Marital spiritual intimacy

Charles and Virginia Sell

"If only I could get the married couples in my church to pray together twice a week, I believe it would transform their relationships." The pastor who said this believes that "Those who pray together stay together" is not an empty bumper sticker slogan. Yet, despite the obvious benefits couples get from spending time together with God, many fail to do so. Recently, we surveyed couples to find out why. Busyness showed up on everyone's list of barriers, but there were others as well. A major one has to do with our attitude toward changing each other.

Because our reading of the Bible or Christian books together will point out areas of personal weakness, couples can feel pressured to change. Such exposure in the presence of our spouse can be quite threatening, particularly when the area we need to alter is closely related to our role as husband or wife. There are men who, after hearing a sermon on marriage, drive home silently praying that their wives won't bring up some of the points the pastor made. If one has a problem with temper, reading a passage of Scripture dealing with anger could turn a spiritual discussion into a heated argument. Discussing the Bible can be like opening a "can of worms" one of us would rather keep the lid on.

On the other hand, think of what we deny ourselves by keeping these things tucked away safely out of view: a chance to know each other better; a chance to deal with our problems; a chance to help each other grow in Christ. We are in a sort of dilemma: Relating spiritually can make our relationship better, but we have to have a good relationship to begin with in order to relate on a spiritual plane.

The answer to this problem is simply this: We need to accept and support each other and resist the urge to unduly pressure each other to change.

Forcing each other to change often makes us resist like mules. Then we treat each other like stubborn animals by turning to the time-honoured practices of yelling, screaming, begging, threatening, pouting and--most popular of all--nagging. As Christians, we sometimes marshall our spiritual forces to jostle our spouse in the right direction--we tell our spouse to talk to the pastor, read this book, go to that meeting, etc. Spiritual times together then become opportunities to hint at the problem and turn up the heat. We play ecclesiastical basketball--God tosses a message to us, and, ignoring it for ourselves, we quickly pass it to our spouse.

I've often kidded Virginia when she's asked, "What passage shall we read today?" "Ephesians 5, about wives submitting to their husbands," I suggest. "Fine," she replies, "just so we get to the part about husbands loving their wives."

This little joshing game illustrates what some couples play out day after day, only often it is gravely serious. When a couple hears a sermon or reads a passage of Scripture together, the man may think to himself, "I sure hope she got that." She knows what's going on since she's aware of the problem, and she feels squeezed in a marital vice.

Couples soon discover these pressure tactics work extremely well: They dramatically produce change--in their relationship. They withdraw from each other disillusioned, disappointed and angry. In their attempts to remodel each other, they find they have demolished their marriage. Some separate. Some stay together, but have little contact, or if they do have contact, it is often abusive.

Those who successfully survive these years of adjustment, do so by patiently accepting each other. They also focus on changing themselves, not their partners. Otherwise, they get locked into codependency, an overdependence on each other that actually prevents both partners from growing. There are ways to combat this.

Don't demand too much

Watch what you demand of each other. Don't demand too much or do it where you have no right to. Imagine this: A husband insists his wife report regularly about whether she is 1. staying on her diet, 2. following her exercise plan and 3. having her personal devotions. He does it in the name of "accountability". Men who do this, treat their wives as if they were one of their Christian buddies who have pledged to help each other to change. However, marriage is not exactly an accountability group.

This is not to say that it's always abusive to make demands on one another. Being married means you are responsible to one another in certain areas. We have every right to suggest and even insist on changes that affect our relationship. A husband can insist his wife not flirt with other men, and a wife can insist that her husband not neglect her. And sometimes when our partner gets addicted to drugs or alcohol or is caught in some obsession, we have to confront him or her, sometimes even harshly.

But we must constantly be asking: Is this an issue that is personal to my spouse or is it one that is within the bounds of our marriage? To intrude across our spouse's personal boundaries can be extremely oppressive. A husband, for example, might insist his wife not chew gum. Now, it's his right to ask her not to chew gum whenever they are kissing; that involves both of them (and he might not want to risk ending up with it). But chewing gum privately is her business.

You could argue that he's only trying to avoid what gum with sugar in it might do to her teeth, and that this is his business. The same thing could be true of eating too much, which is a hazard to health. Yet some things can't be controlled from the outside; change must come from the inside. Unless you have absolute control over someone, you cannot make that person stop drinking or eat properly. If you keep on pushing other people, they may refuse to push themselves. You keep pressure on from the outside; they don't turn it on on the inside.

