1  Why Trust This Guide?

Rebecca didn’t need a shrink. At least, she hoped not. She didn’t have the time nor the inclination to bare her soul, take stock of the mess it might reveal, and try to set a whole new course. No, Rebecca had breakfast to fix, a kid to feed and clothe, and her own outfit to choose. And she had a husband to love, care for, celebrate in their better moments, tolerate in their harder moments, and generally thank for sharing life. Rebecca couldn’t even tell exactly why she was thinking so much about her marriage, although she had some hints. She didn’t want to think any more deeply, though. She wasn’t going to go down that road of no return. She’d seen it too often. Rebecca just wanted a little encouragement, maybe a few practical tips and some clear-headed thought. No shrink, just life hacks, but for marriage. She laughed at the thought. Was there such a thing?!

Guidance

Sometimes, you just need guidance. Guidance differs from counseling or therapy. In guidance, you don’t put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and ruminate over your childhood’s emotional injuries, to unwind the embedded distortions of your soul. Doing so is all well and good. Learn from therapy and counseling. Unburden yourself of years of seeing the world the wrong way. Get to the root of your issues. See yourself and others more clearly. But for now, here, just look at some shorter-term realities, for a little help navigating some more-practical realities about marriage. You have a life to lead, of which marriage is or could be a very big part. You have decisions to make and routines to reshape. You have goals to set, conflicts to resolve, stress to manage, and joys to celebrate. That’s the nature of this guide. Sometimes the depth of the subject is right in front of you, not in the profound but in the mundane. Marriage. Let’s look at it together.

Practical

A guide for marriage should be practical in its view. In one respect, marriage requires working out not just the big things like children, careers, and household support but also every little detail, like who folds the laundry and empties the dishwasher. You learn about marriage not by grand theory but instead by looking closely at the ordinary realities of it. Indeed, looking closely at the ordinary, real, and practical things may be the way that we learn about anything, even profound things like the meaning of life. The great scientific discoveries are often not so much deduced from grand principles but revealed from minute accidents. Let’s look at the ordinary world of marriage together, including its minute accidents, to see what we can learn. Take as a theme of this guide that the small stresses and accidents of marriage come to us as gifts to reveal its deeper purpose and deepest meaning. 

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2  What Is Marriage?

About a year into her marriage, Darla made a startling realization: she didn’t really know what marriage is, or maybe what marriage is supposed to be. Darla knew alright what her marriage was, which was a surprisingly chaotic jumble of hopes, needs, joys, tensions, and challenges. But one day she finally realized that she hadn’t really ever grasped a deep sense of what a good marriage, proper marriage, or best possible marriage could or should be. And Darla suspected that until she discerned the answers, her marriage might remain a chaotic jumble, assuming that her marriage even remained. Darla took a deep breath, committing to study the meaning and purpose of marriage, while hoping that her husband would do so, too.

Definition

Some real thought about what marriage is may indeed reveal some helpful things to you. Gleaning a better understanding of marriage may improve or enrich your marriage, save your marriage, or, if you’re not yet married, maybe hint whether you should or shouldn’t marry. Don’t expect to nail down the perfect definition of marriage. Marriage, like the creation it represents, holds mysteries unimaginable. And no marriage is, in any case, perfect. You’ll have marriage regrets. Any frank assessment will remind you of some things you could do better if you did them over again, along with at least a few other things not to do again at all. But that’s the point of getting a sound basic sense of what a marriage is, to provide a foundation on which to build your marriage knowledge, skill, perseverance, and appreciation. Know what you’re doing in, for, and through a marriage, and you’ll at least have a good start. So, start with marriage’s definition. 

Decision

The question of what is marriage looms over every such union. Marriage begins with a commitment to marry. Spouses don’t stumble into marriages, like tripping over a curb, although at times it may seem like it. Instead, a marriage takes a decision, and presumably a wholly voluntary decision at that. Any marriage grounded on duress or coercion has a weak foundation if any foundation at all. Marriage is thus first and foremost a voluntary commitment grounded in a reasonably well-informed decision. And in that respect of involving a voluntary decision, marriage reflects its symbolic and sacred aspects. Creation fosters and sustains human life as an act of voluntary ritualistic participation. We have no choice but to proceed along paths that we choose because we participate in the rationality, or logos, that constitutes the world. Marriage is among the most fundamental of those choices or decisions. Think of your decision to marry, whether upcoming or in the recent or distant past, in that profound manner, and you’ll likely be treating your marriage well.

