Cheaters: Why Christian Marriages Fail to Thrive

This past month at the monthly couples fellowship that my wife Dalia and I attend, something miraculous happened. I doubt that any of the fifteen couples in attendance recognized the miracle. It wasn’t on the scale of Moses’ parting of the Red Sea or Jesus’ turning of water into wine. But, it was a miracle nonetheless, at least for me. The miracle was revealed in just four words uttered by my wife as she and I facilitated a group discussion. As she was sharing the lesson with the group, she confidently uttered for everyone to hear, “I adore my husband”.  The words wafted across the room. Others nodded and smiled. But, me, I melted as the words settled in my heart and I thought to myself, “So, this is what it feels like to be adored!”

I understand if you are skeptical as to whether these four words rise to miracle status. But, that’s only because you don’t know our history. Dalia and I have been married more than thirty-one years. And, frankly, I don’t ever recall her uttering those four words. What I do vividly recall is the first decade of our marriage when she said a different, more biting four words about how she felt about me. If her goal was to get my attention, she succeeded when she said these four words, “I don’t like you”. More specifically, she said, “I love you but I don’t like you”. I was hurt—at least my ego was.

So, to go from “I don’t like you” to “I adore my husband” is my miracle and is easily my proudest moment of this year, 2019.  Despite lapses into self-centeredness on both our parts, Dalia and I have nearly always had what most people would characterize as a good marriage. We have achieved significant academic success. We have successfully launched two wonderful adult children. We have established a solid middle-upper class lifestyle for ourselves. And, we have been active in many facets of church and para-church ministry for decades. Yes, in the midst of all these successes was an incessant struggle to break through to the next level for us.

For years, it was hard to put my finger exactly on why we struggled to break through to the next level. We both just knew that we were off a bit—moving forward but falling way short of the best version of ourselves. More importantly, we did not treat one another with the love and respect to which God calls us. We tiptoed around difficult subjects to avoid what felt like an inevitable impasse.  But, it has become increasingly clear to me over the past two years the source of our muted potential. It was mostly my big ego.

  • Big ego is selfish and prone to manipulate circumstances to get my way.
  • Big ego pushes the rational over the relational, caring more about being right with facts than being right with God.
  • Big ego always sees the faults and blame in others before sensing one’s own culpability.

Big ego is disobedient to God’s command to love my wife as He loves the church. As such, big ego is sin—no matter how you spin it. And, it took me far too long to understand that I was losing the spiritual battle inside my own heart. It’s not something that I’m proud to admit. But, I definitely earned Dalia’s feelings of dislike towards me—because I was a cheater. No, I did not cheat with another woman. But, I cheated her from the husband that God had intended for her. And, the ‘cheater’ label is very sobering for me.

As the old adage goes, ‘it isn’t how many times you fall down but how many times you get up’. As I listened to my wife’s words, “I adore my husband”, I knew that I had gotten up. It was a miracle. My miracle is a beautiful before-after picture from a husband burdened with a big ego to a husband striving for what mindfulness gurus dub a ‘quiet ego’. My efforts to quiet my ego have transformed my marriage from good to great. Dalia has always been a wonderful wife. But, today she is a wonderful partner because we both commit to quieting our egos and listening for the best in each other.

I initially planned to come up with a three-step framework to explain how to move from big ego to quiet ego in marriage. But, my spirit is telling me to distill it down to its simplest essence. I assure you that you can shift your marriage from good to great. Even if your spouse doesn’t like you, you can become an adored spouse by one simple (but not easy) act: Release your need to be right.

This is the ultimate ego check because your ego will always assert itself. Why do you and I have that need? For most of us, it goes back to our childhood—so the need feels strong. But, you have the choice to override it by saying ’No, I don’t have to be right’. Yes, there will be situations where you may be right in your opinion. But, strive to relinquish the need to be so. 

I’m working on this daily practice. Yes, I want to be understood. But, I work each day, to suppress those verbal and non-verbal expressions that assert my need to be right. Here is the irony. By relinquishing my right to be right, I have a wife who now adores me and also is giving up her right to be right. Those areas that used to be difficult, if not impossible, to traverse have become so much easier. And, we are thanking God for what feels like a new and deeper season in our marriage.

The message is clear. We each must die to the current version of ourselves if we ever want to become the better version. Quiet your ego and stop cheating your spouse out of the person who God purposed them to marry. You can have everything you want in marriage if you and your spouse daily give up your right to be right.

