Mike Rutledge.CA

One of the things in my life that I am most passionate about is marriage. As a Pastor, I want to help people better their marriages and as husband, I want to have the best marriage! I have been married to Emily since May 2013 and although our circumstances aren’t necessarily typical (getting married and simultaneously taking on the responsibility of leading a church), I have been thinking lately about how I would have done my first year better (and hopefully every other year after). Most of  the mistakes circle around around one issue, that I was (and am) more selfish that I dare admit. Hopefully if you are married, or about to be, or even married for a while and are struggling, some of these things can help you avoid the same things we had to deal with, and still are having to in most cases.

1. Culture matters, and petty fights are inevitable. 

I want to start of with a simple practical point that I failed to realize the weight of all those months ago. If you have taken the traditional Christian model of not living together before marriage, then this is especially applicable to you. No matter how much you love each other, the reality is that you grew up in different homes, with different house cultures, different traditions, different values, different ways of doing even the simplest things, like the dishes. And one the most prominent places that there will be immediate tension in your marriage is the collision of these two cultures and the forming of a new one. You will both compromise on somethings, and eventually figure it out, but trust me you will have fights in your first year that you will look back on and simply laugh. (Emily and I fought about where to put the dirty dishes –  in the sink or on the counter. I’m not kidding… and now it’s embarrassing that we even had to!)

Emily came from a home dominantly of girls and I came from the opposite. This totally opposite culture also does make for tension. My normal vocal tone to Emily’s ears is loud and angry. But when you grow up with 3 brothers, you talk in a certain way! It’s been a year of trying to retrain something as simple as my vocal tone, and trust me its not so easy. You tend to fall back into what is comfortable, what is “normal”, without the thought that there is a new normal now. So, together you need to work hard to create a new normal, but remember and don’t stress about the little fights along the way, they will pass, and you will laugh.

2. I failed to be selfless.

Here is where we get deep and we look into the heart of the matter. When you are getting married, you aren’t ready to be what marriage requires of you: selfless! Like Christ, dying a on a cross for people who hated him, who didn’t reciprocate the love. We are called to lay down our lives in marriage, to serve the other and to honour the other with a love that is so unconditional the Apostle Paul says it is to mimic how Christ loves His Church. Let’s just say the job demands are higher than your qualifications. And all your failings will be seen in some connection to your selfish disposition.

The first few weeks, even months will be really good. The honeymoon stage is a fun one. But then life begins again, routine happens, and you will begin to think about you first. You become annoyed at the little requests that inconvenience you (These things are especially true for those us of who struggle with a more overt pride/selfishness). Selfishness finds its way down in to practical things of life, like culture (refer above), appointments, friends, and remembering to ask the other person if going out tonight is alright, and only wanting to watch the shows that you really like, etc. It sounds sort of petty – it really is – but these are some of the ways in which this selfishness rears its ugly head. It starts in the little things and grows.  Instead of thinking, “How might I serve my spouse”, you slowly begin to ask, “Why aren’t they serving me?”.  This is where the danger begins. In your mind, controlling these thoughts is where the battle is. You can easily begin to see all the things you do for them, all the sacrifices, all the ways you are awesome (in your own eyes), and begin demonizing your spouse because they clearly aren’t living up their end of the deal, as if marriage was a contract. But it’s not. It’s a covenant. One where you promise, regardless of how well or not the other is performing, to love, honor, serve and protect them. Sort of like Jesus, remember?

One of the most horrible places where this selfishness can come to light is in the area of grace and forgiveness, and this definitely for me is an area that needs great improvement. We can so easily justify ourselves, our bad or poor behaviour, by placing the reasons beyond us, into the external (environment, other people, outside factors), and we easily internalize the reasons why our spouse is bad (she is the one who screwed up, something is wrong with him, etc.) and so we often do not give them the same amount of grace we hope for and expect for ourselves. And this pattern of excusing yourself and blaming the other is literally begging for a divorce down the road.  Give to your spouse the amount of grace that you want for yourself. Give them the benefit of the doubt like you always give yourself. Assume the best about them like you do about yourself. Don’t be so self absorbed and self protecting. I know when fights happen and tensions rise, this way thinking so easily sets in, but fight it friends, fight it with everything, do not let this take root in your marriage for it will destroy it.

3. I failed to realize the power of ‘Love Languages’.

Honestly, it’s almost annoying how much ‘love languages’ are talked about and thrown around, but I realized that this happens because it’s true! The way I interpret love, given and received, is different than the way Emily does. And because I am still selfish and because I don’t completely understand the complexity of my wife, nor sometimes put in the effort to do so, we often find ourselves miscommunicating love.  It is legitimetly hardwork to get this right. For all the newly marrieds who are still strung out on the new found sexual pleasure and could never imagine a day when this marriage will get tough, it’s coming. You return to default mode and so easily forget that your spouse is different. Emily loves gifts – coffees, flowers, cards, etc, – and though I enjoy them and love getting something I didn’t pay for, I don’t find them filling the love tank the way they do for her. And if I am not careful, I stop the gifts, don’t value gifts, and sort of blow it off, and in a twisted sense expect her just to accept the love that I do give her, often in the ways that make so much sense to me. One word : FAIL. That’s not going to work. I’m sure you have heard this analogy before, but imagine going to a country that doesn’t speak your native language. If you’re going to try to have effective communication with someone there, you’re going to have a bad time. You need to learn the language!  The same is true for love. Find out what their love language is early! Find out the specifics of the ways in which they feel most loved. Write it down. Do it!

