Is marriage primarily about teaching you to be selfless and to grow like Jesus through suffering?
I hope you would all say a resounding, “no!”
We know that God thinks of marriage for our benefit–our emotional benefit, not just our character-transforming benefit. He said that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone. He said it was very good once we were together. God created woman as a “helper”–which doesn’t mean subordinate it all, but rather a connotation of strength that was perfectly suitable for him.
Marriage is about not being alone, about having someone that you are suited for to walk through life with, to support you and be your shield (the word “helper” had a military meaning, as well, where God was often called our help and shield).
Marriage is something good!
That’s the message we want to give in The Marriage You Want
Our new book, based on our all-new matched pair survey, launches on March 11. It’s a safe, upbeat, optimistic marriage book, showing you the common characteristics of a healthy marriage, and how you can get there.
One of the things we wanted to stress in this new book is that we need to stop seeing marriage as primarily about suffering, or assuming that suffering in marriage is an overall good.
That’s the message that the evangelical church has been given for years, especially from things like Gary Thomas’ Sacred Marriage, which, while having a lot of truth in it, distorts the central happy message about the purpose of marriage. So let’s just clear this up a bit today.
Yes, God desires us to be transformed into His likeness, which involves growing our character.
But it isn’t that God deliberately wants us to suffer in order to grow–as if all God cares about is whether we are holy.
It is that God wants wholeness for us–He wants all of Jesus for us. And Jesus is not only about holiness. He is also about emotional and spiritual and relational health. He is about growing into all fullness and wholeness. And that means that we should not elevate suffering above everything else.
God uses suffering to draw us to Him, yes. But God also uses everything else, too. We are not holier if we suffer, and God does not want us to have terrible marriages in order to give us opportunities to be more and more selfless.
And yet that is often how traditional evangelical marriage advice sounds.
Suffering actually is much harder on me spiritually
A while back I asked on my Facebook page about the whole “marriage is to make you holy not happy”, and we had a great discussion! I want to share some of your thoughts here.
Many women wrote that they think they were learning the wrong lessons from suffering, and that suffering does not automatically make you closer to God.
Now I wonder constantly what is the best way forward.
Perhaps it is in overcoming such challenges the growth comes, but I no longer have faith that I can just keep throwing positivity and support at my partner to encourage him to be the person he’s capable of, or that we just need to keep trying to understand each other. It’s been 17 years and I’m tired. I’m anxious, increasingly cynical, defensive, and most horrifying of all, bitter. I still don’t understand the choices I made to accept relentless bullying, and that terrifies me in a way I can only imagine self-harmers feel when they look at their past destructive behavior and can’t explain it.
Why the focus on suffering in the first place? How do we keep it in perspective?
What if by simply enduring suffering we’re not learning the right lessons, because what God wants from our suffering is to learn problem-solving! He wants us to do something about what is wrong!
And that’s a whole focus of The Marriage You Want. When there’s suffering in marriage, that’s a signal that it’s time to get curious about what’s going on so that you can fix it–not just sit there and endure it because it’s supposed to make you a better person.
Some people had some interesting thoughts in that vein too!
The Marriage You Want is HERE March 11!
(And the Launch Team is OPEN!)
Our new marriage book is almost here!
Pre-order it now--and get pre-order bonuses and an invite to the launch team--so you can start reading right away!
What happens when we see suffering as good, as the aim?
To me, the big problem comes down to expectations, as Shari sums up perfectly:
How many people stay in abusive marriages because they have been taught that marriage is supposed to be hard? If you go in with the expectation of having to experience hardship, how are you supposed to know what isn’t okay?
Then, his allies find and capture the prison and discover him in his cell. They open the door and welcome him to freedom, but he insists on staying because he’s a more sanctified Christian as a tortured POW than as a free man.
It sounds absurd because it is. So, why do Christians think abused women have to stay in abusive marriages? They are no longer in “The Lord’s Army” when with an abusive man. Instead, they are prisoners of the enemy. It isn’t a marriage, anymore, when one spouse abuses the other.
You don’t have to be miserable to have marriage grow you.
You can learn to be selfless on a day to day basis. You can choose to think of your spouse first. You can train yourself to be loving. You can immerse yourself in Scripture and in jesus and get to know Him better, so that He flows out of every pore of you.
And you can do this even when your life is not characterized by suffering.
