Opposite Sex Frienship Revisited: You Cannot Have It All

The question of opposite-sex friendship keeps rising.  Between e-mail questions and Internet searches, it's getting bigger, more people have questions about it, more people ask,

"Is it okay to have opposite-sex friends once you marry?"  

The number of queries on the topic utters a collective, "I'm unsure about this."

Is it right or wrong?  If you have a husband, do you keep the boy friend as a go-to?  If you have married, do you keep the male pals? Should your husband have girl friends call and touch base with them on his off time? Should he have a go-to girl aside from you?

Best answer:  no.

In considering the time and effort involved in developing the emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical aspects of marriage, how does an opposite-sex friend enhance the husband-wife bond?  Does it enhance it, or does it divide or cut small pieces from it?  The phrase we hear in marriage ceremonies addressing this is "put asunder."

The word "asunder" means to divide, break into pieces, break, apart from each other, into parts.

Mark 10:9 states, "What God has joined together, let no one put asunder."  That's no man, no woman, nobody.

Male-female, or opposite-sex friendship in a marriage relationship, defies biblical logic, and the verses that tell us how to act in our marriage relationship are not only simple and short, they get to the point.

Beginning in Genesis (the beginning), chapter 2, verses 23-24 read,

 "The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man. 

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

Paying close attention to the second verse (the point), some Bible translations state, "cleave to his wife," which makes the understanding clearer and stronger.  As husband and wife, we are to bond, cleave, connect, unite, become one.  How does a husband or wife connect fully with a spouse when another opposite-sex person has a spot on the perch, too?  When your heart reaches out to another of the opposite sex in a caring way, without including your mate completely, you have stopped bonding, cleaving, connecting, uniting and becoming one with only one man.  There just isn't any other way to see it, except that many people feel that this kind of "extracurricular" relationship sits on the list of their rights as human beings.

Most certainly, you have a right to choose. Choose to have a husband with whom you build a life, or stay single and enjoy friendship with other men.  You cannot have both happily. 

"HA!" you say.  


Intimate Relationships Change Friendship

Though unmarried, in college, I was the "gal pal" to a group of guys.  They picked me up at my dorm to walk to the dining hall for meals.  They walked to class with me and we purposely registered for elective courses together.  We danced at music events, saw movies and took walks around campus and around town.  We studied at the library, shared our thoughts about the future and our experiences in faith.  Usually two or more of them and me, but sometimes one-on-one, just hanging around for a while, joking, shooting the breeze, doing nothing in particular.  We visited at each other's homes during school breaks.  I had a great time.  I felt no pressure for anything more than good, solid friendship.  Then, after two years of chumminess, the guys started pairing off with other women.  I didn't fit and I knew it.  It felt lonely, even crushing at times.  The other women had top billing, and I represented a threat to their relationship-building because I could distract those gentlemen from what was really important at that time -- building a relationship that meant more intimacy on all levels than I would provide.  Inside, I just knew.  I felt ousted from a place I enjoyed and felt comfortable, and that meant hurt and confusion for a while for me.  I had fulfilled my purpose as a very close friend and had slid in the ranking to a mix of common acquaintance and schoolmate.  Friendly, but not close and constant.  

If I had tried to keep my status, continuing to join in usual activities, I would have driven a wedge or poked the relationships with a stick.  Any insistence on further inclusion would have infiltrated in a negative way.  My emotional bonds with the men didn't go further than laughter and some great discussions, but those same innocent doings represented danger to them in their dating relationships.

We send Christmas cards now. Have been for 22 years, and the only information we share involves what we're doing with our spouses and children.  These make the only worthy subjects between adults where any one of them holds the title of "married person".  When a man and woman enter into a courtship or dating relationship, other friends take a back seat.  Friendships may change in depth and distance, and some lose their appeal completely.  Why?  Because in a male-female relationship the heart and mind change to accommodate new thoughts and feelings and to engage in the relationship fully -- to the exclusion of others in many ways.  When sharing of emotions begins, hearts soften and include that person differently, as a most important person.  Perhaps an MIP, as opposed to a VIP.  Many people in life have "very important" status, but only one human in a married relationship holds that "most important" place.

Forsaking all others ... we vow it, and with good reason.  With a marriage involved, forsaking all others is the only way to ensure that you will grow intimacy and protect it from all sides.  


