feelings

Not Another Marriage List!

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We’ve all seen them. They’re in the magazines that line the grocery store check-out aisles. They’re scattered throughout our social media feeds. They are written by academics, psychologists, and freelance writers. And they have titles that dare us to see how we measure up.

What are they? They are those lists of characteristics that supposedly make up a healthy marriage.

As a pastoral counselor, I might glance over such a list to see how practical and realistic it is. But I don’t spend a lot of time with such lists, because…

  • Marriage is not lived by checking off boxes on some list.
  • Lists are nice and neat, whereas marriage is complicated and messy.
  • No two marriages are the same.
  • We tend to focus more on where we don’t measure up to the list, than on where we do.
  • Once you hold such a list up to your marriage, how do you grade yourself?

But, having said all that, I’m about to eat my words. Because I’ve come across a healthy marriage checklist that’s practical and fits with much of what I see in my counseling office.

THE LIST

I wasn’t looking for a list, but I found it while reading the book, Disarming the Past: How an Intimate Relationship Can Heal Old Wounds, by Jerry M. Lewis, M.D. and John T. Gossett, Ph.D.

I’ve taken Lewis and Gossett’s list on the essential characteristics of a healthy marriage and reworded it as follows to fit my more casual approach to things. But the list is in essence, theirs.

According to Lewis and Gossett, healthy marriages have these things in common:

Power is shared.

Both spouses hold power equally in the relationship. Neither feels dominated and neither dominates. Both can speak into issues and both have equal say in decisions.

There is a good balance of togetherness and separateness.

Both spouses enjoy and even prefer being together, but neither is threatened when the other has outside interests, activities, and friendships. Each spouse has their own identity, along with some healthy autonomy.

Opinions and perspectives are respected and welcomed.

Each spouse is encouraged to share their views, and their views are not dismissed. They are listened to, understood, and respected. To ignore a spouse’s opinions and perspectives is disrespectful to them and destructive to the relationship.

Feelings are welcomed and encouraged.

It’s easy for spouses to get uncomfortable when feelings are brought into the mix because feelings can make things seem highly charged and difficult to control. But, as spouses, we are a package deal, and you can’t welcome your spouse without welcoming their feelings. But remember…feelings must be expressed appropriately and safely in order to be accepted.

Conflicts do not escalate or get out of hand.

Conflict is a normal and necessary part of marriage. It’s a part of two people learning to live and work together. In fact, a marriage without some conflict is not healthy. The health of a marriage is not found in the absence of conflict but in the ability to channel conflict in ways that are productive and helpful to both spouses. This means that: differences are tolerated, the conflict is not generalized or personalized, and resolution is typically achieved.

Spouses share basic values.

This does not mean that spouses are clones of one another, agreeing on everything. What it means is that the couple tends to have the same values when it comes to what they feel is important in life. These couples agree on things like how to raise a family, religion and its place in the family, financial security, morality, etc.

There is flexibility.

Life never goes the way we plan. It tends to throw us curve balls. Children come, jobs change, finances ebb and flow, children leave the nest, illnesses become severe, and retirement becomes a reality. The couples that can anticipate change, roll with the punches, and realign with the current reality will do better than those who can’t.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE LIST

You may be the kind of person who says, “I don’t need to live by no stinking list!” If so, feel free to ignore it the way I do other lists.

But there’s something basic about this list. It’s practical and adaptable, and it makes sense. So don’t toss it out without some thought.

Then, if you believe the list has some merit…

  • Put a check beside the ones that apply to your marriage.
  • Once you’ve done that, pat yourself on the back and celebrate those.
  • Then, put a star beside the ones you still need to work on.
  • Next, pick one of these and talk to your spouse about it.
  • See if the two of you can come up with one thing you could do to make it better.

A FINAL THOUGHT…

And if you’re still having trouble with the idea of a list for marriage, try thinking of it as a recipe. A recipe for cooking up something good.

1 Samuel 13 – Pay Attention to the Red Lights

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Some people are “feelers.” They respond to things based upon their feelings.