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3  Why Should I Marry?

Ben had met the perfect girl. Well, woman. They were both in their twenties, pretty much the same age. As he got to know her, the clear sense grew on Ben that he’d never meet another woman more suited for him to marry. Indeed, the idea loomed that if he didn’t soon propose to her, she’d wander off to marry another man, and he’d have lost his one perfect soulmate for life. Ben kept silently going down the checklist of everything he could ever hope for in a wife, and she met every one of his points, while adding a few more of her own to the list. And yet, something held Ben back, and he soon realized what it was: he had no real idea why he should marry, not just this girl, but anyone. 

Deciding

You can see from the prior chapter that deciding to marry is a necessary precondition to marriage itself. Marriage, after all, involves a voluntary decision to join another in holy matrimony. The ancient tradition in many cultures of the parents arranging the marriage of their children, with or without their consent, and with or without a third-party matchmaker, is rare in modern America, although still widespread elsewhere. Here, you get to decide, which means you don’t have to marry. You might get to marry, although you might not, depending on peculiar factors like the availability of a willing candidate and one’s own health, age, and mortality. We married two dating law students at my law school when one of them developed a fatal brain tumor. He died a month after the wedding, as they both expected. But marriage was that important to them. As long as you have breath and a willing candidate, you may get to decide to marry. Congratulations to you, if so.

Timing

The time to decide whether to marry is an issue in itself. Some of us make the decision to marry well before finding the candidate. You’ve probably known someone like that, perhaps looking forward to marrying even when still a child. Making an early decision to marry relieves the doubt and suspense, although both doubt and suspense may be an important part of the process. The time to decide whether to marry may not be until you’ve found the person whom you believe to be the right candidate. Until then, it’s only guesswork. The decision to marry and the decision of whom to marry may go best hand in hand. Deciding to marry without having a candidate available can be hard. Imagine going around for years having firmly decided to marry but not finding anyone suitable to whom to propose or likely to accept the proposal. But suddenly finding the perfect candidate to marry without having given any thought to marriage, or suddenly receiving an unexpected marriage proposal without any such prior thought on the subject, can leave one badly unprepared and confused. To at least know good reasons to marry or not to marry can help with navigating proposals or proposal opportunities. 

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4  Whom Should I Marry?

Nicky was on the horns of a true dilemma. Her longtime boyfriend had been talking about marriage lately. Nicky had tried, as gently as she could, to discourage the talk because she had no intention of marrying her boyfriend. And she was sure that he had understood her hints. Yet Nicky could see that he wasn’t ready to let the subject go. To Nicky, it appeared that her boyfriend either wanted to marry her or to move on. The strange thing was that Nicky understood why he might well feel that way. Her problem was that she didn’t feel that way at all, at least about him. As she thought more about it, Nicky realized that she had long wanted to marry, too, but just not to her boyfriend. She would have married him long ago if she’d considered him a candidate. But she didn’t, and she had no clear idea why not.

Whom

Whom one marries matters a lot to most of us, although not necessarily to everyone. Some are just going to marry, no matter what the circumstances and no matter whom. You might have known someone of that surprising disposition, where marrying was more important than finding the putative right spouse. Those marriages where both spouses just want to be married more than to be married to one another can work out reasonably well, at least for the short term and perhaps longer. They may not have strong personal preferences for or aversions about certain people or, for that matter, about anything, feeling instead that any flavor of ice cream is good as long as it’s ice cream. But most of us aren’t that neutral about things. Most of us have at one time or another had greater attraction to someone and greater aversion from someone else, even if the rest of humanity falls somewhere in between. Whom you marry should probably matter, and probably does matter, to you.

Compatibility

A common conception about marriage is that spouses should be compatible. You hear the comment about some couples, for instance, that they were made for one another. You know how some dogs fit their owner to a tee? Some married couples seem the same way, although with human partners, the fit isn’t necessarily physical appearance, such as height, weight, musculature, and hair texture or color. The fit may instead be in the spouses’ similar energy level, chattiness, moodiness, or other brightness, dimness, or peculiarity of the disposition. To say that a couple is well matched usually implies that they came from similar backgrounds, socioeconomic status, family structure, traditions, or other such molds. And compatibility of those sorts can make good sense. If every decision within a marriage involves a negotiation over customs, cultures, commitments, preferences, or values, then the spouses may have little patience and energy remaining to just enjoy one another. Compatibility, in all its potential dimensions, can count for something in choosing whom to marry. Give it some thought in your case.