See and Be Seen

Opposite-sex friendship can easily -- very, very, startlingly easily -- turn to more than occasional sharing of interests, basic conversation and a cup of coffee.  When it turns to secret phone calls/video calls, password-protected environments and feelings of uneasiness/disgust/irritation/disdain with your actual, vow-covered spouse, you need to sincerely evaluate what you're doing.  Stop it, throw it in reverse and get outta there.  Ask forgiveness of God and use the grace and mercy He shows you to rejuvenate the relationship with your husband.  For better or for worse means everything.

Ephesians 5:21 makes another point for strong union that doesn't leave room for interlopers as it reads, 

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Submit?  Not enslavement here, but an incomparable, amazing, all-encompassing give-and-take, loving and respectful relationship with the one I pledge my life to ... until death.  I can't pledge my life to my husband and have another man on the side to share in activities that leave my husband out or that have me sharing secrets or feelings or inner thoughts and hopes ... which is intimacy, my friend.  If you're sharing intimate moments -- having nothing to do with physical love, but feelings, thoughts and hopes -- with another man, you have lost your target.  Set your sights correctly and don't take your eyes off the target.  Your husband is IT.  Look no further.  If you are, your aimlessness will have you ending up with nothing.  Self-control.  Use it. 


The Final Question

The question isn't, "Is it okay to have opposite-sex friends after marriage?"  The question is, 

"Do you want to be married, or not?"

There you have it.  You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.  You cannot have it all.  You cannot  have the relationship God ordained and have another man (or more) on the side, too.  

The only thing your husband and other men should share is a Y chromosome.  You, as a wife, are off the friendship market.  You, your husband and another man?  Go skiing, take a hike, play golf, have conversation, go to dinner.  No problem.  You and the other man?  Nope.  Go find some diversions with your husband.  He isn't your last resort or your only option, but he is the only safe haven in the world of men for you, his wife.


What concerns do you have with opposite-sex friendship?  Do you agree or disagree with the need to cleave, leaving others behind?  Share your feelings and experiences ... a large number of people want to know!

Replacements Unlimited

You were married for keeps, weren't you?  I'm quite sure I didn't see a clause anywhere reading,
"... unless he fails to perform up to my standards and vice versa." There's also that saying, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."  I beg to differ on that one.  Every dog enjoys a reward!

Think about it in terms of how we live our married lives.  Why did we marry in the first place?  Because marriage is a reward in itself, isn't it?  It feels like the culmination of waiting, hoping and praying for "Mr. Right" in our lives.  It feels like the fulfillment of dreams.  It feels perfect.

That's where our first warning should come.  Dreams and perfection?  What a way to build a lifelong commitment.  We can err by praying to a god of our own manufacture, without realizing we have done it.  We don't set out to create an idol, but when we come into marriageable age and start thinking "until death us do part," some of us girls start conjuring images of "husband" in our heads and trying to meet that perfection in the form of an unsuspecting male example, hoping he'll feel we fit his image of "Miss Right."

It's the humanness of our marriages that cause the trouble.  Mr. Right has no more hope of living up to our expectations than we have of meeting his.  We construct a god in lieu of God, Himself.  We forget to pray, listen and act in God's will because we edit and revise that to fit our "right now" wants.  Not only do we want the reward of marriage, we want immediate gratification in it.  That may cause us a kind of buyer's remorse.  Why did I do this?  Did I make a mistake?

Even with our human sense of time leading the way, God uses it, and He doesn't make mistakes.  We make plenty of them, and once we leave the church with a Certificate of Marriage in our clutches, we just live happily ever after, and merrily go along ... our silly, mistake-making idol-worshippers.

Ahhhhh ... reality!

As our hope of perfection begins to crack and crumble, it helps to know that replacements are available.  Everything in marriage, except for the man and woman at the core of it, have replacement parts.  God has a plan, remember?  He knows what we need, and he provided it within the pages of the Bible ... we just have to look, read, study and implement.  We have a choice, we have free will.  We are not His puppets, though we are his creation.  He knows us, and he came prepared.

First, we need to understand that marriage has two forms: God's Model and the Human Model.

We can begin from the start with God's Model (perfect in theory and in practice ... when we remember to practice), or we can eke out an "in name only" married life full of chaos and strife that will never, no matter how many self-help books or counseling sessions we try, achieve anything close to perfection.  The latter is the Human Model (imperfect in theory and in practice ... two for two!).

Thank God for replacements.  In marriage, we have a lifetime guarantee, and in this case, lifetime means for the long haul ... really and for truly until death do you part.  Nothing else in this life can match it.