Now feelings are not bad and should not be avoided. God Himself has feelings and expresses emotion. (Gen. 6:6) (Ex. 4:14) (Job 33:26) But, we should not allow our feelings to drive us.

Feelings are like the red lights on the dashboard of your car. They warns you that something needs your attention. If you ignore the red lights, or cover them up, or disconnect them…you court disaster. The red light is not the problem. It’s just an indicator of a problem.

Here’s what this has to do with 1 Samuel chapter 13. Saul was a feeler. He made decisions based upon feelings, not faith. When the situation became grave, Saul followed his feelings and panicked. His feelings over-ruled his faith, causing him to disobey the Lord in an attempt to calm his fear. Then, when confronted with his disobedience, Saul (driven by guilt) sought to covering things up with rationalization. (1 Sam. 13:11-12)

If you’re a feeler, the key to not letting your emotions drive you is found in what Samuel tells Saul. (1 Sam. 13:14) Samuel tells Saul that God is looking for someone who is after God’s heart, rather than their own.

Pay attention to your feelings, but be more concerned with God’s feelings than your own. Bring your feelings in line with God’s through prayer and a knowledge of His word. Then, when your feelings light up, you’ll know there is something going on under your hood that need to be tuned up or corrected.

Pay attention to your red lights.

If I Only Had a Heart

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Dorothy continues down the road toward the Emerald City, but now she’s not alone. She’s been joined by the Scarecrow, who is looking for a brain to think things through and solve problems.

The two of them come to a dark and ominous woods where the trees are threatening and things grow darker with each step. It is here that they encounter a man of tin who has been rusted solid by a sudden rain storm.

Dorothy and the Scarecrow compassionately apply oil to the Tin Man’s rust laden joints, and he slowly regains the freedom of movement.

The Tin Man is grateful to be able to move again, but he still feels immobilized, because he lacks a heart. This prevents him from feeling things like love, joy, and bliss. The only emotion the Tin Man readily feels is fear, which leaps to the surface when the Wicked Witch of the West appears.

After the Wicked Witch of the West departs, Dorothy tells the Tin Man that she and the Scarecrow are on their way to the Emerald City and she invites him to join them. Lured by the longing to feel, the Tin Man accepts and they head down the Yellow Brick Road together. They each carry a need: the need to find home, the need to think clearly, and the need to feel fully.

You will spend part of your time on the road out of Oz trying to find the brain power to solve your problems and make life right again. But at some point you will need to travel through the dark woods of your emotions.

Here, you will find a part of you frozen in time. Like the Tin Man who rusted in place when the rains came, you were emotionally rusted in place when the rains of abuse came. You find yourself stuck in the same old emotional positions of fear, terror, anger, guardedness, mistrust, and insecurity that were there when the abuse poured over you. Those emotions were too intense to live with continually, and they caused your heart to rust over in an attempt to prevent you from feeling anything.

Like the Tin Man, you may feel emotionally rusted and even hollow on the inside, as if you have no heart. But it’s there. The journey to find your heart is actually the journey to reawaken your emotions by softening the rust around your heart so that it can feel again.

But you need to know that once you awaken your heart…YOU WILL FEEL. And not just the things you want to feel, like happiness, joy, love, and intimacy. You will also feel things you don’t want to feel, like fear, dread, uncertainty, and hurt. You cannot be selective with your feelings. You cannot just turn on the emotions you like and turn off the ones you don’t. It is an all or nothing proposition. To turn on one feeling, you have to turn on all of them.

This may scare you and makes you want to back away from finding your heart, but consider this…you’re already feeling things you don’t want to feel. Your feelings drive you everyday. You just don’t recognize them. You need to get them out in the open and deal with them. It will free you from the rust that has seized you and kept you from fully participating in life. It will also create space for you to begin to experience the positive emotions that have always seemed just out of reach.

You have a Scarecrow who seeks to train his thinking. You have a Tin Man who seeks to free his feelings. But there’s still another traveling companion to pick up.