Wifey Wednesday: 3 Ways to Protect Your Relationship

Protecting Your Relationship

When the married couples you know get it right, the world is a better place. I simply have to share a moment of awesomeness from a young couple I know.

The husband of the couple is the Godfather of our oldest daughter. We chose him when he was still single. I mean, think about it, a 20ish man in the military as the spiritual backup for our daughter? If that doesn't tell you that he's a cut above, let me just tell you: he's a cut above. His wife is of the same stuff.

It shows in their relationship, too. Neither one of them worry much about what other people think of them. They are not full of the modern psychobabble that causes them to second guess the priorities they give to their relationship. They have made each other and their child the center of their lives and make no excuses to anyone about it. I think it helps that they were both faithful to one another from the beginning: meaning they lived chaste lives before and after they met. It has kept the complications from creeping in. Can you imagine? A marriage without baggage! It changes the whole ballgame.


The simplicity of their relationship shows up in the subtlest ways. Take for example this phone call from the other day. The wife of the couple called me to arrange for a Godfather and Goddaughter snow cone get-together. When it came time to talk details of timing and meeting places she said very casually and cheerfully, "Let me let you talk to my husband. Just a moment!" and handed the phone over.

That may not sound like much, but let me clue you in on some of the subtle ways this phone call indicates that they both habitually and naturally protect their marriage. In this particular instance their marriage was reaffirmed as precious in three subtle moments. In each of these, a clear boundary was established between the two of them and everyone else in the world, including me. The three relationship preserving techniques they used were: "Marital Force Field Activated!", "It's Us!", and "No exceptions!" Let's look at each of these more closely...

   

-- 1 --

"Marital Force Field Activated!"

When she initiated the call instead of him, she activated a subtle boundary like a marital force field of protection around them both. Her making the call established that she and I are the primary contact of the couple. I have the same habit. With all my married friends, unless I have to discuss specific business with him (like a birthday or Christmas gift for her) I make all my calls to her when I have to talk to them. It puts a social boundary between maried members of the opposite sex. Naturally!

But think about it, for a moment. We are taught in our modern days that we aren't supposed to do such a thing. It's clingy, possessive, old fashioned, or cited as evidence that the husband is too lazy to make telephone calls. Actually, it is just plain old fashioned common sense. Remember that the Catholic penitent promises to God at the end of every Confession to "avoid the near occasions of sin." That means we are bound by that promise to make a prudent attempt to keep ourselves out of temptation's way. Habitually chatting on the phone or getting together to hang out with members of the opposite sex is one of those near occasions and should be curtailed when possible.

In this modern era when the divorce rate is skyrocketing, it's just smart to avoid such situations. This young wife's telephone manners of initiating this call made the entire conversation more comfortable for me and for him in this regard. She stepped in and claimed their social status as a couple. "We are one!" this little act stated, right off the bat. Force fields up!

Go ahead, be old fashioned:
Marriages lasted back then

-- 2 --

"It's Us!"

When she said, "Let me let you talk to my husband!" before handing the phone over, this couple declared in a subtle and nonconfrontational way that there was a very clear boundary around the two of them. He was right there next to her, she right next to him, the entire time. The call was a call from them, not just him. It was a mannerly reminder that they belong together and all interaction with others is filtered through the relationship they share. "We are one!" they declared again, quite naturally. So naturally, in fact, that I doubt either was even aware of making that statement.  

-- 3 --

"No exceptions!"

It doesn't matter that she and I are friends, that he is the Godfather to my daughter. Many a woman and many a man has allowed for someone outside the marriage to come in between the two who are married because the exception seemed so logical. "She's my best friend." "He was friends with her before she met me." "He's my brother." Couples need to understand that the only person who can squeeze into the marital bond without damaging or destroying it is a Person with a capital p: Christ. Any other person, other than the children the relationship engenders, belongs clearly on the other side of the line that defines the difference between Us and Them.

The phone call was a success in more ways than one. The couple made me proud to know them, gave me some blog fodder, and established that my husband and I were smart in our choice of Godfather for our girl. Oh yes, and I am very happy to state that the Goddaughter was treated to a snow cone and bragged for days about having the bestest Godfather of all. I have chatted several times on the phone with his lovely wife about it and other things, among them that I was going to brag about her here. It is nice to know that, young as they are, my husband and I have friends like these. Friends who strengthen our marriage by the good example of their own.

Give us a break, again...

My husband is amazing. When we researched driving out to Virginia, we discovered that given the time restraints and the faulty transmission on our family van, we would have to rent a vehicle. As it turns out, renting a van large enough for our family and paying for hotels along the way was more expensive than renting an RV and "camping." Andy took to driving that beast like a pro. We had absolutely no problems.