To make good on that guarantee, it means doing things God's way.

God's Model for marriage will:

- replace selfishness  with  selflessness, generosity and a servant's heart
- replace lies and deception  with   truth
- replace worry for the future  with  enduring hope through Christ
- replace disrespect and bad attitudes   with  respectfulness and a positive outlook
- replace assumption and regret   with  communication and positive action
- replace controlling behavior  with  submissiveness that honors and edifies (builds up)
- replace doubt and longing  with  trust and peace
- replace opinion  with  fact
- replace demands and expectations  with  a giving spirit grounded in outreach
- replaces domination  with  cooperation
- replaces fear  with  hope, God's promises, and the peace that transcends all understanding (faith)
- replaces jealousy  with  honor and reverence
- replaces anger  with  understanding and joy
- replaces quitting  with  persevering
- replaces negative  with  positive

The following verses give reference to just a few of the items available in the Bible for marriage replacement parts.  Ephesians and Corinthians have many notes to read on marriage.  Genesis provides the first example of marriage.  Try Proverbs, and of course, Song of Solomon (Songs).  When you seek God's Word for help, you will find it -- commit your work to the Lord and he will establish your plans (Proverbs 16:3).

If it is selfish, self-seeking or self-righteous, you won't find help with it in the Word.

  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:2-3

  Houses and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent (acting with or showing care and thought for the future) wife is from the LORD.  (emphasis and definition added)

Proverbs 19:14

  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Pray and plan, plan and pray, and choose God's Model for your marriage, no matter how "old dog" you think you are.  You can't beat the replacement part guarantee.

Forsaking All Others: Opposite-Sex Friendship

An Internet search conducted today using the words "opposite-sex friendship" will deluge a searcher in a waterfall of choices; findings flood the search landscape in everything from scholarly articles based on university and think-tank studies and surveys to blog articles and message boards based on personal experience in which you can almost feel the opinions and experience pulsing in the comment sections.

Generationally, male-female friendships have expanded in number and in scope, and their very existence seems to indicate something unusual on the social curve.  Prior to 1974, no one had even conducted a study of these friendships.

One supposition I make on this lack of "data" is that in older generations, male-female friendships sat at a surface level, more formal, more business-like or acquaintance style.  My parents' friendships were forged with other couples, and they included widows and widowers, single people who needed companionship, but they did not include separate friendships with the opposite-sex.  I can see the shock on my mother's face at the mere suggestion.  That would be wrong, it would look improper, it would be improper for her to associate with another man in a close and personal way.  My grandmother's generation held a narrower view, and I can still hear my grandmother refer to church and neighborhood men as, "Mr. Young," or "Mr. Olson."  Lines existed.

Today, we hold a loose leash on "How to Relate to Others," and even fewer lines of certainty drawn anywhere.  Divulging of personal information to any listening ear prevails in an atmosphere of café and coffee shop meet-ups, texting, instant messaging, e-mail, social network platforms and comment section banter.  Reins on conversation topics grow looser, responsibility and self-control have relaxed their grip through the dumbing down of conversation that contains an overabundance of information.  What our conversations lack in importance we make up for by the number of texts we send.  We communicate more and say less, but in the case of friendship, we often say too much.  Our world tuned into friendship and "feel good" in lieu of imposing safeguards and setting limits.  We have ditched respectability and grabbed for familiarity on all levels.  We want to know and be known.

I'll just get it out there now:  most people are missing God.  Those holes in life they're filling?  God-sized.  Many people agree with this and know where the snakes lie in the grass ... people who don't know this seem to keep adding more activity and more people to life in order to fill those spaces.  Without God in there, they're feeding a vacuum.  A black hole of need.

What does this do to marriage?  What about male-female relationships outside the bonds of marriage?  Should a married man have female friends or a wife have male friends, each enjoying social time separately?  Sharing activities, deep conversations, and meeting together when each finds free time?  Texting and e-mailing any time of day or night?  Are there implications to consider?

Is it okay for a wife to want to hang out with male friends while her husband wrangles the kiddies and manages without her? 
Is it okay for him to want to go for coffee or see a concert with female friends while she takes on the roles at home on her own? 
Is it right for her husband to feel uncomfortable that she has male friends whom she makes time to see relatively regularly on her own?
Is it right for her to feel uneasy about his female pals with whom he texts or spends time in person? 
I have my own answers:  Two yes and two no.  Not in that order.