But, there is a comment that needs to be made here. Love languages, or the ways in which someone receives love, can change over time. Emily and I have seen this in her. Early in our relationship she would tell me that she needed words of affirmation most. That’s the way she felt most loved. As we grew together, and time changed, seasons changed, occasions changed, we each grew individually, we saw her love language change. So you need to remember to be flexible with this as well. This is hard work, but it is also the place where a lot of excitement and romance can flourish. As your spouse may change, you need to be ever attentive and ever learning. Honour they way the grow by being attentive to it. Sure, it might be annoying at times, but love them enough to apply yourself to do this well. (I have found that many men stay the same as far as receiving love physically, but their secondary love languages do change, so wives you don’t have an easier task!)

4. I failed to be totally open with the person who promised to love me through it all. 

Vulnerability is hard. Especially as man when you want to be strong for your wife. You want to be the leader, the guy, the warrior, etc. But intimacy is not just naked bodies, it is naked souls. Secrets, weaknesses, all of you, laid bear before the other. It is simply embarrassing at times, but it so necessary. Emily and I have been pretty good on this front. We do our best to keep one another accountable, we try hard to repent to one another, we do have those deep conversations, but admittedly in a lot of ways I was still hiding. I am a Pastor, and one of my leanings is to be the helper, and in turn not receive help. I often find myself in relationships that are unequal, where I am offering some sort of advice, mentorship, sitting in somewhat of an authority position, and it’s easy to default to this with my wife. To be the typical male fixer, who never needs fixing. With God I am open, why bother hiding from Him, but from Emily, there have been things that I have kept to myself, mostly fears, mostly truths about my weakness, that I don’t like speaking about. Quite honestly, we had one of those conversations just the other day where she completely, without evening knowing it, called my bluff and I had no choice but to be open, to let her see me on a deeper – and weaker – level. And it was good. It was hard. It was embarrassing. But she sort of already knew, and it was really me just leaning into my best friend and finding a safe place to land and a voice to keep me accountable.  Don’t waste the precious resource a spouse is in this regard. Don’t hide yourself if you truly want intimacy. Don’t self protect, self expose. Be seen by them for who you really are. The covenant you made, or are about to, is one of unconditional love, to see all of you, yet still love you. It’s glorious. Don’t wait to begin.

5. I failed to pray. 

As a Pastor this is probably the most practically embarrassing one of them all. I get payed to pray. It’s my job to study the Bible, to glean its wisdom, to spend time before God, and yet I have not given near enough time to praying for and with my wife. There’s no good reason, no psychology to explain it, nothing. Simply a huge spiritual leadership failure. Don’t fail to pray. Don’t fail to pray for your spouse. Don’t fail to lift them up before the Father, to pray for their failings, to seek their benefit before the Lord, to ask for His mercy in their life, to ask for their love for Him to be strengthened. Never fail to pray for them. In fact, praying for them is a special way in which love deepens for them. Since you need to think about them, to think about their life, to think about how you can help them, to think about the blessing they are to you. When you pray for them, you lift them up as a person in need of grace like you are as well and are reminded to have grace towards them. There is nothing bad that can come from praying for them, only good. Do it often. Men, especially, don’t be a passive leader. Actively pursue God on her behalf.

Pray together. Creating a safe place for you both to seek God together is crucial, especially before the hard times really come. Quite honestly this is one of the places that I am haunted from the most in my failure. Emily and I have been together for almost 7 years, and I never have worked hard enough at developing a strong united prayer life. We got so busy with church stuff, that whenever we would come together we would just neglect it, or when we would sit down and pray together I would get all pastoral, and use the preacher voice (as Emily calls it) and sort of make the moment awkward. It wasn’t natural, it seemed forced. And so now 7 years later, we still are struggling with the hard work of reversing lazy habits and really praying together. We aren’t there yet, we both know it. But friends, learn if you haven’t, how to pray together. Make it vital to the life of your relationship, keep God practically central by doing this discipline together. There seriously is nothing sweeter than to hear the voice of your friend, lover, and spouse, praying over you, lifting you up before God, praying for weaknesses, asking God to give you grace, celebrating the blessings you give to them, etc. It seriously builds an intimacy like nothing else. Guard this. When times get tough and you don’t even want to speak to the other person, having the solid foundation of a prayer life will be the place that you can go together. Make it happen, now.

I know not everyone struggles the way I do. Maybe for you and your personality some of these things will not even be an issue. Praise the Lord for that! But for those of you who can see the same things in your life, or maybe as you look to your marriage you can see where you might fall, prepare now. Don’t go in promising big things just to fail. God seriously wants the best marriage for you and your spouse. Be open to His correction, be humbled by His grace, and in by His grace love your spouse the way He loves you.