Why did I marry you? Why did I marry you anyway is a common question usually asked during a conflict and usually after being married for a while. So, why did I marry you? Well, let’s look into this question. In my case, I was at an infant level of relational maturity (RM) when I got married the first time. My parents were missionaries and were going back to the field and I would be left here in the US alone. As an infant, I needed a home and someone who would love me and keep care of me. So, I married a Christian girl who would take care of me. After a few years my primary desire as now a relationally maturing child was in playing and I soon found someone who I thought would be more fun to play with. After all, playing is all about the fun and excitement for me. If I had been at least at adult level of RM I would have been aware of the extreme amount of relational pain I was causing. I would have also been concentrating on building our “kingdom” and our beginning family with my wife. However, as an infant and child, when the fun was over, we were done. And the fun wasn’t what I thought it would be after all. So as a RM child I tried hard to follow the rules and that wasn’t fun either. There was drudgery and heaviness in all the doing. That marriage also slowly disintegrated. Eventually, I thought I needed to have some adult level RM and find someone I could interact with on a business type level. You do your part and I will do mine. Of course sex always had to be a part of it and I still wanted to play with the child part of my wife. However, life got really heavy after a while when I felt that I was carrying way more than my share and she wasn’t interested in playing any more. Interestingly enough (meaning God was in it), she introduced me to Relational Maturity. This was the turning point in my life. This wasn’t another program or 12 step left brain course. This was a different way of being. And I was being transformed from the inside out. Wow … wow… wow! The guilt and shame I felt from all my “bad” ways and acts, started to dissolve as I realized that my heart wasn’t bad. And God looks at my heart .. As I got some God sight into the real me, the lights came on and someone is now home, and it is me! I just need to grow up and mature relationally. I now want to put away improper childish things. I want to be a parent, not the one needing a parent. I want to bless and provide for my family as a living example of what it is that I do when things are going very badly or going great. This is how I do and how we do life together, so follow my lead! I could never say that before. As a child I could tell you what to do, but I didn’t do it. As a relational parent, I am now learning to “suffer well” and I count it joy because I am with you, creating a safe place for us all to belong. Giving you freedom to fail and to be restored. Living from my heart and showing you the way. I can now do all of life together, not just the good times of life!
What is Marriage: For RM (relationally mature) Infants, marriage is a play land where we live a lot of make believe and you meet all my wants and needs. … For Children marriage is about finding fun and the joining of rules or operating in the lack thereof and is usually attempted to be held together with fear bonds. I really don’t know how or what it is to love you, nor do I care very much. Life is about me! However, joy is usually drained out of the relationship. So, “I will do my thing and, you can come along or not.” For Adults marriage is about having some common ground and making sure we each take care of ourselves and each other as or if needed. Let’s make a fair deal. You do your part and I will do mine. It’s time to build our “kingdom,” having physical children may get in the way. Prenups are good. … For Parents marriage is a partnership where we give life, build a safe place to belong, provide for the family, and have unconditional love for each other and the family, providing healthy boundaries. For Elders marriage is a model of a prayer and care partnership.
Should We Marry an:? Infant? … We are together for the fun and excitement or the need for a place to belong. Sharing pizza or each other might be fun. No long term stability, as I mature I may not need you any more, I may run away. Child? … Intense possessiveness, strict rules, you need to be taking care of all my needs and be doing your job. Good at quoting scripture, and one sided monologues, I will do my job (work). A lot of tension here, I might leave you or drive you away. Adult? … We need to have mutual respect, you do your part and I’ll do mine, we discuss things and need to agree in order to make it work, I may even be nice and go the second mile at times, I will keep care of myself and you as long as you do the same for me. We most likely will have a pre-nup and separate bank accounts, we may be apprehensive about having children, I’m concerned about life passing me by. Parent? … There is an ebb and flow to our seasons of life, there is richer or poorer, children and no children, sickness and health, ageing, But, we go with the flow of enjoying doing life together. I enjoy keeping care of me, you, and the family around us, I enjoy watching you and our family mature. Within me there is grace, stability, and peace with nuggets of joy.
Now, who would be the best matched? A child and infant? How about 2 parents?!
ATTACHMENT: The Marriage Attachment.
God has made all of us with the desire and need for attachment to God and to another human being. We all need a safe place to belong, relationally mature, be loved and express our love, be ourselves, perhaps fail and recover from failure.
There are Four primary attachment styles. The healthy attachment style is Secure Attachment. The other three have some issues that create certain problems in relationships: Dismissive style, Disorganized style, Distracted style.
In this writing we are looking at the attachments that make for a good, healthy marriage. And on the painful side we will look at some issues that eventually lead to the death of a marriage.
Basic requirements for a healthy marriage. These are all large topics in and of themselves. See these expanded topics at the end of this writing.
- A deep love for the Lord and a good relationship with Him.
- Being a healthy person.
- Being equally yoked for doing life together.
- Having the relational maturity level of at least an adult. This involves the willingness to compromise. Continually taking on new relational maturity growth.
- Having compatible personalities.
- Being a true friend at the deepest level.
- Having a common life vision and goals. Perhaps even a common calling.
- The willingness to lay down my single life.
Let’s now look at the rise and fall of a relationship and see what brought life to the relationship and what brought death.
The Upward glide:
- I meet you and you bring me life, hope, and excitement in the midst of my loneliness and boredom.