Whatever happened to that vow you made?  The one stating that you will "cling only unto each other, forsaking all others"?  "Cling" doesn't mean hang around each other's necks like baby chimpanzees, but it does mean "hang on tight to what you have right here.  And what does forsaking mean, anyway?

forsaking  present participle of for·sake (Verb)

Verb Abandon (someone or something): Forsake the idea for a better one. Renounce or give up (something valued or pleasant): "I won't forsake my marriage principles".

I believe the initiating of opposite-sex friendship happens when we stop being close friends with our spouses and the drift to opposite shores begins.  Most definitely, a spouse should not serve as our only human connection, but marriage is our most important connection, the one we should cultivate first, above all others.  Forsaking all others.   Giving up friends does not mean giving in to control -- if a husband demands an end to all friendship, by all means, think harder than that.  But, if a husband wants that male friend to hit the bricks, please lay those bricks now.  Your marriage matters more than does your social life.  If you feel a stronger pull to socialize, and if the pull feels any greater than social interaction, you are on the wrong road.  That yellow sign up there at the top of the page is the one to obey:  DANGER, WRONG WAY, TURN BACK.  Proceeding with caution still leads in the wrong direction.  You must turn around and do it completely.

We can't know another person's heart, but we can guard ours with everything we have.

Marriage requires giving your best to your spouse, not dangling leftovers in front of him.  If you're hanging with others often, same or opposite sex, you aren't ... simply ARE NOT giving your best to your husband. If you share thoughts and feelings with that opposite-sex person for the purpose of evaluating your marriage, you are not giving your best to your husband.  If you associate with that friend for the feeling of closeness he or she provides, you are not giving what you should to your marriage; you are cultivating a relationship with the friend.

A friend (female!) and I share a smile over this upended quote,

The grass is always greener where you water it.

If you put the energy into marriage that you would allot to an opposite-sex friend, you would see results.  If you take your marriage seriously, you will want to make it greener.  People don't marry to fail, but they fail to keep watering, weeding, fertilizing and taking utmost care of the marriage they planted in the first place.  When you begin to keep watch over another relationship, you divide your time and you cannot focus the way you should.

Friendship entails sharing.  Life troubles arise.  Trouble garners sympathy.  Sympathy asks for comfort.  Comfort shares emotions.  Emotions connect.  Connections link hearts, and even the happiest marriage can find itself sabotaged by an external friendship that grew too far without pruning of twining branches.

Opposite-sex friendships might remain completely platonic.  They certainly can.  However, there is always, always, always, ALWAYS potential for temptation.  Illegal U-Turns happen.  People run red lights and exceed speed limits.  People make wrong turns and figure they'll explore a new avenue and see the sights as time allows.

Opposite-sex friendship has to have brakes.  Emergency brakes, too.  In such friendships, a guard has to always exist.  God provides that guard in the form of his Spirit within us ... but we have the free will to make choices, and that makes the difference.

The truth is, good things -- positive relationships -- can start out innocuously.  They can begin during a phone call, at lunch, in a bowling alley, during work, at the grocery store, at the kids' school, and in church!   An invisible ball, usually static and centered in platonic relationships, begins to roll.  It might go unnoticed for a while, but soon, that ball has inched past the center ... the safe zone.  Feelings -- distinctly male and female -- can rise.  When the Spirit alerts you, how do you respond?  If you don't have lines drawn, if you don't listen to the small voice of the Spirit, you don't.  You simply follow the ball.

Marriage is more important than any friendship.
Marriage means sacrificing for husband/wife, for the sake of the other, which offers benefits for both.
Married people must live transparently, having no secrets, holding no cards under the table.
Marriage focuses on the other person, not oneself; service and giving trumps asking and receiving.
Marriage joins a couple in every possible way, and the rest of their lives need to fall in line of importance around it, not the other way around.
Marriage is a lifelong commitment, not a chance and not a maybe.

Marriage is more important than meeting for coffee, than playing a sport of joining a club and connecting with other people of similar interests.  Marriage is more important than any other commitment in life.

Pray about your friendships, to sincerely ask for God's direction, not rely on our own feelings and needs (which fail us all the time).  Bringing it up to God and listening intently for the answer, which may come as a feeling of aversion to those opposite-sex friendships, or a need to back away and set limits, will happen.  If you're on the fence in a friendship, looking at the greenery, hop off into your own weedy, brown grass and get watering!