We have to avoid needlessly intruding on our partner's personal life, even when we disagree with what our partner is doing. We have to give each other freedom to fail, and respect each other's choices. This liberates people to be responsible for the changes they need to make.

Charles explained this once during the Friday evening meeting of a weekend seminar in New England. On Saturday afternoon, a woman reported to him that she had followed his suggestion. For years, she had been complaining to her husband about how he dressed, in jeans and sometimes in dirty shirts, something she would never do in public. Walking beside him embarrassed her, which she'd been forcefully telling him for 20 years.

"This morning," she said, "I told him I would never again gripe about how he dresses. After dropping his jaw, he asked me to repeat myself. I did. Later, he went out and bought two new shirts and two new trousers and dressed very nicely to come to the seminar this afternoon."

We don't like marriage to take away our personal liberty; when someone robs us of our space, we fight to gain it back. Apparently, this is what this husband was doing; when the pressure was off, he felt free to choose for himself.

Don't do too much

Codependents like to say, "Here, let me do it." Demanding can be a way of doing that, saying, "I'll be your conscience; I'll keep reminding you. I'll take charge."

Rescuing people from the consequences of their actions is another way to do more than we should. People married to alcoholics do this. They cover up by lying to the boss when their hungover partner is unable to report for work. The wife of a workaholic does it when she makes excuses to her children for his neglect of them. As long as we rescue and protect such people they will not feel the pressure to change, and they will fail to solve their problems. Proverbs 19:19 makes this clear: "A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty; if you rescue him, you will have to do it again."

The same thing is true when we try to solve our partners' problems for them by telling them what to do, constantly reminding them of their problems or putting pressure on them to change. Essentially, we try to be their conscience, guide and will power. We become their substitute. As long as we're playing the game for them, they will sit on the bench, stuck in their problem, resisting our efforts. Essentially we perpetuate the problem when we try to stop drinking, eating or gambling for someone else.

Certainly, the Bible says: "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). Yet, a few sentences later it warns: "Each one should carry his own load" (Galatians 6:5). The different Greek words used for "burdens" and "load" explain the difference. Burdens are like rocks too heavy for one person to handle. At times, troubles are such that we need others to help by giving us a lift. The load is like a backpack, representing what we ourselves are personally responsible for carrying. When we take someone else's assigned backpack, we rob that person of the opportunity to solve his own problems and do her own thing. Love means doing what's best for someone; sometimes that requires refusing to help.

Instead of substituting for our partner's efforts, we can best help by offering our support. Our attitude toward each other should be: "I won't try to fix you, but I'll support you in fixing yourself." This means we'll suggest steps for solving the problem, but we'll let our partner take them. At times, we'll suggest options, but we will refrain from giving advice. Instead of preventing our partners from failing, we'll encourage them to pick themselves up after they have. Essentially, we'll stand on the sideline cheering "You can do it," while refusing to do it for them.

Don't depend too much

Just as you can encourage a person to depend too much, you can easily depend too much on another person. We do this in petty, sometimes amusing ways. For example, have you ever said to your partner, "Remind me to buy milk on the way home from church tonight, will you, or we won't have any for breakfast in the morning"? When you both forget, you accuse: "I told you to remind me." It's possible that requesting your partner to remember caused you to forget, because in your unconscious you had relieved yourself of the pressure to remember.

That leaning on your spouse caused you to have eggs instead of cereal for breakfast is no big deal, but overdependence in other matters can be: When you trust someone else to break your bad habit, keep your spending or eating under control or think for you, you may stifle your growth and remain stuck in a problem you won't face yourself. In the meantime, your partner, too, is stuck--in the frustration and disappointment that comes to those who try to force someone else to change.

An ancient Chinese tale speaks to this. A father came into the house carrying several cornstalks, their roots dangling. His son asked him what he had been doing. "I have been out in the field helping the cornstalks grow by pulling on them," his father replied. The story is rather foolish, but the lesson is profound. We cannot force plants or people to grow. Nagging, jerking and pressuring do not work.

Don't insist; encourage. Your trust in God will enable you to do this. Committing our partners to God and His control will relieve us of the need to control them ourselves. By faith we believe that He is at work in us and that we grow from the inside out.

Standing by someone you love, hand in hand, supporting and watching that person mature is one of life's--and marriage's--greatest experiences.

This article is based on material in the book, Spiritual Intimacy for Couples written by Charles and Virginia Sell (Crossway Books, 1996). Charles Sell teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill.

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