Live your theology.

I began my 10th year of marriage on Wednesday the 11th.  That in & of itself doesn’t give me any special insight into having a marriage that glorifies God.  The Scriptures have already done that.  But, 10 years of marriage has my wife & I talking about the subject.  If we were to write a book about marriage, what would the chapters be about? (this is the kind of stuff we talk about in the evenings).  So here’s one thing we’d include in the book.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.  A recently married couple is receiving advice from a more experienced married couple.  Maybe they asked for it.  Probably they didn’t.  The old routine goes something like this:

Advice giver turns to the husband and says; “These are the two most important words for your marriage: ‘Yes, dear.’”  The rim-shot is optional, as is the courtesy laugh usually offered to this modern day sage.  Of course, this is spectacularly bad advice.  Men who simply acquiesce to the every whim of defer to every tantrum their wife has without opposition are bad husbands, failing to fill the role set forth for them by God in marriage.  There’s a similar problem with wives who understand headship to mean that you do whatever your husband asks immediately and without discussion or question, regardless of the implications.  More on that another time, though.

Keeping quiet about your marriage isn’t necessarily bad advice.  You don’t want it to be a principle of the communication between husband and wife.  But in several cases, you absolutely do want it in the communications husbands and wives have outside the home.  What do I mean?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Christian husband goes out with his buddies.

“Hey, glad (wife’s name) finally let you out!”

“No doubt.  It’s nice to be released from the ball & chain every once in a while.”

“I hear that.  (Other dude’s wife’s name) absolutely freaks whenever I say I want to go out.  She won’t even talk to me for like 15 minutes.”

“Don’t get me started on the cold shoulder thing.  Last week I…”

And the conversation continues.  The same scenario can involve a group of wives getting together and collectively lamenting the shortcomings of their husbands.  Or just an individual conversation (say between a parent & their married child) going over what they get annoyed about in their marriage.

It’s these conversations that needs to be killed.  This is where you need to just stop talking.   Making your spouse look bad in front of your friends or whoever else is not just making conversation or having a laugh.  It’s marital sabotage.

Why do I think so? A couple of reasons:

1. People have itching ears for dirt.  Sites like TMZ exist only because people want to know and see the sin in other people’s lives. They love it.  They spend money to find out about it.  We’ll take 2 seconds looking at our own sin and 2 hours breaking down someone else’s.  So if someone seems willing to talk about the faults of their significant other, you can bet someone else is going to be there rooting them on to dig deeper and dish out more.
2. We have a desire to be appreciated & liked.  If we’ve got some information that other people take an interest in hearing, we’re likely to offer more and more details all in exchange for a bigger laugh or more rapt attention.  The kind of people that desire this info, desire the attention that will come with passing it along.  So it won’t be long before everybody knows what you think sucks about your spouse.  This is a good thing?
3. “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” (Proverbs 18:17).  That is to say, when you’re talking about all your spouse’s shortcomings with your friends, you’re inadvertently (I hope) painting a picture of your marriage with you as the victim, struggling through until the sweet release of death parts you.  So now everyone has a whacked out view of your marriage and it’ll only get worse if your spouse is equally willing to talk smack.

Those are just the problems that come from the outside perspective.  You effectively dishonor your spouse when you verbally drag them through the mud, and you teach others that such is a part of marriage and perfectly acceptable.  But it’s not.

Now you may say – “So what! Let them think that.  It doesn’t change how much I love him/her.”

Are you sure about that?

Ever have something come into your life that annoys you?  Then you start talking with someone about it and you go over it and over it and soon you’re filled with soul crushing rage for the former annoyance?  I’ve seen memos sent by a Boss turns into an affront against the recipient’s very being after the topic was kicked around the water cooler long enough.  The same thing applies to relationships.  ”Dude, my wife’s cooking is horrible.” easily turns into “Your cooking is awful! And you know what else?” // full disclosure – my wife’s cooking is THE BOMB.

More importantly, gossiping about your spouse in no way resembles the relationship between Christ and the church it is modeled after.  Jesus loves the church.  Fully. In spite of the blemishes and spots.  Jesus makes the church pure as snow through his sacrificial death.  He doesn’t sit back looking at the church and lament their sinfulness (Sorry to break it to any political cartoonists hoping to recycle the gag about Jesus looking down from a cloud and getting all bummed about His sheep).    Christ predestined his church because that’s what he chose to do – not because of how awesome we are.  Take that view to marriage – that the charge of the Christian husband is to love his wife like Christ loves the church… and then explain to me how exposing all the sins and shortcomings of your wife to whoever you’re talking to is an apt illustration of how Christ views you and your sins.  It’s not.  So just stop talking.