One Simple Principle for a More Satisfying Marriage
By Michael Kelley
You are meant to enjoy, not just endure, your marriage. And you are meant to enjoy it in all ways - physically, emotionally, and relationally. This is one of the things Proverbs 5 points us to:
Drink water from your own cistern,
And running water from your own well.
Should your fountains be dispersed abroad,
Streams of water in the streets?
Let them be only your own,
And not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed,
And rejoice with the wife of your youth (Prov. 5:15-18).
The imagery here is of water. In the Bible, that imagery can either be positive or negative. In Genesis, water represents chaos before God establishes order. And it represents judgment when God sent the flood. But when water is flowing, clear, or given as rain, it symbolizes God’s direct favor and spiritual cleansing. Here it is obviously positive; the son is told in verse 18 to let his fountain be blessed and to take pleasure in the wife of his youth.
That’s how marriage should be. Enjoyable. Satisfying. But what if it’s not? Or what if it once was, but it’s not anymore? Because marriage, like all things, is a routine. It is, by its very definition, living in the closest proximity imaginable with another human being, and it can as you naturally fall into a pattern of behavior. You learn the most intimate traits and aspects of another person, and over time, it can seem that there’s nothing left to discover. Marriage can easily get boring. Vanilla. Typical. You know which side of the bed you sleep on and your spouse does too. You settle into a routine of watching the same TV shows, having the same conversations about your day, and even eating the same meals on a regular cycle. You pretty much know what to expect on any given day.
How, then, do you enjoy your marriage? Here is one suggestion:
Be a student of your spouse.
Now there are a couple of ways you might interpret that last statement. The first way is that you might take it to mean that you need to scrutinize your spouse. You need to take everything he or she says, does, and even feels and put it on the microscope and dissect it. That is NOT what it means.
It means that you choose to take an active interest in your spouse and recognize that no matter how long you have been married, you still have more to know of and from them.
You reject a posture of assumption, and instead adopt a general posture of loving curiosity, and that posture leads to do things like ask genuine questions about what happened to them during the day, how they are feeling, and what they are thinking. And it means you do so without distraction – you ask, and then you listen without other things drawing you away from that conversation.
Committing yourself to being a student of your spouse brings a more satisfying marriage because of another principle - your heart will follow your investment. By way of example, consider these words from Jesus:
“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).
It’s a pretty familiar passage, and we usually think of it in negative terms. That if we spend all our time chasing after temporal things – things that moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, then our hearts are going to follow that investment. That’s certainly one way to understand the passage, but here is another one.
Jesus is giving direction to His followers. He’s saying “don’t store up” and then instead “store up.” These are active commands, things for us to do regardless of how we feel. We can certainly identify with that because we do things we don’t necessarily feel like doing all the time. We get up and exercise not because we are excited to do it, but because we know it’s good for us and we will be glad we did.
Now trace that line out a little further. When Jesus tells us that where your treasure is our heart will also be, it can be read as an action point. That is, you can actually play an active role in where your heart is, and the way you do that is through your investment. Or, as the principle stated earlier, your heart will follow your investment.
Flesh it out even more – if you want to be consumed by a love of God’s Word, then consume God’s Word. If you want to be consumed by a passion for Jesus, then consume Jesus. If you want to give yourself away for the spread of the gospel, then make it your practice to feast on gospel opportunities. And if you want to enjoy your marriage, then first invest in your marriage by being a student of your spouse. Because your heart will follow your investment.
Michael Kelley is a husband, father of three, author, and speaker from Nashville, TN. His latest book is a year-long family devotional guide called The Whole Story for the Whole Family. Find his personal blog at michaelkelley.co.