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5  How Should I Marry?

The moment Victoria let her brand-new fiancé slip the engagement ring on her finger, she felt a rush of panic about the whole process of getting from where she precariously stood to the steadying domestic routines on the other side of the wedding. She wished she could skip the whole process in favor of the wedded bliss she anticipated on the other side. But later that night, when she was alone and had time to think, Victoria assessed her panic to take a healthier view. She knew that the next weeks and months were important in their own way. She even felt that how she handled this transition time might in the big picture have a significant influence on her marriage.

Process

Moving from deciding to marry and whom to marry, to being married, is definitely a process. That period of immense transition from single life to married life can and perhaps should be a highly elaborate process for many of us. The idea of let’s just get married has the allure of simplicity to it. The KISS design goal, referring to the well-worn mantra keep it simple, stupid, can be a helpful guide in the marriage process. First obsessing, and soon negatively emoting, over elaborate wedding plans can turn the joy, anticipation, and exhilaration one should feel about getting married into dread over the actual event. On the other hand, that whole traditional process from courtship and engagement to telling the parents, setting the wedding date, securing the venue, attending the bridal shower, and planning and going through with the happy event, inevitably plays a significant if not huge role in forming the marital relationship. At its best, the marriage process lays a solid foundation for the marriage itself. That’s a good way to view its purpose, not simply to get from here to there but to plant the footings for the marriage.

Eloping

Nothing highlights the significance of the process of marrying more than the phenomenon of eloping. To elope is to suddenly engage in a secretive marriage ceremony in a flight away from home, without the knowledge of family members. Traditionally, eloping was to escape from parents who would have forbidden marriage or from other circumstances that would have prevented it. Today, eloping, growing in popularity, may have more to do with avoiding the high cost and stress of elaborate weddings and their preparations. The opinions of parents mean less, but the costs and stresses mean more. So some couples just elope. But eloping, while keeping things simple, by definition eliminates both the preparations and the parental and other community involvement. Many marriages can benefit from both preparation and community celebration and support. Elope if you must or if you judge it plainly better. But you may find that some sensible limitations on preparations, especially a sensible wedding budget and a reasonable limit on the number of guests, will make the whole affair sufficiently manageable to reduce the stress, while preserving the benefits of the process. 

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6  How Do We Handle Education?

Sammy and his wife married when both were still undergraduates attending the same university. They knew instantly that they were made for one another, as soon as they met. Marrying as undergraduate students presented its challenges. But they met other friends who had also just married, making it easier to fit in. And both of them found part-time work, either on or off campus, from which they could earn just enough income even while they completed their studies. Before they both graduated, though, they had decided that Sammy should go on to graduate school for a better career trajectory. It looked like a long haul at first, but they both knew that they’d soon get there, into full adult life with a job, career, mortgage, and family.

Schooling

You’ve seen in a prior chapter that a couple’s relative education levels, and their near match, can affect the couple’s decision to marry. That is not necessarily to say that spouses choose one another for their education level. Similar education levels may instead mean similar interests, family background including socioeconomic status, values, and expected income, all of which may influence the decision to marry. A traditional pattern was for women to marry up in education, but that pattern no longer holds and may in fact have reversed. But again, the correlations may have less to do with education than with other factors. Schooling itself may not mean that much in the selection of one’s marriage partner. 

Inhibition

Couples also marry while still in school, before attaining their full education level. Indeed, one spouse or both spouses may go back to school after marrying, if both were already out of school and in the workforce. College or university attendance, though, has certain inhibitions against marriage. Marrying while in college may affect the available housing, food plans, grants, scholarships, and loans, not to mention the attention one can give to studies. Marrying while in some colleges also tends to go against the social scene and norms. The couple who marries in college may effectively remove themselves from their circle of friends and the social activities in which those friends prefer to engage. Marrying while in college may also require or encourage one or both spouses to take on part-time or even full-time work, to pay for married housing and expenses of the marital household. Marrying while in college may also complicate or limit the educational and career paths the spouses planned to pursue before marrying, and may require one or both spouses to change their plans as to where to relocate and settle down after college. Your marriage while still in school can face some special challenges. Expect to give one another greater support and attention than ever through married college years, as challenging as doing so may be. Things may be significantly more conducive to marriage after college graduation.

