KINDS OF MARRIAGE

Looking back on our twenty-five years of marriage, we can see how our relationship moved from being fun to being functional. Work largely consumed me. Grace was working full-time, and then after having our first child, staying at home to take care of the home and our family which grew to include five children.

We worked most of everything, and tried to work on our marriage in the cracks of life. Late at night, catching a few minutes to talk here and there. The lines between home and work, family and church got blurred.

We really did love each other and wanted to connect, but often did not. We kept date night every week and checked the dutiful boxes of a decent respectable Christian marriage. We were together, but somehow still felt lonely.

For us, a big revelation was that.Though we were once great friends, we were no longer as romantic. Instead, we bacame roommates working together to fulfill the numerous duties of marriage, without experiencing the notable joys of marriage. Does this sound familiar to you? 

Thankfully, we were able to rediscover our friendship, and moved our marriage from being just functional to also being fun. For us, a helpful matrix to accomplish this was to think of marriage in one of three ways;

Back-to-back.

Shoulder-to-shoulder.

Face-to-face.

1. Back-to-back marriage: This is when the couple has turned their backs on each other. They live separately and don’t work together or draw each other out in friendship. In such marriages, the partners range from strangers to enemies, but aren’t friends.

2. Shoulder-to-shoulder marriage: One in which the couple works together on tasks and projects, such as keeping the home, raising the kids, growing the business, and serving the church. Everything looks fine on the outside, but once the projects they work on go away, the marriage will decline as there isn’t sufficient depth to their intimacy. Sadly, this is what happens to a couple when they become empty nesters. Like a balloon with a slow leak, the descent begins once there is not an urgent project, like parenting, to work on together.

3. Face-to-face marriage: This is one which adds to the shoulder-to-shoulder work, the couple gets a lot of face-to-face time for conversation, friendship, and intimacy. You must focus on your friendship with your spouse and go from being glorified roommates. You begin to work hard on your marriage and your friendship, with getting your priorities straight. 

In order to move from being just functional to also fun, a husband and wife must work hard to relate to one another. In a way that is both shoulder-to-shoulder and face-to-face. That way, you’ll change your marriage and save your friendship. 

MARK DRISCOLL.