I have felt the closest to God and the most sure of my faith in times of great suffering. But I have grown the most when life is relatively calm and I have time and breathing room to think and focus on healthy change.
Marriage should not be a great time of trial for you. On the contrary, God made marriage to be something that is joyful, that helps you face life together with someone you love. And that’s how The Marriage You Want is different. We’re not focusing on how to endure during suffering. We’re focusing on what actually helps couples flourish? And how can you get there?
Maybe if that were the expectation–that marriage would grow you in a good way because you could go from strength to strength–we’d have more joy in marriage, and less suffering.
What do you think? Do we over-emphasize suffering? Let’s talk in the comments!
The word “selfless” gives me some serious heebie jeebies. Is that because it sounds borderline forced by those around me, something expected (or guilted) out of me, rather than something I willingly, and, uh, choosingly, do?
Or have I simply read “The Screwtape Letters” too often and am remembering this one?
https://archive.org/details/lewis-c.-s.-the-screwtape-letters-1942/page/131/mode/1up?q=Unselfishness
(If the link doesn’t work, it’s letter 26.)
If someone tells me I ought to be “selfless” or “unselfish,” who gets to decide where the line is that I can finally say, “OK, I’ve been selfless enough for today (or this week, this year, or this life)”? Whereas if I live a life of “charity,” I am clearly in control of how much I extend, to whom, for how long, under what conditions, and every other limit that may be prudent.
Jesus routinely went off by Himself alone, or just with His disciples. He didn’t help every person in every town. He surprised the locals (and us) by helping people who didn’t “deserve” it according to the customs of the time (or our own).
Jesus curated His life according to what the Father wanted Him to do, not what the people or even His own disciples expected.
Why are women in particular supposed to do all this selflessness? Where are similar levels of selflessness from our “fearless leaders” in the home and the church? Men being able to arrange the system such that they can always get their way doesn’t seem particularly selfless, unselfish, or even charitable.
Great questions, Jo!
Those who truly believe the ‘holy not happy’ message should seek out marriages with partners that do not make them happy. If they believe unhappier = holier, then they should be marrying people that will give them the greatest opportunities to grow in their holiness- which would mean seeking out someone that makes them unhappy so they can learn to be content in all situations like Paul said.
I’m curious- do men often receive this messaging? I heard it a LOT in women’s spaces, but I don’t know many men who heard it much- except as something to “teach” their wives. If they truly believed it, they would consider it all joys when their wives turn them down for sex because it is an opportunity for them to grow closer to God by denying their flesh.
Those wives should get shirts that read, “Not tonight, honey. I want to help you become more holy.” 🤣🤣
“Not tonight, honey. I want to help you become more holy.”
Merchworthy!
Oh my gosh I’m dying!!!!
So true, Nessie! (And I love the t-shirt!)
I want that t-shirt (women’s cut, please).
My friend, who I would consider to be egal, was the one to give me a book about marriage having the purpose making us holy.
My friend has one of the most equal, beautiful marriages I know. They genuinely have a marriage to emulate and his son has a beautiful marriage also.
I think the problem with most of this teaching is that it is weaponised against women.
The Bible says to rejoice in suffering. The Bible says that the Lord will prune us to make us more fruitful. It is the Bible that says we are to be selfless.
It is sinful man that takes these truths and weaponises them for selfish ends.
A gardening analogy because- gardening is great.
A good pruning is promising- clean, sharp tools, the correct angle, the correct placement for the particular plant, and the seasonally-correct timing for the type of prunework you are doing. Done well, it does little harm and much good to the plant by encouraging new growth in the best ways.
A bad pruning is harmful- dull tools cause stripping of the plant and/or a mangled end which invites disease, pests, or rain-rot, a fungus spreads because the tools were not cleaned between uses, a bad angle or placement discourages growth or encourages poorly angled new growth that is prone to breakage, and poor timing seasonally exacerbates these issues.
The correct heart behind and usage of scriptures makes a world of difference.
Love the gardening analogy. And it’s so spot on, especially regarding the type of plant.
For me, the ‘not happy but holy’ made sense, because I’m the kind of ‘plant’ that heard it as ‘your primary focus shouldn’t be on seeking your own selfish gratification at the expense of your partner’s welfare and mutual spiritual growth’. But for many ‘plants’, they will hear it as ‘it’s good to be unhappily married because it will make you more holy’.