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7  How Do We Treat Parents?

Greg hadn’t expected the challenge that his in-laws represented. Oh, he got along fine with both his mother-in-law and father-in-law, each of whom seemed to genuinely like Greg. They treated him cordially and never told him what to do or not to do. Greg’s problem wasn’t with his in-laws directly but instead indirectly. His wife seemed to have all kinds of new issues managing her new relationship with her parents, now that Greg and she were married. Somehow, their marriage had changed his wife’s parental relationships, in ways that neither Greg nor she seemed to fully understand. Greg had to take a deep breath now and then about the whole issue, while silently praying that things would soon improve. 

Parents

Parental relationships change dramatically over the course of a life, even though in some ways they never completely change. Early in life, we depend completely on our parents. After a couple decades of gradually reducing our parental dependency, we finally emancipate, standing on our own two feet. Parents may still provide helpful support or counsel through one’s twenties. But once we marry, parental counsel and support may be more complicating than helpful, even construed as interference by the child’s new spouse. Yet soon, the roles and relationships may change again with the birth of grandchildren. The newly minted grandparents enter the family picture again to spoil, and if nearby perhaps to periodically care for, the grandchildren. Yet before long, the physical and mental decline of one’s elderly parents draws us back into a closer but very different parental relationship, the opposite of the parental relationship with which our lives began. These changes are natural and healthy, although not always easy to navigate.

Marriage

Notice and appreciate the central role of your marriage in these changes in parental relationships. In the years following high school graduation, one’s emancipation may be less than crystal clear. The high school graduate who goes off to college may still return to the parents’ home in summers and even after college graduation, until heading off again to a job or graduate school. The high school graduate who doesn’t attend college and instead goes straight into vocational training and the workforce may still remain at the parents’ home, while gaining a financial and vocational footing. Events like high school graduation, college enrollment, and even one’s first significant employment are thus not necessarily clear breaks with parental support, guidance, and relationship. Marriage, though, most certainly is that break. The biblical injunction to leave and cleave, referring to leaving parents and cleaving to one’s new spouse, comes directly into play. Your marriage changes your parental relationships.

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8  How Do We Manage Our Household?

They had finally fallen into something like a routine. Delia had expected a period of adjustment after their marriage. She just hadn’t expected it to take so long. Things she expected to do, her new husband did. Things she expected him to do, he didn’t do, and so she did. They’d discussed some of those routines, while other things they just adjusted to without bringing it up between them. They hadn’t argued, at least not much and not too unpleasantly. Delia finally felt that she could live with their arrangement, even if she still hoped that a couple of things would change over time. The only problem was that one or two pretty important things to get done in the household, neither one of them was doing. Delia figured it was time they addressed those things. She just hoped they wouldn’t argue.

Management

Households take management. As efficient as modern conveniences make things, households still just don’t run themselves. Indeed, the conveniences have their own management tasks. Having a modern HVAC system in the home, for instance, is a huge benefit, with instant warmth or cooling. But if you’re a homeowner, you know its maintenance tasks including changing the filters, cleaning the humidifier, arranging an annual or other periodic inspection, checking pilot lights, and listening for knocks and noises suggesting the need for swift repair. Add to the maintenance, repair, and replacement list the water heater, electrical panel, garage-door opener, lawnmower, lighting, kitchen appliances, garbage disposal, faucets, toilets, showerheads, wifi system, televisions, cable service, computers, cell phones, and motor vehicles. Living in the wilds might take far less management, even if far more brute effort. Add recreational items to the list of household management items, like bicycles, scooters, exercise equipment, trailers, campers, tents, grills, skis, canoes, kayaks, sailboats, and motorboats, and management gets even more time-consuming and complicated. Don’t underestimate the thought and time that household maintenance requires. Respect one another for all that each of you will inevitably do.