A Framed Picture is Worth a Thousand Words for Marriage

Today, I was hanging pictures in our newly rehabbed 1850’s house. We have accumulated quite a little art gallery over the years. I didn’t realize it so much until today when I was motivated to hang all of the framed pictures in one fell swoop. The small pictures are easy to manage. However, the large framed pictures can be a challenge, not only because they are heavy but because you can’t get perspective while holding the picture in place. It is difficult to tell if the picture is centered on the wall when you’re close to it. For me, it is nearly impossible to tell if it is straight or leaning to one side. For me to properly hang a large framed picture, I inevitably have to step back several times to get a wider point of view.

As I was hanging heavy pictures this morning, I thought of my marriage of thirty-one plus years to my college sweetheart, Dalia. We have had our ups and downs over the decades—thankfully more ups than downs. But, I made a lot of mistakes that damaged the foundation of our marriage. When we were dealing with some heavy issues, I failed to step back to get an appropriate perspective of the situations.  I pushed to get my wife to see things my way, not realizing that I had left my marriage with an unhealthy lean that compromised our friendship.  My drive for success at everything left me without sufficient focus on making sure my marriage was centered on God’s will. Yes, things mostly looked good on the outside. But, Dalia and I were living beneath our full potential. I needed perspective. God’s best simply was not our reference point. We were settling for something short of that. Our spiritual core was sorely lacking perspective. And, as often happens in marriages, it took a big punch to my ego for me to realize just how askew my Christian marriage had become. 

That punch came in 2017, when I made a significant miscalculation approximating how many attendees we would attract to a marriage event that we were hosting in Hershey, PA. My event planning naïveté cost us well over $50,000. And, at the end of the day, I felt ashamed that I had put us in this financial bind. This misstep could have forced a wedge between us as Dalia had every right to chastise me. And, when I’m most honest, if the shoe had been on the other foot, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have given her a piece of my mind. But, rather than give me what I deserved, Dalia was gracious and merciful to me. She reassured me that we were in this together. She stood alongside me in the difficult negotiations with the hotel and with her accounting background forged a path out for us. 

Dalia’s actions transformed our marriage because they forced me to take several steps back and get a different perspective on how our marriage looked. It made me realize how in my zeal to pursue purpose, I had ironically lost sight of our joint identity as a couple. It gave insight into how much I take for granted in my marriage. And, most of all, it forced me to be grateful for the woman who God had placed steadfastly beside me. 

Marriage is all about perspective.

Unlike what we naturally think, what most of us need is not more time or money to release the best of our marriage. What Christian couples need is a higher perspective. But, you only get a loftier perspective by climbing bigger mountains. Small mountains yield small perspective. Big mountains offer big perspective. So many couples want the mountaintop experience. But, few couples want to endure the travail of the climb. Frankly, most Christian couples lack the character or faith to traverse big mountains. They do not have the relational conditioning to survive it. Yet, I venture to say that there has never been a great marriage where the couple didn’t overcome hardship on their path to living out greatness. 

In my experience, proper marital perspective comes through one or more of three ways: Prayer, People, or Pain

Prayer:  Some Christian couples (a small minority) stay attune to God and one another by remaining vigilant in their prayer life together. Prayer keeps them humble and open to influence from a Christ-centered perspective. In my experience, I would say 80% of Christian couples need a deeper prayer life together.

People: Wise people follow the lead of others who are doing what they want to do themselves. Rather than continue making well-worn mistakes, most Christian couples could see things differently if they just heed the sage advice of other Christian couples. In our current technological advent, there really is no excuse not to have a mentor couple, even if virtual in nature. Additionally, most Christian couples could benefit from having objective truth-tellers in their lives to tell you when your perspective is distorted.  Every Christian couple needs to surround themselves with other Christian couples who are operating in tandem on a higher faith plane. 

Pain: The most difficult path to perspective is through your own painful experience that knocks you a few steps back. Some people (hardheaded ones like me) are so headstrong that no one can tell them anything—not even God. It takes a ‘pit experience’ that they cannot get themselves out of to teach the lesson. The challenge here for Christian couples is that you must endure the pain without allowing the Adversary victory. This only comes when the pain pushes you to a more objective vantage point. As in the case with Dalia and me, shared pain then becomes the glue that binds. 
 

The strongest Christian couples are adept at shifting their perspective in and out as situations evolve. These are mature Christians with a penchant for empathy and prioritization of their identity as a couple over their individual selves. I continue to ask God for wisdom and perspective to be one of those couples.  

Does Your Marriage Have Resolutions or Solutions?

All wins start with resolution. But, resolution doesn’t win the game. Resolution only starts the action.

It’s hard to believe that January 2019 is now officially in the books. The time just flies, doesn’t it?

If you’re like many of us, you’ve been thinking about what you 2019 goals will be. What goals have you set for yourself?