We can't know for certain where friendship will lead, but we do know where marriage will take us.  With the focus on what's right and proper, with what we vowed to do on our wedding day, we make the right choice.

A true friend will understand.

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It IS More Blessed to Give than to Receive

How many days until Christmas?  By our children's count, we have 14 sleeps left until Old Saint Nick slips down the chimney and deposits presents beneath our Christmas tree. By my calculations, there will never be enough time.  Time to plan thoroughly (I revel in the planning, which I think produces the magic and excitement), time to sit back and enjoy once we wrap all the gifts and bake all the goodies, and time to enjoy the opening and eating of the same. 

I anticipate the anticipation.  Christmas Day, in itself, lets me down kind of hard. The planning has peaked and played out into piles of discarded boxes and corralled balls of crumpled gift wrap. 

From the first toss of coins into a Salvation Army kettle to the last gift given, the Christmas Season fills with moments to reach out to others.  The pinnacle of giving spreads throughout a 3-week period, and gives me a satisfaction that doesn't compare to any other time of year.  I can't imagine what it would feel like to reverse the process -- to receive at every opportunity, instead. 

Paul wrote in Acts 20:35:

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive."

It is.  No contest.

I'm sure that the meaning of the verse has to do with personal satisfaction in doing something for others, yet I believe, too, that it reflects on what God would have us do and that in the doing of those good things He blesses us with a satisfaction in our spirit and mind -- and that feeling, alone, can encourage us to continue giving.

Our children have hit the spot on which they feel more divided about the giving/receiving issue.  They have wishes firmly planted, the visions of sugarplums dance in their heads, and they will squeal, giggle and jump for joy at the sight of gifts on Christmas morning.  Yet, they have entered a phase of independence -- choosing and paying for gifts with their own money -- that gives them that sense of satisfaction from thinking of others wants and needs, and their focus has begun to shift
.
Marriage is no different in regard to the shifting of focus from my wants and needs to those of my husband.  My mission, according to my wedding vows, is to focus on him.  It's easy the first time out, and for quite some time after the wedding ring encircles the third finger, left hand.  For most of us, though, it takes a bit more effort to maintain that stance.  Many of us get to the place of feeling completed by the selfish desire to receive after years of real life hitting us and wanting contentment in our circumstances again without having to work at it.  What better way than to feel endless acceptance and loving action from our husband?

Without some rain, the well runs dry.

So, the best lesson to learn is TO GIVE.  When we give of ourselves from the depths of our hearts we don't stop to think of the pay-off.  When we focus on our husband's needs and learn his wants, we have something to work for in meeting them to the best of our ability.

Every day of our lives we find opportunities to give.  We cannot, however, give in -- to the demands of life that distract us from our marriage, to the whims of fancy that make us want more of what the world offers (comparing ourselves by way of social activities and social media) and thereby deflecting focus from our husbands in a way that substitutes those activities for concentrated time with him, and to the possibility that, hey ... maybe I deserve more in this relationship ... selfishness instead of selflessness.

What we deserve is to give to the one we have right beside us, the one to whom we vowed, promised and took to be our lawfully wedded husband -- forsaking all others, until death.

Those (vows) are fighting words.  Use them wisely. Fight for your marriage whether it's wonderful or on the skids.  Every ounce of energy you put toward it will come back to you in a variety of ways.  You'll know it when you feel it.  Give.  And when you're done giving, give some more!

Hindsight - Part 2

Let's go back to, "And then he didn't."

My husband didn't have an "Endless Patience" button for me.  I didn't realize how difficult I made it for him to share feelings or ideas.  When he offered a view I closed the blinds.  Hindsight lets me see that I wanted status quo ... no changes unless they felt good immediately and didn't require me to concede anything.  I had no idea.  I was completely blind to the faults I had that caused him to fall into a way of life that merely included me as an annoying roommate.  I had no idea my lease was up until he began acting out in ways I could not understand, withdrawing from activities that involved me or the kids or faith, and working more and more, filling time at home with his eyes fixed on a computer monitor.

"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion."  Proverbs 18:2

Now, in hindsight, I see it, how foolish I was.  I brandished my opinion like my own Sword of Truth.  My husband scoffed at my encouragement because it focused on what he could do for me in action, thought and word.  God has given me the ability to see the things I did or said that knocked my husband to his knees or took the wind out of him.  Today, I know that it can take as little as a slight facial expression or a poorly-placed "no" to turn the man I love into a forlorn, put-down version of himself.  The scales have fallen from my eyes; God gave me vision I have never had, and I take advantage of it for building this man up rather than in blindly tearing him down.