Division

When one lives alone, all the management naturally falls on you. You do it all, from taking out the garbage to balancing the checkbook. Yet when you marry, you have both the opportunity and the need to divide household management. Sure, some things you can share. Two can empty the dishwasher, either at the same time or whenever the first one notices that its dry cycle has ended. Two can sweep the porch, as soon as either one notices that it’s dirty. Yet some tasks go better with only one spouse in charge. Caring for the lawn might be an example. One spouse might have the fertilizer, mowing, weeding, and watering all planned and scheduled, indeed might have already done some of it. The other spouse’s intervention might spoil the plan, duplicating labor, spoiling the lawn, and creating conflict. Managing the day-to-day household budget might be a similar task better undertaken with one, not two, in primary charge. Grocery shopping can be the same way, with one, not two, managing the rhythm of filling the fridge and pantry. Discern what those I’ll handle it! tasks are, and respect the efficient division of marital labor. You’re stronger, faster, and better as a team. 

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9  How Do We Manage Finances?

Artie and his wife had long ago settled on a sound division of how they managed their marital finances. When they first married, neither one of them had any significant experience with managing finances. They barely knew what they were doing. But they had the great advantage of intuitively agreeing on their management principles. Without having even explored the subjects before their marriage, they quickly learned that they had similar attitudes about money, spending, and saving. And they gradually developed the management skill and experience they needed. They also soon settled on a division of their financial management labor. Artie tracked their balance sheet, studied trends, analyzed alternatives, investigated risk, recommended investments, and monitored investment accounts. His wife budgeted, made the daily, weekly, and monthly expenditures, and monitored and balanced the checkbook. Much to their security and satisfaction, their relative roles and aptitudes worked over the long term to stabilize and grow their finances until they were able to financially bless their family, church, school, and community.

Finances

Managing the marital household requires more than doing the laundry and grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, and taking out the garbage. Managing the marital household also requires managing the marriage’s finances. Someone must deposit the paychecks, keep the checkbook, and pay the bills. Better yet, someone should also keep track of the credit-card balances, school loan pay down, mortgage balance and interest rate, saving for an emergency fund and children’s education, and investment for retirement. One or the other spouse, or both of them, may at times spend substantial time and go to substantial trouble to manage and improve marital finances, while investigating and resolving financial issues. But even the routine of paying the monthly bills takes time and commitment. And having a steady and wise hand on the financial tiller, always on the lookout and ready to adjust, can make a huge difference to the course and quality of a marriage. Make the commitment to manage your marital finances, including learning finances and developing financial skills. Refer to the guide Help with Your Money for much greater detail on managing personal and household finances. That guide includes not only strategies, principles, and explanations, but also illustrations, forms, checklists, and commitments. 

Integration

As already mentioned in a prior chapter, marriage generally requires, or strongly advises in favor of, integrating each spouse’s personal finances into the marital finances. In some cases, one spouse may have such substantial debt or assets, or special business or professional risks and interests, that maintaining some separation of individual finances from marital finances might make sense. But gains or losses of one spouse or the other inevitably affects the marital finances, whether you treat your marital finances as joint or separate. Integrating the two spouses’ finances both recognizes that reality and can vastly simplify management. It can also draw the two spouses further together around their finances, as around other aspects of their marriage. Separate finances, by contrast, is an invitation to secretive transactions and other mischief. Don’t keep separate finances, unless you must. Generally, putting all paychecks into marital accounts and paying all bills out of marital accounts is the wiser course from financial and relational perspectives. Your marital household is a single unit. Treat it that way financially.

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10  How Do We Care for One Another?

Melody was satisfied with her marriage, even pleased or delighted, except for one curious aspect. As sound, solid, and of good character as her husband was, including a good provider, wise, strong, and sufficiently aware or even sensitive, Melody did not know that her husband really cared about her. It was the oddest conclusion, she silently admitted to herself, because she could barely name anything objective in his behavior, anything that she could point out to him if she had shared her sense with him and he had called her on it. Yet that’s the way Melody felt, and she couldn’t get rid of the feeling. Indeed, she was pretty sure that her husband just didn’t really think of and care about her. She was instead just there, like a household fixture. And she didn’t like it.

Care

Care for one another within the marriage is non-negotiable. Care goes without saying, without compromise, without question. As the above illustration suggests, care might begin with providing for, serving, and respecting one’s spouse. But care doesn’t end there, not nearly. The care that a marriage demands and requires goes much deeper than obvious basics, like a roof over the head and food on the table. It even goes much deeper than a broad collection of smaller objective particulars, like a mown lawn, serviceable motor vehicle, adequate health insurance, and well-cooked meal or two daily. Marital care goes farther even than maintaining one’s own freshly cut or coiffed hair, trimmed beard or nails, neatly pressed clothes, ideal weight, and pleasant smile and conversation, for your spouse’s enjoyment. Marital care reaches toward something deeper, maybe something more fierce, fresh, and essential to forming and sustaining the sacred union that marriage is. 