This past weekend, Dalia and I met with a group of couples in our local marriage ministry and challenged them to set a 2019 agenda for their marriage. Yes, an agenda. The reality is that most of us don’t think about an agenda for marriage. We totally see the purpose of an agenda at our jobs or maybe in our church meetings. We like agendas in these settings because they help everyone understand the objectives of the meeting. Agendas help the meeting stay on track in order to accomplish the stated objective. 

But, why are we skeptical of an agenda for our marriage? Isn’t it important for spouses to understand the objectives of their marriage? Isn’t it vital to know if you’re staying on track to accomplishing those objectives? 
So, why do we not think about an agenda in the marriage context?

Well, somehow it feels out of place, doesn’t it? It feels too constricting and controlling. It seems to take away our flexibility.  Not true. But, let me come back to that point.

This time of year, I always find it fascinating to watch my gym swell with people. They are everywhere—huffing and puffing and sweating. They are working hard. But, most of them will be gone by March. I see the pattern every year. They made a New Year’s resolution to exercise more or to lose weight. And, through sheer will power they push themselves to join the gym (Planet Fitness in my case). They get through January and maybe February. But, the visits become spaced farther and farther apart as the weeks go by. Eventually, they stop coming altogether. By the end of the first quarter, all will be back to normal at the gym. The regulars will still be doing what the regulars do.

The regulars have figured out that the gym and working out is part of their solution to fitness or health-related concerns. The solution yields better cardiovascular fitness, strength, and maybe even weight loss. They are afraid to stop coming to the gym because they have benefitted from the results. For them, the workout it a solution.

Contrast them with the first quarter sprinters. They come in full of energy and verve. They are fueled by a resolution to work out more. That energy takes them for a while. But, the resolution wanes because their resolve dissipates in the busyness of life. They have great intention. But, they never adopt the gym as a solution. So, they fade.

All wins start with resolution. But, resolution doesn’t win the game. Resolution only starts the action. It takes discipline and consistency to shift from resolution to solution in accomplishing much of anything in life. Your focus must switch from resolution to do “something” to understanding what that “something” solves for you.

Let’s bring it back to marriage and its agenda.

Many Christian couples want to have a great marriage. They want to feel happy and secure. So, these well-meaning couples set out a resolution for the new year. They might say to one another, for example, that we commit to have a date night every month in 2019. It is their resolution. You know what happens though, don’t you? The job demands get too hectic or the kid’s schedule take over. After a few attempts, the date night resolution is over. 

But, what if this same couple focused on the problem in need of a solution? If they said, we are not feeling intimate enough as a couple. We are afraid of drifting apart in the busyness of life. We worry that our lack of togetherness will negatively impact the well-being of our children and our broader ministry. We do not feel we can fully participate in the Kingdom work that God has for us if we do not cultivate our relationship more. This couple is focused on “why” their marriage needs them to be in sync. Then, one of them suggests a regular date night as a solution. This couple is much more likely to continue that date night because their eyes are steadfast on their why—their Kingdom work that demands unity.

This is the fundamental reason why an agenda is so important for your marriage. You and your spouse need to agree to a shared “why”. You also need to agree to the solutions to achieve it. Setting an agenda for your marriage in 2019 is a bold step to getting there. So, I hope that over the coming weeks that you both will sit down, reflect, and pray about each element of your agenda. I guarantee that it will change the dynamic of your relationship. 

In closing, I wanted to let you know that the Eusebeia Weekend Experience for Christian Couples is a wonderful activity to add to your marriage agenda for 2019. The date is set for October 17-20, 2019 at the Sheraton Town Center in Columbia, MD. You can register at eusebeia1000.com and click on Events.  

LYH128: 5 Steps to Storm-Proof Your Marriage

Show Agenda

  • Featured Presentation: 5 Steps to Storm-Proof Your Marriage

 

Transformational Experience / Resources:

 

In this episode, I discuss the following important topics:

  • How to decipher a storm watch from a storm warning in marriage
  • Why you have to look at your own motives
  • How to build trust reserves to last you through the storm
  • What happens to those with “shadow faith”
  • and, much much more.

 

Faith in Focus: “Saving Faith”

(James 2:14, NIV)

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?.

LYH127: 5 Reasons You Need a 5-Second Marriage

5 Reasons You Need a 5-Second Marriage

Show Agenda

  • Featured Presentation: 5 Reasons You Need a 5-Second Marriage

 

Transformational Experience / Resources:

 

In this episode, I discuss the following important topics:

  • How to discern God’s voice from the noise all around
  • Parallels between physical and spiritual hearing loss
  • What the prophet Samuel’s training as a young boy tells us about listening
  • The “Presence Principle”
  • The 5 reasons you need to embrace the idea of a 5-second marriage
  • and, much much more.

 

Faith in Focus: “The Whisper”

(1 Kings 19:11-12, NIV)

“The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”