At the time of my blindness, I could not see that my husband's frustration came from miscommunication and neglect.  He could not see that my argumentativeness came from feeling unimportant and invisible in his eyes.  Neither of us knew how to listen to the other effectively, though we could repeat word-for-word what the other said.  We argued without resolution when each of us desperately wanted the other to understand and affirm our deepest needs and desires and repeated them fervently to what we believed were deaf ears.

"A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back."  Proverbs 29:11

We vented.  We vented selfishly when we should have done so selflessly.  We argued for ourselves when we should have made amends for each other.  We focused on ourselves when we should have focused on each other.  Hindsight allows us to go the right direction now, seeing past patterns and stopping ourselves before we start down the road to habit.  Bad, bad habit.  If we don't stop ourselves immediately, hindsight steps in again -- with a horrible deja vu-like feeling -- and makes us realize we have taken the wrong turn.  One of us puts up a white flag and says, "Wait a minute.  We aren't going to do this.  Here's where we're going, now let's go this way, instead."  Interestingly, with healing and learning through God and those he has placed in our path, neither of us feels offended by a sudden call to halt, and neither of us gets his nose out of joint when the other has a better idea.  Thank you, God!

We did not know our communication styles were hurdles.  We left morsels of goodness and decency for the other to find, and when they went unnoticed we put another brick in the wall of bitterness.  We hurt independently of one another.  When one of us tried to share the hurt, the other tried to "one-up" the other, never acknowledging his/her part in the hurt, or trying to make it better.  Instead, each of us waved flags of our own, trying to receive the notice and attention we craved but couldn't seem to get.

In hindsight, we had stomped all over our wedding vows in lieu of selfish attitudes and 50-50 living.  Vindicating ourselves entered the atmosphere, and that means pride.  Pride never helps anyone in a relationship, especially a marriage relationship, unless the pride focuses on the qualities and abilities one spouse finds beautiful and wondrous in the other.

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. ~~Proverbs 11:2

Had either of employed foresight, we would have avoided most of the turmoil.  We attended a marriage seminar, which had us laughing and sharing, and focusing on what the other person needed to do.  The humor further vindicated our own efforts at plugging for SELF.  Go, team, eh?  We each were an embarrassment of faults and finger-pointing.  I more than him.  From the start of our relationship, my husband admitted shortcomings and wanted to work on them.  I took the invitation and rolled with it.  Steamrolled, more accurately.  As a person with a teacher's temperament, I wanted nothing more than to help this man, to love him and to guide him to higher self-esteem, and to confidence in his God-given talents, and to assist him in whatever areas of difficulty he had.  Little did I know, every time I reached out, he drew back.  I reached farther and he retreated.  Evidently, I saw this as a challenge, but by 12 years and 2 children into the marriage, he had moved to another room to avoid my reaches.  I tried to talk him into joining the family, and he felt -- and stated out loud -- that all I was doing was pushing him away.

"Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered." Proverbs 28:26

I had great faith in my own abilities.  I don't think I prayed at all on my own for at least 3 years of this confusing and disjointed war.  I helped children with bedtime prayers, said a blessing at mealtimes, and prayed in church.  How holy of me.  Because I left God out, my husband found anything faith-related I did nothing but hypocrisy.  I went through the motions like a champ.  As such, Christian music burned my husband like a brand and prayer cut him like a knife.  He found excuses to skip church.  He had too much to do to attend our children's events.  More confused than ever, I asked our small children to invite him in.  He pushed them away, too.  All  because I did not understand that men don't respond the way women do.  In hindsight, I still would not have succeeded because I assumed I knew what he needed and I barreled along, jousting with my own pole of selfishness and self-righteousness.  His shield of protection consisted of wounded emotions, ignored needs and a crushed spirit bound in utter confusion and loneliness ... all because the one person who took his side and cheered for him early on seemed -- to him -- to have switched teams.  How abandoned he must have felt.  How appallingly lonely.

"Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, ..."  Titus 3:1-11

That said, what about hindsight?  Well, for one thing, it can protect us from redoing something we shouldn't have done the last time, either.  Not eating that extra cookie, not saying that thoughtless remark that started the argument, not buying that new sweater that put the budget over the top, not talking to that opposite-sex person and putting our faithfulness at risk.  Sin starts as a small thing: do it once and it causes a stir of some kind (good or bad), and we revisit it.  Our free will from God allows us to avoid the next visit to Wrongville or it gives us the nod for just a little more, and a little more, until we're held fast by our own pride and unwilling to admit the sin.

