Jesus taught and exemplified. He said, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). He also taught in Matthew 16:25, "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. " The same principles apply to a marriage relationship.

Howard and Charlotte Clinebell observed, "Marital and family narcissism, like personal narcissism, leads to increased isolation from the perspective-giving, need satisfying relations with those outside the family. Diminishing returns inevitably result."(The Intimate Marriage. p. 205)

Acts 18 records the remarkable ministry of Aquilla and Priscilla. They not only provided companionship for Paul, they were a husband-wife ministry team. Eventually they met an eloquent but under informed orator named Apollos. According to Acts 18:26 "When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately." Their joint opportunity with Apollos was fulfilling in two ways. It enhanced their evangelistic effectiveness and it provided yet another dimension of depth for their marriage.

Peter assumed that Christian married couples pray together. "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers" (1Peter 3:7).

I once heard of a married couple whose marriage appeared to be quite healthy except in this one area. The wife was a Christian and the husband was not. A child was stricken with a life threatening illness. Husband and wife sat in the waiting room, their hands tightly grasped together awaiting the outcome. In that tense moment, the wife said to the husband, "This is the one thing that's missing in our relationship. At a time like this we really need to pray together." Augustine was correct when he said, Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.

If you go out to a restaurant, does the person driving the car always choose the restaurant? Who controls the television remote control device? Who selects radio stations on the car radio? More importantly, how are these decisions made? Are they made on the basis of what the person doing the choosing wants? Do you ever make decisions after considering the wishes of both parties?

I have trouble pulling this one off, but I still do it from time to time. At Christmas time, Ann bought some candy orange slices. Over the years, our family has enjoyed her orange slice cakes during the holidays. We vote "no" on fruit cakes and "yes" on orange slice cakes. This last year she was so busy with other things, she didn't have time to bake the orange slice cake. We had the orange slices in the cabinet. I figured they would probably dry out if no one ate them. So, I started snitching one here and there. The first thing I knew the whole package was gone and I didn't fool Ann one bit.

When you feel like you have to cover up your deeds, you're probably manifesting selfishness. In recent years, I've decided to conduct myself differently when Ann is away from home. When she's gone, I don't have to make beds, wash dishes or put everything neatly away. I can watch westerns and war movies on television if I want to. However, I've learned that I usually feel better about myself if I keep the house pretty much the way she would keep it. I will admit that I'm not totally converted to this principle. I still look upon it is a special opportunity to see westerns and war movies. I guess I haven't totally surrendered my selfishness.

Overcoming our selfish nature is no easy task. Paul describes the way we all think before we become Christians. " As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath" (Ephesians 2:1-3).

In Christ, however, we acquire a new nature. " For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again" (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Until we acquire that new nature, we are probably going to continue to be dominated by self centered patterns of behavior as we relate to our spouses.

On the other hand if we will accept the Lord's plan for relationships, get out of ourselves and die to ourselves on a daily basis we can expect to experience the following fruits in our lives.

1. Acceptance. - weakness, struggling
2. Security.
3. Loyalty.
4. Emotional depth.
5. Sense of belonging.
6. Self esteem.

Marriage is worth preserving. It's not easy to develop a self denying, servant heart. It will exact a price from us. Dying is never easy and dying to self especially difficult. On the other hand, alienation, continual bickering, competitive behavior and divorce exacts an even higher price. Dying to self has the potential to bring peace, harmony and joy to our marriages. Self indulgence and self promotion brings none of these things.

NEXT WEEK'S FEATURE ARTICLE: "Marriage is Not Fifty-Fifty"