I find it a bit weird that so often, the only way people seem to view a relationship as making them more ‘holy’ is if it causes suffering.
Why can’t a marriage between two believers who both want to grow more like Christ and who want to ‘spur one another on to good deeds’ make both spouses more holy?
Also, why does it have to be either/or. Because while it is not healthy for our primary focus to be on what makes us happy RATHER THAN holy, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive.
EXACTLY! It’s like–why is it happy or holy? Why can’t it be both? We grow each other in good times better than in bad times really.
Indeed. And we should keep in mind that the first mentioned fruit of the Holy Spirit, who is the very source of our holines and sanctification, is…joy!!!
YES!
In my childhood, I knew a pastor who shared an image of a laughing Jesus as often as she could because she felt so many times Jesus is portrayed as solemn, serene, concerned- but rarely happy or amused. I wonder if those treating the bible as “all” you need ever considered that Jesus probably did laugh, smile, guffaw, snort, and grin. It just didn’t get recorded in the bible like, “Jesus wept,” did. If not, they probably cannot see how holy and happy can coincide.
Karen Purvis did great research into child development and her research found (at the risk of oversimplifying) that playfulness greatly reduced the time/repetition it took to learn new behaviors. Given that, it makes more sense to me that happiness would increase our learned holiness.
G. K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” ends thus:
“There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.”
Oh, I love that!
Have you seen the Bruce Marchiano “Gosel According to Matthew”?
(For those not familiar, it’s it’s filmed version of gospel of Matthew literally word for word from the NIV.)
Chapter 18 depicts Jesus and the disciples walking along a road. When Jesus says “treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector,” Bruce turns his head to look at the actor playing Matthew, who of course was a tax collector, with this big grin on his face. A couple of the disciples tackle him and wrestle for a moment. Classic!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yf9jWonGL74
Start at 2:24:36 or so.
Jo R, No, I have not. Thanks for sharing- that was good.
Whenever I picture Jesus, I actually picture Him laughing. I think Jesus enjoyed Himself!
I remember something from a family camp I used to attend that happened a number of years ago. We were singing the hymn “For Those Tears I Died.” When we got to the part that told how Jesus felt every tear drop, a few of the teen boys made a water drop sound. Needless to say, a number of us were trying hard to suppress our laughter during what was supposed to be a solemn occasion. Before the song was over, I could barely participate in the singing because I was laughing so hard (silently) that I couldn’t breathe.
Our camp director was highly insulted, and prayed after the song was over that we (meaning the teenage boys) would treat the worship time and repent of their lack of reverence.
Oh gosh, ha. I mean, I can see why they would feel that was irreverant but also there were teens present. they are still growing up, still finding the fun in things. And… it was at camp which is usually a more light-hearted experience anyhow, at least to me.
It was. The funny part of this was there were a number of adults in the service that were trying not to laugh. I don’t exactly remember how old I was at the time. I was either just finishing high school or I was in college. Sometimes kids can say and do things we don’t anticipate when we expect them to be and act reverently.
“The Power of a Praying Wife” definitely sends that message that marriage is to make you “holy, not happy.” And guess what, I heard through social media that this book is going to be a movie. Just what we need: to see this acted out on screen.
The problem with evangelical teachings is there is not allowed to be a gray area. It’s either/or and cannot be both/and. I believe you can be holy AND happy. If marriage is supposed to only make you holy and nothing positive, then why bother getting married? I’m thankful I can be both holy AND happy in my marriage.
The idea of someone having a role in this movie, or even having to watch it in the audience makes me shudder.
I just can’t believe they’re trying to make it!
By the way, this teaching is only meant for women. Men are told they have God given needs that have to be met or they will come under Satanic attack.
Very much so!
There is enough unavoidable suffering in life so why voluntarily ( with a few notable justified reasons) subject yourself to additional misery?
I’ve noticed that prolonged suffering can lead to death, mental illness and often poverty. There are much better and efficient ways to build character.
Absolutely, Boone!
The questions I would have for this hypothetical married person: what do you mean by “unhappy” or “suffering,” and why exactly are you feeling that way?
A woman who has just given birth has suffered a great deal, but has done so for a truly amazing and worthwhile (we hope) reason. Ideally, that suffering will be repaid in joy many, many times over.
A woman who is being abused by her husband is also suffering a great deal, for no one’s ultimate benefit. It isn’t good for her, her children, or even her husband (it’s bad for his soul).
