Origins
It occurred to me today afresh how popular secular thinkers teach people to have unrealistic expectations for marriage and other relationships. For example, Johnny and Mary emerged from families of very different origins. Johnny’s family was a close, loving, open communicators. On the other hand, Mary’s mother divorced when she was three. She never saw her dad again. However, she was exposed to a steady stream of her mother’s male friends who ignored her and diverted her mother’s attention. Hence, her environment provided no framework to learn anything close to a Christian understanding of love or conducting a relationship.
Mary was blessed with a beautiful appearance and intelligence. She began reading at the age of three and escaped into books. Unlike some girls who grew up in such surroundings, Mary remembered deciding at age nine that she would live a different life than her mother. She began working at fourteen. She performed well, consistently achieving superior grades from grammar school onward. She won a full scholarship to the university of her choice, majoring in engineering, where she met Johnny in September of their senior year.
Between the decision not to live her mother’s life and her hunger for knowledge, she became an accomplished conversationalist. Johnny invited her to a weekend Campus Outreach conference during Thanksgiving break, during which she became a Christian. As he puts it, this became Johnny’s signal to “let himself fall in love” with Mary. They were married the day after graduation.
Early Rumbles of the Earthquake Craters
Very early in the marriage, trouble began brewing when Johnny decided to take a job in another state and announced it to Mary. When she tells the story, she complains that he never talked about it; he just decided. He retorted she talks everything to death. Between this incident and their family origin information, their counselor chose to explore their concepts of love and relationships. As he did, it became evident that Mary’s grid had been formed from two sources:reading romance novels and popular psychology relationship books. Conversely, Johnny’s grid developed from his family model and a generally correct biblical teaching. This combination,coupled with their opposite natural bents (Johnny, an internal processor, and Mary, an external processor), had consequences.
Formation of Grid Expectations
Mary sought Johnny to fill her “love tank” created by an absent dad and preoccupied mother. At the same time, Johnny expected a cooperating partner with whom he could make a loving homewith a companion who lovingly supported him to build a thriving business, a well-developed family, and a healthy sex life. He expected to be loved by being respected as the head of his home, and he expected to love his wife by providing for her and protecting her from the world.
When neither got what they expected from the other, the marriage became a competition. Each demanded to have their expectations fulfilled. This warfare (James 4:1-5) led to her increasing demandingness by her verbal skills and his series of affairs.
Though Johnny had the Christian grid, he allowed the works of the flesh rather than the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:19ff) to override the biblical grid he had modeled and had been taught. At the same time, Mary let the teachings of popular psychology blur the biblical teaching of her new faith and PCA church so that she engaged the works of the flesh at the expense of the fruit of the Spirit.
The Suffering of the Aftershock
In the case of Johnny and Mary, both had reached the proverbial bottom when they came for counseling. They were committed to learning where they had erred (sinned) and desirous of learning how to repent and build their relationship after God’s design. This was a “gut-wrenching” experience for both. It was especially difficult for Johnny since he was sure the Bible had been his source and had given his parents such a beautiful life together.
The added difficulty was learning how to manage their God-given natural tendencies of internal and external processing. Johnny had to learn to listen when Mary “talked things to death,” and Mary had to learn not to react when he announced the bottom line but instead respond by saying, “Johnny, my dear, please back up and help me understand how you arrived at that conclusion.”
Counseling the Rebuilding
Reconfiguring Their Grids and Ensuring Solid Reconstruction
Their counselor thanked them for the opportunity to assist them and rebuild their relationship. Then he told them, “I will not start where you would expect. I want to begin by helping you develop the tools we will use and that you will need to utilize throughout life to ensure an ongoing growing marriage by cultivating an ongoing, growing relationship with Jesus Christ. I believe you are committed to rebuilding, and you have come to ask me to assist you. Will you trust me and commit to doing the work it will entail? Now, don’t answer my question just yet. First, I want to provide you with hope and the manner of continually resourcing yourselves.
Hope, Establishing and Maintaining
The counselor then had them turn to Psalm 1, and he asked Johnny to read verse one. After Johnny read it, he asked, “Tell me, what do you think that verse says to you in your world?” Here is Johnny’s response. The writer is telling me not to live by what I hear from the world around me. Second, not to defend what I hear from the world around me, and third, not to search for direction from the world around me.”
“That is great, Johnny,” he responded. “Now, Mary, would you read verse two and tell us what you hear?” After reading, Mary looked up and said, “He is saying we need to be excited about getting into God’s Word.” The counselor responded, “Yes, great insight! Let’s explore just a bit, Mary; tell me what the word meditate says to you.” Mary paused a minute or more to think and said, “I think he meant what I was doing to answer that question. In my head, I was asking questions and coming up with answers, like you are leading us to do.” The counselor clapped his hands and said, “Yes, you got it!’ Just add one more thought: engage in conversation with the Lord.”
The counselor then pointed out the simile the writer introduces, comparing the man who meditates to a tree planted by the riverbank, which always has sufficient water to refresh it. It can be counted on to yield its fruit. So, it is with the believer who is regularly meditating in God’s Word and not in the desert land of the secular. He will prosper—his spiritual life will flourish even though he is surrounded by the heat, wind, and sand of life’s troubles.
How of the Rebuilding of Communication
The counselor taught them six basic biblical rules to help them (and other couples with communication and expectations issues) establish a communication framework from chapter four of Ephesians.
• Rule One: Speak the truth in love (4:15)
We must choose to proceed to discuss complex (sometimes emotionally difficult) issues, but we must do so framed in love, agape.
• Rule Two: We must stop lying and start truth-telling (4:25)
How do we lie? Let me count some ways:
–When I say, “Oh, nothing” to a spouse who asks, “What’s wrong?”
–When I evade your questions by changing the subject.
–When I pull a bill from the mail, so you don’t see what I spent or where I went
• Rule Three:
Finish the day by focusing on resolving the relationship, not necessarily concluding the issue.
• Rule Four: Don’t duck responsibility (4:28)
Go to work and become part of the solution
• Rule Five: Attack the problem, not your spouse (4:29-30)
–Dispense with cutting words
–Commit to speaking edifying words
–Commit to be grace-driven, not pride-driven
–Commit to being sensitive
• Rule Six: Pro-act, don’t react (4:31-32)
–Be kind/gentle
–Be tenderhearted (to feelings and desires)
–Be forgiving as God in Christ has FORGIVEN you
Conclusion and Implementation
Finally, the counselor taught them the importance of engaging in the community of believers to study the Word of God. To illustrate this, he cited the experience of another counselee, “I beganreading the book of Romans with her friend from work and church. We have been very encouraging to each other in our growth as Christians. My friend is married, and this has given me insight into the fact that a man in her life is not the answer to the loneliness she has struggled with. My friend has a loving husband, but she still needs to grow in her relationship with Jesus. I have learned that knowing Jesus better is what I need to learn to communicate and manage my desires for love.”