Perception

Again as the above illustration suggests, a spouse may well sense when the other spouse doesn’t deeply care, if the perceiving spouse has the courage to even examine the issue. It may sometimes be better not to do so. Your spouse may not be ready or able to show care for you in the season or at the moment, making broaching or forcing the issue counterproductive. Assess your spouse’s physical, mental, and emotional state, and other circumstances, for explanations. Your spouse’s illness, injury, disability, lost job, or dispute with a parent, sibling, or friend may more likely be the cause rather than anything personal about or with you. The perception that a spouse doesn’t care, though, can easily grow if your spouse appears to care more for and about others, either when away from you or around you. The point here, though, is to be cautious about making judgments, especially judgments that attribute feelings or lack of feelings to your spouse. You only know your own true thoughts and feelings, not necessarily those of your spouse. 

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11  How Do We Handle Conflict?

As hard as it was, Wilma couldn’t break the pattern. She and her new husband had fallen into an increasingly desperate cycle of arguments, one every few days, one after another. They each seemed to instigate the arguments, almost as if they needed them, although neither wanted to argue, and both deeply regretted the arguments. Their mutual regret was heavy because in the thick of the arguments they would each say things they didn’t mean or believe. They soon made up after most of the arguments, although in a few instances the hard feelings lingered for days. Their strife made things so much harder than they needed to be because otherwise they seemed to be doing well. How could they stop? Or was this cycle something through which they had to go?

Arguing

Married couples argue. The arguments of married couples are, from the outside, the strangest phenomena. Here, after all, are two people as closely committed to one another as you could possibly get, with mutual interests as closely entwined as you could possibly arrange, and generally with as fierce a desire to honor and uplift one another as you could possibly implant. And yet, argue couples do. Married couples may argue with one another more often and fiercely than they would argue with anyone else, whether parents, friends, strangers, or enemies. And the cycle of arguments can be hard to break, nearly as if the capacity to argue is woven so deeply in the human character that spouses must at points express it. Can a fish live out of water? Can a tiger lose its stripes? Understanding arguments, avoiding or at least minimizing arguments, setting boundaries on the conduct of arguments when they occur, and recovering from arguments are all things many married couples must soon learn.

Causes

The causes of marital arguments may matter. If you can identify and address causes, you may be able to address and avoid the arguments. Arguments can have both internal and external causes, referring to both behavioral or situational triggers on the one hand and psychological or spiritual grounds on the other hand. A prior chapter mentioned one of the common external causes of arguments for many couples, which is money. Who spent how much on what item and for what reason can trigger an argument. But arguments can have nearly any external cause. Examples include how one spouse treated the other during a social event, the attention one spouse gives to someone else that the spouse does not give to the other spouse, whether one spouse remembered to do a chore or errand the other spouse requested, and how one spouse spends time when the other spouse feels time better spent another way. Internal causes may be harder to discern and describe but could include feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, lack of appreciation or attention, repetition of parental marital patterns, and repeated working out of insecurities and issues embedded since childhood. Mental disorders like post-traumatic stress, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder can certainly contribute, making the causes of argument terribly complex.

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12  How Do We Mesh Our Careers?

Danielle and her husband had begun their marriage working together. Before long, though, Danielle had moved to another employer, where she expected greater opportunity for advancement. Her husband had stayed behind, soldiering on in his original employment. Danielle, though, didn’t find the advancement in her new job that she had sought. Indeed, the opposite happened: Danielle gradually took less interest in her job and career, and more interest in the marital household. She hadn’t planned to do so. She still thought of herself as a career woman with abundant dreams and strong ambition. But Danielle also sensed that she might be wanting a different kind of career, one that had more to do with making a household than with earning a living by holding a job.

Careers

A job is one thing, a career another thing. A job earns a livelihood. A career is an arc of jobs and roles that covers all or a significant part of the course of a life. Work, whether inside or outside of the home, and whether in business, government, education, nonprofits, social services, or household services, is such a big part of life that married couples must navigate careers together, in coordination or collaboration, more than separately. What one spouse does in the way of a career can affect what the other spouse may do, can do, need not do, should probably not do, or must not do as a result. Marital households have needs for both household support and household services, both of which increase substantially with the birth or adoption of children. The better marriages find synergies by coordinating the careers of spouses. Expect to give real thought and attention to how you and your spouse coordinate your respective careers, whatever those careers may earn, provide, or entail.