A woman whose husband is sexually selfish is suffering. Aside from the damage to his soul, he’s getting quite a lot of benefit from this situation. But it’s not like it should really be an imposition on a loving husband to please his wife and give back what he has been given.
So why is the person suffering? If it’s so that a grown adult – that person’s own spouse – can be a selfish donkey, that’s not okay. If it’s because life is sometimes hard and his/her spouse is walking alongside in love and charity, eager to alleviate the first person’s pain, that’s a different story.
Ultimately, your spouse should be walking alongside you in your pain. If that isn’t happening, having your so-called “friends” park their noses up in the air about how “marriage is about holiness” are missing the point.
Exactly. If God’s will is that we be transformed into the likeness of Christ (Romans 8:29), then we should act in such a way that points people to Christlikeness, not that enables the opposite. And yet by calling for women to put up with misery, we are enabling men to act nothing like Christ.
I have heard and read remarks along the following lines: God frequently compares himself to a rejected and mistreated husband, and Israel to a faithless wife, in the OT. Some very sensitive and scrupulous believers have said things like, “Going through prolonged difficulty of being sinned against in my marriage opened my eyes to how deeply God suffers when humans, including myself, sin against him. It showed me God’s heart in a way I never would have understood if I had not experienced it myself. In choosing to love my spouse over decades of difficulty, it gave me a greater appreciation of God’s love that is faithful even when I am faithless.”
For many years I thought this line of thinking was the height of spiritual maturity and Christlikeness. Now? Not so sure. But I’m not sure what I would say if I heard this in private conversation or a ladies’ Bible study (the prevalence of self-abasing sentiments like that are one reason my stomach turns at the thought of going back to Bible studies)
I find it odd that someone would say that their OWN love towards someone who is faithless gives them a greater understanding of God’s love, because it feels like they are pointing towards themselves – ‘wow, look how spiritual I am that I keep loving someone who doesn’t deserve it, just like God does’. Umm. No.
Maybe I didn’t express it very well. I have heard it said along the same lines as, “I didn’t understand what my parents went through with me, or how much they loved me, until I parented a rebellious teen myself.” Or, “I could only learn a certain understanding of someone else’s experience by suffering in a similar way- you don’t really understand infertility or cancer until you go through something equally painful.” Basically, they are saying their interpersonal suffering gave them a greater understanding of how God suffers with his rebellious children (particularly that person herself), and a deeper understanding of how painful their own sin is to God. I have rarely heard it as boasting of virtue, but rather an expression of unworthiness – they see their suffering as getting a “taste of their own medicine” of causing God pain. They see themselves as having no right to end the pain because they have inflicted worse pain on God through sin.
So much of this can be debunked if we reverse the context – just like Katerie did with the POW example. If marriage is supposed to be hard, how do all of the happily married couples feel? Less holy? Less happy? Less Christ-like? If judging good fruit based on moral behavior, then how do sexual predator pastors caught and reinstated to the pulpit fit this line of thinking? Does the reinstated pastor reflect Christ-like behavior? Attending church has become a trigger for me. I didn’t even know that that was a thing until my secular counselor shared findings about it from a group she counseled. She didn’t say, “Church is a trigger for you.” She said, “Let’s define what a trigger is and see if any specific areas in your life have you triggered.” She didn’t start by sharing the information that came from her group counsel. She started by having me do the work. I say that to say this: I forced myself for over 3 years to attend one church and then the next never once realizing that my commitment to Christ was not the problem; rather, the churches I had been attempting to become part of were not Christ-like. One after the next preached from the pulpit how much more I must do as a wife and as a contributing member to the church – after all, I was told repeatedly, even after the first week of attendance, I could at least sign up for preschool or kitchen duty. The load placed on women – maritally and spiritually – always seems to allow for the men to be “free in Christ,” as was also preached to me from the pulpit that for whatever I did as a wife for him, I was making him “free in Christ.” I do not have much hope that in my lifetime I will see the church that Jesus started and His apostles perpetuated. I do not have much hope that in my lifetime I will see remorseful, repentant pastors who step down because they see the hurt they have caused the women in their flock to suffer. I do hope and pray my children do get to see it.
I’m so sorry, max. I can feel your disappointment and betrayal. I have felt that too. It is a heavy weight to carry.