"But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can't stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it."  I Corinthians 10:13

God knows.  And He does have mysterious ways, making everything work for good.  He will give us an exit plan if we look for it, but when we feel mired by sadness, lack of intimacy in a marriage, lack of connection in a family, the sin looks much better than the lonely road.  Take the road less traveled, though, as anyone who has taken the wide way to Wrongville will tell you -- the end result may give you that glorious hindsight, but foresight trumps it, hands down.  The road we travel before we find hindsight may fill us with pain, or it may poke at us a little bit and make us uncomfortable.  No matter what road we know we shouldn't travel, God will find a way to direct us back to Him and to the right path.

Hindsight makes a great travel companion, but foresight, brought to us by God to assess what comes and to make the right choices, will bring a better outcome.  We need to use our resources:  our Bibles, our prayer time, our Christian friends and family, our pastors, our church families and those God puts in our path to assist us sometimes with the foresight necessary to make right choices.  Use your resources, and if hindsight is one of them, take the opportunity to pass it on to someone else who you find leaning toward the path you now know better than to take.


What are your experiences with hindsight?  I'd love to know!

For Part 1 of this article, click here. 

Real Love in Real Life: the Naive Newlywed

For better or for worse.  So far, so good.  I don't see any "worse", we'll keep riding this wave forever.  That's all I see on the horizon.  

In sickness and in health.  Of course!  We'll have our bouts of cold and flu.  Maybe a surgery or two along the way, but we can handle it.

For richer or for poorer.  Since we're both working ... since he/she has such a good job ... since we don't have any big needs we'll be fine on that one.  Most people just don't know how to spend wisely.

'Til death do us part. That's such a long time from now, and we're in it for the long haul.  This one's just a given, right?

"So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."  ~~Matthew 19:6

These, in part, are the vows you take when you marry.  If you're young, you tend toward naiveté in what they really mean, yet their overtones give an eternal, "how can we miss" feeling. At this point, you have it all:  love, tenderness, focus, plans, dreams, hopes, happy thoughts and little actual reality.  Most definitely, many people do have a strong sense of reality as they approach the altar, offering their lives to their beloved with all these attributes -- and they already know the score because they have lived a lot more of life (by longevity or by hard hits of reality) than most others have.  I understand that, and I think those people just may have a leg up on the rest of us.  

And then you have the rest of us.  You get the "Naive Newlywed" thing going, just as you have the "Perfect Parenting Plan" that you can so boldly assert (when you don't have kids of our own) at the first sign of a crying child or a red-faced, screaming parent. You, the inexperienced, have it in the bag.

You repeat the vows, knowing in your heart how much you mean them, maybe even writing them yourself to make sure you get the point across.  You get it, already.  You have God on your side, even.  You are good to go.  And so you go on, just like this, for weeks, months, even a few years.  More or less.

And reality hits.  Idiosyncrasies that first appeared interesting but annoy the living daylights out of you.  She squeezes the toothpaste tube in the wrong place.  He slumps in front of the TV all night and doesn't help in the kitchen the way he did when you were engaged.  Both of you pitch tents on opposites sides of the "This Is the Way It Should Be" line in most every aspect of life.  And you differ.  You differ a lot.  You never thought this would happen, and you can see your side so clearly and you try to explain it.  You try to outline your needs, your desires, your wants.  The funny thing about it is that you don't even understand what you're doing: making it all about you.  It feels as if it's about "us", and you can even justify or rationalize it.  The sentence, "If you would only _______  we would be so much happier," always sounds good from the speaker's perspective, but take one turn on the receiving end of that sentence and it's blame, hard and fast.  You aren't making me happy.  I'm standing over here hurting because of you.  If you're not happy, look at yourself and what you're doing to me. We would be happy if you would change.

Now you have moved from Naive Newlywed to Selfish/Self-Righteous Saint without knowing when, how or why.  When you share your troubles with others (not your spouse), you feel vindicated.  Others agree with you, they often share the same list of complaints, and can see your spouse in the light in which you have painted him with vivid detail.  You have started rolling a snowball, and beware. It will gain the size and strength to crush everything.

