I had two major fears as a child: That I wouldn't be able to grow a full beard and that I would never be married. Well, by the time I was in 7th grade I grew a full beard, and by the time I was 22, I was married. So, I have definitely been blessed.
If you have ever been married, you know why the title of this blog is amusing. If I had a dime for every time I heard "How's Married Life?" Then I could buy Emily that Suburban she wants, you know, the black ones the F.B.I. drive. Anyways, everyone always asks, so this blog is my attempt to answer that question.
When I first got engaged, it seemed like every guy I talked to told me "Dude, your life is over!" or "Don't do it! You'll regret it!" I heard everything, that marriage was a prison, that I was giving up my freedom, that my life would be miserable. But I knew that was not what God had intended marriage to be. I also knew that I was not them, and my wife was not their wife, so it would be a completely different marriage.
I will say, from the moment we were married, it hurt to be apart. I never knew love like that was a possibility. I love my wife more than I could ever explain. In no way has she ever taken my freedom, ended my happiness, made my life miserable or gotten in my way. She is my help mate. She helps me live. She lives her role as a help mate cheerfully, and extraordinarily. She extravagantly lavishes me with her love and I could never imagine my life without her.
So, why did everyone give me all of that terrible "advice" before we got married? Here is the way I see it: When you get married, your single, independent life is over. There is nothing you can do about it, it is gone. You do not live only to satisfy and sustain yourself, you live to benefit another person. So, you can have one of two attitudes:
You can take the attitude that you still want to have fun. Just because you got married, doesn't mean that your life is over, you are still going to eat what you want, wear what you want, say what you want, and do what you want. No one can stop you, not even your spouse.
Or, you can take the attitude that God has given you this person to strengthen one another as a unit. He has paired you to make you more effective in serving Him. When she doesn't want you eating nasty, greasy, man food, it is not because she doesn't want you to enjoy yourself, it is that she loves you, and doesn't want you to hurt yourself. When she doesn't like you telling the story about how you saw someone getting hit by a van, it doesn't mean she is trying to steal your thunder, it is that she loves you, and she doesn't want you to sound like a babbling idiot. She wants people to respect you.
When we look at it in this lens, the first attitude is a terrible attitude to have towards your other half. I could never think those things about my sweetheart. I am here to love her, to protect her, and to present her as the amazing woman of God that she is.
God's word says:
"So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
When we look at it in this lens, the first attitude is a terrible attitude to have towards your other half. I could never think those things about my sweetheart. I am here to love her, to protect her, and to present her as the amazing woman of God that she is.
God's word says:
"So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
Ephesians 5:28-31
So, in closing, It is important that we take this stance on marriage. We are not separate individual beings, apart from our spouses. We are one with them. So, being one with them means that we treat them as if we were literally the same person. It means trying to understand them. It means admitting you are wrong. It means saying "I am sorry". It means truly doing what is best for them, getting rid of your selfish mentality.
You can never be happily married to another until you get a divorce from yourself. Successful marriage demands a certain death to self. ~Jerry McCant