- I immediately make connection with you and we can talk for hours about the common ways we connect and of all our likes and dislikes. The younger we are relationally, the more superficial the common ground will be. Like we both like pizza and I like your cool ride and I can play the latest video games with you! If we are at Adult level maturity the talk will be about hobbies, sports, interests, travel, or business ideas. Our intensity in life revolves around the kids or the sport we are in or involved with, the house we would like to buy or build, and the new business venture.
- We now have some short term goals like getting the kids through school or obtaining a degree in order to better myself while you work on your business idea.
- Since we agree that church is a good thing, we decide to attend and we also make the rounds to some new friends and old acquaintances.
- If one or both of us has been married before, we discuss children we have and if we will have any of our own. We discuss the flaws in the previous spouse and how we will try to avoid making that mistake again.
- Life now has intensity which is one of our basic needs in life. There are some red flags, (see basic requirements for a healthy marriage) but we ignore them.
- We do receive some prophetic ministry that our marriage will be blessed and that the kids will be blessed through it. So we get married.
The Downward slide:
- The exciting intensity slowly becomes common and life becomes blah. We try dates and special occasions. The kids don’t immediately bond with us.
- The short term focus we had during dating soon ends. I now have the degree I sought and I want to move on, or the kids go off to school and have their own life leaving us alone. The business may fail or take us in different directions. One of us is ageing and has associated health issues, and I am not going to be with an old or unhealthy person.
- We start looking outward to other ways and interests. We entertain thoughts that maybe it would be better to be alone or at least out of this pain and hopeless despair we are feeling.
- One or both of us start entering uncommon ground. This is short term focus that does not bring life to the relationship.
- I begin to act and do things independently and begin doing things that are “right in my own eyes.” This leads to justifying my actions because “you are not doing right and are hurting me.”
- BEEPS (Behaviors, Events, Experiences, People, Substances) add to the drift apart.
- I will now make you the enemy and often try to do it in the “intelligent enemy mode” way. Where we once were talking about everything, there is no more discussion. I’m mad at God because He led me into this mess. I can’t trust Him.
- I am now violating my vows, the bible, and I listen to the counsel of the ungodly or those who justify their actions as is part of the norm of our society.
- I file for divorce and try to protect myself from my new enemy… you.
- According to our society that is the end of that messy relationship and I now am free to move on and find someone else. But, does that line up with scripture? No, Scripture is quite clear that there are only two options for the divorced person who consider themselves as Christian. Stay single or mature and reconcile with my spouse.
- Jesus came and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Those who follow us and are around us learn by the way we model being a relationally mature parent who follows Jesus. Our role is to mature and work on reconciliation. This is not the norm in our society, which is not a Christian society. Thinking about it… Who would be glorified by the reconciliation? What impact would reconciliation have on ourselves, our family, and others watching?
Looking back at the rise and slide story noted above. Where am I in this? Which requirements for a healthy marriage were or are being violated by me? Am I maturing relationally?
What do I need to do now and what is my part in order to be attached to my spouse in a healthy marriage?
Holding my Marriage Partner Hostage: When I Marry a Child or Infant. Children marrying Infants; This is the status of our nation. “My son, when you give your pledge to someone, you place yourself in their hands. You are now bound to them. Now, if someone immature has pledged to you and later feels they have made a mistake and plead for you to release them from their pledge … are you willing to release that person back into My hands?” Pr.6:1-3 .. Num. 30 .. A child and the law would say, no; you need to fulfill your vow. …. How about an adult; if they were pleading for me to release them from their pledge. Would I release them? Well, as adults “fair is fair” I will release you if you give me something in return, like taking nothing from me when you leave. … A parent would say, “Here, take what is yours and you are free to go, I will miss you and you will always be welcome here should you choose to return.”
Divorce is a Pause. Divorce is not the end; it is a pause. Divorce is not a “sin unto death.” Although I may feel dead. There are very few divorces among those who are at a relationally mature Adult or Parent level. There are three phases to the divorce pause. 1. Marriage vows should be a love bond between two believers. “What God has put together, let no one take apart. We will love each other and mature until death do us part.” 2. If I can’t get along, (usually due to relational immaturity) I separate and mature relationally and seek to reconcile in a healthy mature way. 3. If that’s too difficult for various reasons; I divorce, and I then live alone without another “partner”. Or, I relationally mature and reconcile with my former spouse. Only if my former spouse dies or remarries is my marriage dead. I am then free to move on in a relationally mature (RM) manner that brings life to myself and to those around me, (which is a parent level RM.)
Why Should We Marry? Marriage is the only relationship that God designed for us in which we can and are supposed to experience all the RM levels. Marriage is the only place we can come close to the perfect ideal that God has in mind for us. A total marriage is an intimate connection that is all about relationships and involves the complete family with God as the Head. In the total family we have infants, children, adults, a mother and father as parents, elders, and God leading and blessing the family unit. Scripture tells us over and over to be fruitful and multiply and be a blessing to the earth as His families. Satan has hijacked this most sacred family concept and has mostly destroyed it to where we now have all kinds of weird variations and many orphans and destroyed relationships. Even Christians and the church has bought into the “norm of our society.” The complete ideal family is not static. Everyone is maturing. Everyone is supporting each other. All belong. Everyone in the family is doing all of life together. God is the head with Jesus as our leader. It is joy being together and we all rejoice and we all feel the pain. No one is left behind. The family is supposed to go through hard times and sad times as well as easy times and happy times. This is how the family learns all together with the more mature calling up the less mature by primarily living the more mature way. The less mature will automatically follow and do like mom and dad do.