Text: Ephesians 5:22-33
When two people get married, they WILL have problems – but that doesn’t mean they have “A PROBLEM”
Introduction:
Before I begin, I need to take a survey, to learn who I’m addressing:
FIRST GROUP: how many folks here are married? (If so, raise your hand.)
SECOND GROUP: how many folks here have maybe at least briefly entertained the hypothetical thought that there is a remote possibility that you might someday be married in the far distant future? I’m not asking if you have any immediate prospects or intentions, but just whether you have given the possibility some thought?
THIRD GROUP: finally, how many here are currently making a determined effort to avoid matrimony?
This morning I will share a principle that can reassure the first group, prepare the second group, and maybe encourage the third. Here’s the good news about marriage: when two people are married, they WILL have problems – but that doesn’t mean they have “A PROBLEM.”
We need to know that, because when we first marry, we enter matrimony with lots of EXPECTATIONS, but very little EXPERIENCE. And that unavoidable fact can lead to unrealistic expectations.
AND, unrealistic expectations just might lead to unrealistic disappointments. In fact, unless two people understand this principle, their relationship runs the risk of following a predictable but poisonous pattern. Let’s consider a couple we’ll call JACK & JILL.
The first step in this pattern is DIFFICULTIES: Jack & Jill have not been married long when a problem pops up that need to be resolved: car breaks down, money is tight, in-laws want to visit for third weekend in a row, someone gets sick, etc.
This can lead to a DIFFERENCE: That is, Jack proposes one response to the difficulty, and Jill suggests a different solution, and the newlyweds make the shocking discovery, “My partner doesn’t see it my way. We’re not always going to think exactly alike.”
We hadn’t been expecting that. And now we’re headed toward a DISAGREEMENT: Jack won’t back down – Jill digs in her heels. Call it ego, say it’s stubbornness, label it pride: for whatever reason, each insists on “my way.”
Now we’re experiencing DISILLUSIONMENT: “It’s not supposed to be this way.” Their fantasy of a frictionless marriage is shattered, their bubble of bliss is burst, and to tell the truth, both Jack and Jill are just a little bit resentful.
heir inability to easily reach agreement leads each to formulate a DEFINITION: In their minds they begin to think, “We have a PROBLEM” (with a capital “P”), and now come the critical step in this progression: Jack & Jill both formulate a theory to define what’s wrong. They have lots of different theories to choose from: and if they draw a blank, they can turn to friends, or to a thousand different books, or even to Ophrah! Jill may begin to define the “P”roblem as: “It’s because he doesn’t love me,” or, “he’s inconsiderate,” or “he’s a man.” Jack may choose the ever-popular, “She’s just like her mother”. (Of course, since all relationships are created by two people, the only way Jill can be just like her mother is if Jack is exactly like her father!) And either of them may select the all-purpose, “I think you need to see a psychiatrist.” But did you notice, all these definitions share the same common presupposition: that all assume, “The problem with US is YOU”! (One sign a couple is in this stage – when they argue, they use the words “You always…you never”.)
The next step is DISTANCE: Once Jack & Jill have settled on their theory, they begin to notice signs they hadn’t seen before that confirm their theory. Jill begins to realize that he often forgets to put his socks in the hamper, and of course he wouldn’t do that if he truly loved her. Jack starts to notice that when they argue, she gets a wild look in her eye – maybe she really is crazy! And since our assumptions affect our attitudes, they both begin to withdraw, just a little. They start neglecting the little acts of affection, the loving gestures of romance, even the common courtesies of shared life.
Now each begins to experience DISTRUST: Jack and Jill start to have second thoughts about their marriage. They wake up one morning, look at the person on the pillow next to theirs, and ask with a sinking feeling: “What have I done? Who is this stranger I married? Did I marry the wrong one?” Then finally, sadly, the last step in this cycle is……
DIVORCE! What started out as a relatively minor difficulty has escalated, step by step, into a marriage-ending fiasco! Jack & Jill go down the hill, to enrich a pair of lawyers.
Ah, but I have good news! We can interrupt this sad cycle at any stage in the process, but this morning I want to focus on the easiest place to intervene – the beginning! Here’s where our principle comes in: When two people marry, they WILL have problems – but that doesn’t mean they have “A PROBLEM”! Two reasons this principle is helpful:
First, it provides a realistic, healthy perspective by reminding us that problems and difficulties are part and parcel of marriage – indeed, of life itself! Isn’t life a continual series of obstacles to be overcome, challenges to be faced?
And second, it helps us understand that it is possible for two good people, each with the best of intentions and both very much in love with each other, to approach situations with completely different perspectives, and find themselves at cross-purposes.
Body:
Let me give you a personal illustration to demonstrate what I’m talking about. Theoretically, I’m supposed to know what a “NORMAL” family looks like. After all, I regularly preach sermons on “The Christian Family”! And I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist – I have a graduate degree, and a license, and people pay me money to help them with their family problems. So if anybody ought to experience smooth sailing on the sea of domestic bliss, it ought to be a professional marriage counselor, right? Let me give you a peek into the Williams’ household, to explain how two people approach difficulties from very different perspectives:
One night late last winter I was going around the house, closing it up for the evening. The rest of the family had already gone to bed, and so I was checking the doors to see if they were locked, turning off the lights, etc. At the very end of this routine I always open the door from our sunroom to the garage, reach up, and push the button that shuts the garage door.
Just as I reached for the button, I heard it! MEOW! One of those pesky neighborhood cats had gotten into our garage! This had happened once before. On a previous occasion I had accidentally shut a cat up overnight, and the next morning the whole garage was just stinking to high heaven. I slipped on my shoes, and went out into the garage to shoo the cat out so I could shut the garage door for the night. I found the cat, and was herding it out the door, when for some crazy reason only a cat can understand, it suddenly turned and darted behind me, and ran right into the storage room at the back of our garage!