"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." ~~Genesis 2:24

If you read books on marriage and some of the ensuing disappointment after the vows, you come to discover that every couple's story has many similarities.  Your story is really not much different from the couple next to you.  Aside from extreme circumstances (abuse, infidelity/adultery, etc.), couples can almost fill their names into the blanks and sheepishly raise their hands, admitting, "Yes.  This is me/us."  Likewise, even the extreme circumstances fit a textbook outline of marital and personal strife.  Does it help to know we're all in the same boat?  A little.  What we need is someone brave enough, courageous enough, strong enough, selfless enough to get out of that boat and swim for the shore. 

God designed marriage and designed each of us, male and female, to have different physical, mental, and emotional make-up so that we attract each other and support each other in that marriage.  Each of us has strengths and weaknesses augmented by the other, which make a marriage strong.  

"It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him" ~~Genesis 2:8

A helpmeet.  Someone to help meet the needs you have, to fill in the blanks in the abilities and talents you don't possess.  Someone to help you grow and learn as a person and as a couple.  Instead, in these modern times you fight for independence, for equal rights and for the easy way. You put down the other person in your mind, actions, or words based on him being different from you.  Her abilities make you feel inferior, and so you feel riled and self-righteous, and rail against her ways.  Tip the iceberg with "feel good" social media postings, forwarded messages, and artwork noting in sum, "Get rid of everything and everyone who doesn't make you happy," and "Follow your heart, it will never lead you astray"," and we see just how selfish the world teaches you to be.  

And you learn.  Fast.  You spiral downward, cutting ties with your mate because you don't want to have to live another day with this or that habit.  It will drive you crazy, and it will not make you happy. You have lost fighting for "us" and have started fighting for "me."  You think love is missing because it is, and you don't know why, but blaming him for not meeting your needs makes the most sense in the selfish/self-righteous world you have built.  That's because you don't even know what love really is.  Here's what it is not:  a feeling.

“Love is not a feeling. Love is an action, an activity. . .Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. . . . love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.....true love is an act of will that often transcends ephemeral feelings of love or cathexis, it is correct to say, 'Love is as love does'.” 

 ~~M.Scott Peck

This is the pitfall of most marriages in trouble.  Couples search for that loving feeling (now I have the Righteous Brothers singing in my head.  Sorry.) and can't locate it.  People start believing they have fallen out of love.  What they have done, in reality, is fallen out of the practice of loving.  They quit doing all the little things that they did when they first met, and in the first years of marriage when they doted on each other and celebrated everything.  Love is not a feeling.  It is a big bunch of actions and thoughts that don't lie there waiting for an invitation to happen.  You either do or you don't -- the choice is yours.
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Make the choice to love.  Pray. Make the choice to love your spouse. Pray some more.  If you haven't loved in a long time it will lack feeling, but the feeling will grow as you go.  The more you invest of your thought, time and energy, the more you will feel it.  You may have built walls of resentment, as has your spouse, but you will slowly erode them with new energy for "us".  Your spouse may not jump out of the boat with you, but that means you swim all the harder and focus on the shore.  Don't quit, just as you didn't quit when it was all new and fresh. Find energy, use it, renew it.  Love is the kind of energy that grows when you use it, it will not deplete or become old from overuse.  Spare no emotional expense.  Waste that energy!  Don't adopt the mantra, "Go green!" on this one.  Spend, spend, spend ... time, thought, action and HOPE.

Those newlywed vows pale in comparison to the battlefields we have set up in real life.  We don't revisit vows often (and we should).  We don't even know what they really mean (and we should).  We hear them in a wedding ceremony and grow misty-eyed, and sometimes feel pain from falling short ourselves in the purity and focus of those lines.

The key to really loving someone is doing real life with him. People ditch marriages for the "feel good" of infatuation.  Some remain in the shallow end where they can touch the bottom and paddle around easily without risk. They expect instant success after the "I do." The infatuation feelings we have when we first meet omit all the negatives. When the negatives arrive, and they will, you have to hone in on the person you married.  Look for the good things, practice them in your mind, make them grow.  Realize that the little things that irritate you are little, and you would put up with them from most other people.  You would give that much time and patience to others.  Give the same and more to your spouse!

Marriage is for life.  Drop the naiveté which is starry-eyed and short-lived.  Perfection isn't possible, and no marriage fits a movie script.  Omit the selfish and the self-righteous from your day.  Stop sharing with the multitudes (work, friends, extended family) and share with your spouse.  Make real love fit in your real life.  

It can happen for you.