Driving, that is. Negotiating the stairs is another matter. He broke his foot the second day out when he stepped down before the automatically extending stairs were done moving. His foot is still a lovely shade of swollen purple and brown, but the doctor has pronounced him "broken and sprained" and clear of the threat of pins and other surgical options. Huzzah!

But wouldn't you know it, yesterday we got the kids all ready for a family portrait and my son tipped a chair over on top of my foot. Mine's not broken, I don't think, but it is a lovely shade of brown, purple, and green. No heels for me for a few weeks. Even flip flops are out.

What a winning team we are. We thought we'd be good to go on a three legged race, at the very least, but we fell over before we even got the shoelaces tied.

My weirdo sense of humor has fully kicked in, though. I show the man my little bruise (by comparison) and say, "Gosh, honey, my foot hurts. See my little foot?"

It only hurts when he rolls his eyes...

Husbandly Wednesday

Correction: Wifey Wednesday is up and running this week...goest thou hence and read all about it!

The Wifey Wednesday meme will return next week when Sheila at To Love Honor and Vacuum returns from vacation. Meanwhile, I am taking the opportunity to explain why I write to wives and not husbands...

I answered the "Why do you only talk to women? Men are half the problem!" question officially over at To Love Honor and Vacuum in the comments section of her Am I Too Hard on Women? post...

Like you, I write to women. Like you, I expect each person in a marriage to work equally hard at making the marriage work, but I write to women. Sure Ephesians 5:22 is hard. It’s hard to submit. In an ideal world we could do it and not worry about it. We have to work with our limitations and our husband’s limitations and work out how that is going to look in the very real world we live in.

But you know what I know? I’m glad I’m a woman! Ephesians 5:22 may be hard to work toward but Ephesians 5:25 is even harder. Biblically our husbands are called to lay down their very lives for us in love and service. I don’t know how to even approach that one, so I don’t write to men.

I don't see a whole lot of that manly type of sacrificial love going on in the Christian world, honestly. I see it here and there and it stands out like a jewel. My brother-in-law Brent, my own husband Andrew, and my neighbor's husband Timothy lay themselves down for their families like Christs, but I don't personally know many other real men: the kind of man who takes the hits from the world for his bride and children, instead of passively or selfishly making them sacrifice to ease his burdens. From what I can see around me, it is hard work to make a marriage into the reflection of God's love that marriage is meant to be. Sure, women have to work very hard to fulfill their role as the heart of the home, but in all honesty, men have the tougher job to attain the level of Christian Husband. Women and children suffer more when he fails in his duties, but the hardest job is his. Dying is harder than submitting. Period.

I think the temptations are greater for men, the pitfalls are deeper, the ways to fail are subtler. A man can look and feel the part of the loving, Christian husband and yet live as if his wife were his personal drudge. In other words, he puts her in the sacrificial role he is called to fulfill. That always looks ugly. When a husband sacrifices like a man for his family, it is exquisite and manly. When a wife does so at a husband's demand, it is a scandal. This is the little bit of truth behind the stereotype of the Christian Wife as Doormat that the secular world criticizes us with. It is this that they are pointing to when they say, "I want no part of that!"

But like I said in the comments section, I don't know how to fix men. It's not as if you can nag them good. What I do, what I have done, and what has worked for 2,000+ years, is to call women to become the jewel of love, the precious gift from God, that inspires better things from her man. What works to transform yourself is what works to transform a spouse: prayer, love, generosity, service. That's what I know.

For you men, you'll have to look somewhere else for the specifics. Here's a good place to start...

The tyranny of the moment 

(from The Generous Husband blog)

December 12, 2011

in Acts of Service, Be a grownup, Her Needs, IMG

Five words jumped out of the sermon today – “The tyranny of the moment.” Does “the moment” ever cause you to do stupid things in your marriage?

• You are so caught up in whatever you are doing that you are rude to your bride either in word or deed.
• You are so focused on your immediate goal you don’t listen to her.
• You are so ready for sleep you fail to give her the ten minutes of talking and cuddling that would make such a big difference to her.
• You are so desirous of sex that you don’t take the time to warm up first her mind, and then her body.
• You are so upset at being interrupted you don’t even hear what she said.
• You are so desperate to get ahead of the bozo that cut you off in traffic, that you terrify your wife with your driving.

In one way or another, each of those is putting some short-term thing with no long-term significance ahead of the woman you promised to love, honour, and cherish. This sends a message to her that she is less important than whatever you are doing or wanting in the moment, and that’s not a message that blesses her or helps your marriage!
The term “tyranny of the moment” is very appropriate as we do give in to the moment. We want what we want when we want it, and we want to deal with what we are focused on to the exclusion of everything else. It’s easy to get such a narrow focus on now that we do things that make a mess of later; or, we fail to do things that could make later much better.