Unfortunately, that room was crammed with boxes and toys and junk that we had been collecting for a yard sale. There were dozens of places for a cat to hide! And it did hide – but again, for some crazy reason only a cat can understand, it kept going “MEOW,” “MEOW”! I finally found it hiding in a corner behind some boxes, and managed to push it out the door of the storage room and back into the garage and it was headed out of the garage…..but just then my wife Gina came out of the house to see what all the commotion was about. The cat took one look at her, got spooked, and turned around again and ran right past me and back into the storage room!
Being a very considerate and sensitive person, I did what any husband would do. I yelled at my wife, “You’re scaring the cat!” Now, I expected her to go back into the house, but she didn’t. Instead, she made what was, from her perspective, a perfectly logical decision: she opened the driver’s side door to the van and got in. To her that made perfect sense – she could still watch what went on, without distracting the cat! I went back into the storage room, rummaged around once more, finally located the cat, drove it out and got it headed for the outdoors once more; only this time it promptly ran under the van and jumped up into the engine compartment! Have you ever tried to find a cat that’s hiding somewhere in the undercarriage of a minivan? There are a surprising number of places to hide under there!
I took a broom, and tried to poke the cat to make it come out, but I couldn’t get to it. So now my wife, who is sitting behind the steering wheel, decides to help from inside the car, so she made what was, from her perspective, a SECOND perfectly logical decision. She sees that I’m not having any luck getting the cat out of the engine compartment, and she figures the cat needs some motivation, so she reaches down and starts the motor!
She started the engine, and I waited, but no cat appeared, so Gina then made a THIRD perfectly logical decision: she figures if the car is moving it will cause the cat to bail out, so she puts it in gear and starts to back out of the garage. Meanwhile I make what is to me a perfectly logical decision: if that cat jumps out, there’s no way I’m letting him get past me and back into the garage for the third time – so I’m following along, swatting at the front of the car with my broom, trying to head the cat off so he wouldn’t streak past me once more and zoom back into the garage.
When we got all the way out of the garage Gina made her FOURTH perfectly logical decision; she decided the best way to prevent the cat from running back into the garage a third time would be to shut the door; she reached up and pushed the remote control on the sun visor there in the van, and the door came rumbling down. So picture this scene: Gina is in the driver’s seat, the car is still backing up, I am following along swinging my broom at the front of the van, the garage door is sliding down behind me, and the cat is still hiding under the van. So now Gina made her LAST perfectly logical decision: if the cat won’t jump out on his own, she’ll take a quick spin around the block and throw him out. She backs on down the driveway, puts it into drive and takes off like a rocket, and is gone about 7 or 8 minutes.
Meanwhile, I’m standing there in front of the garage door with my broom when suddenly I realize three things:
FIRST, it is about 40 degrees outside and I’m standing in the driveway in my pajamas and my bare feet.
SECOND, since she closed the garage door behind me, I can’t get back into the our house.
And THIRD, I remembered that our neighbor’s picture window had a terrific view of our garage door! And it struck me what this whole scene must have looked like; because what they would have seen would be me chasing my wife out of the house with a broom, and her zooming off in the car.
Now, at every step of the way, each of us had made what seemed to us to be perfectly logical decisions: but when you put the whole process together, both of us found ourselves at cross-purposes, and the whole thing probably looked crazy from the outside! Now friends, that’s an episode in the life of a perfectly normal marriage!
Conclusion: 3 APPLICATIONS
PRINCIPLE #1. Good marriages are NOT relationships where two people always think exactly alike, and never experience problems: they are partnerships where two people USE their differences to SOLVE their problems!
Here’s a realistic rule of life: In any family, even in the best of families, life is just one crazy thing after another! How, you may ask, do I know if I’m from a dysfunctional family? In a sick family, life is the same crazy thing, over and over!
We should learn to appreciate God’s gift of DIFFERENCE! “helper suitable for him”
One of the great ironies of marriage: we marry someone of the opposite sex, in part because they’re not like us – then spend years fighting because we’re not the same!
PRINCIPLE #2. Most of the time, the “problem” is not the problem – how we REACT is the problem!
Did you ever notice how many times the Bible tells us not to make the way we treat people dependent upon the way they treat us? To take the initiative? To act, not react?
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
We can’t control our circumstances: but we can control the way we REACT to them! And anywhere in that pattern I described we can interrupt the cycle by taking responsibility for OUR actions and attitudes. Here’s a Biblical prescription for healthy relationships: Romans 12:17, 21 – “Do not repay anyone evil for evil……. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
3. And finally, the most dangerous threat to any marriage is NOT the presence of PROBLEMS, but the absence of POSITIVES!
John Gottman’s book: Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. Dr. Gottman studied married couples over decades. One of his discoveries: the most significant factor in predicting marital success was NOT how many problems a couple encountered, but how many positives they practiced: how many acts of kindness, consideration, affection.
And Gottman even came up with a ratio: 5 to 1. As long as there are 5 times as many positive interactions as negative, the couple’s relationship will succeed. I suspect the reason the incompatibility cycle escalates is because once we start feeling sorry for ourselves, we stop being considerate of our partner! Don’t forget the positives!
Conclusion:
So here’s two pieces of advice from Scripture: FIRST, don’t forget to do your part! HUSBANDS, love your wives, cherish them, nourish them – WIVES, respect your husbands, be a partner, make them a leader. Don’t get so wrapped up in trying to change your mate that you forget to love them!
And second, remember: when two people are married, they WILL have problems- but that doesn’t mean they have A PROBLEM! If we do our part, and appreciate our mate’s perspective, then “problems” are NO PROBLEM!
Dan Williams