Turns

One way to approach dual employment or business careers of two spouses is to ensure that each spouse has an adequate period of marital support and commitment to pursue the spouse’s career for the benefit of both spouses. Coordination may, in other words, require or recommend taking turns. One spouse may, for instance, work at a non-career job while the other spouse completes education for a career position. On graduation and employment, though, the career spouse may forgo additional training or advancement while the other spouse pursues career education. Alternatively, one spouse may remain for a time in a dead-end job simply to keep the household financially afloat, while the other spouse starts a business, engages in a charitable cause, or pursues a similar career-related dream. When that spouse has created a profit-making business, has met the charitable cause, or satisfies the dream, the other spouse may then leave the dead-end job, taking the time and forgoing the earnings to find, qualify for, and gain a career position. Back and forth the opportunities may go, while each spouse supports, appreciates, and encourages the other.

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13  What About Having Children?

Randall hadn’t any thoughts either way about children when he and his wife first married. He was only thinking about marriage, not much beyond such as to children. And his wife seemed to have the same thoughts or lack of thoughts about children. They were both content to marry and enjoy one another. After a few years, though, Randall had a growing desire to have children. But each time he gently broached the subject with his wife, her response was disinterest. As time wore on and his desire for children grew, Randall found himself beginning to press the issue, still gently, but still without a clear response and certainly not an affirmative response. Randall finally reached the point where he had a heart-to-heart talk with his wife about his desire to have children. And much to Randall’s surprise and relief, his wife consented, if not wholeheartedly agreed.

Decision

Married couples today generally treat the question of having children as a choice, meaning a decision to make one way or the other. Next to the decision to marry itself, the decision to have children may be the next biggest life decision one makes, nearly as big as the choice to marry. The decision to have children, like the decision to marry, is generally also a joint decision. It takes two to tango, both in marriage and in the conception of a child. If one or the other refuses to marry, then no marriage will take place. If one or the other refuses to have children, then the married couple will not produce children, unless one deceives the other or their joint or individual efforts not to conceive fail. The decision to have children generally requires agreement, with either spouse having a mostly effective veto power. In their consideration of whether to have children, spouses do well to begin by recognizing this starting point of mutual influence, mutual consent, individual veto, and mutual voluntary agreement.

Effects

That the decision whether to have children within a marriage is largely and generally voluntary and mutual, with individual veto power, can affect the marriage itself. The question of whether to have children isn’t simply yes or no, and leave it there, like whether to buy a home or rent, or whether to buy a second vehicle or continue to share. If one spouse badly wants children, and the other spouse determinedly doesn’t, then the failure to agree can affect the marriage. The spouse whose preference doesn’t prevail may remain unhappy and even grow bitter. And so, a spouse who doesn’t want children may have children anyway to avoid damaging the marriage, and vice versa that a spouse who does want children might forgo them for the same reason. The question may then become which spouse can best persist in the marriage after having relented to a decision about children, yes or no either way, contrary to that spouse’s preferences. If the spouses share unequal convictions, then for the good of the marriage the one with the stronger convictions may well prevail. Spouses probably make many decisions that way, even such mundane choices as what to have or where to go for dinner, except that the decision whether to have children dwarfs just about any other decision a married couple may make. 

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14  How Do We Raise Our Children?

At times, Ken felt as if their kids were in complete charge of everything that happened in their household. Initially, Ken felt that he and his wife had done a good job of raising their three children. They had certainly provided everything that their children needed. But in time, the kids just took over. Ken and his wife seemed almost to disappear from the household, other than to provide the household goods and services, to which their kids didn’t contribute. Ken wasn’t even sure that their kids appreciated all that he and his wife did for them. Maybe it was just a passing season, Ken figured. He just hoped that they hadn’t raised their kids wrong somehow. Ken resolved to ask his wife if she thought that their kids would turn out alright. He didn’t mind in the least doing everything for them. He just didn’t want to spoil them and in so doing ruin their lives.

Parenting

From the moment the first child arrives, and subsequent children renew the grand cycle, married couples assume their greatest responsibility of all, which, along with caring for one another, is to parent their children. Conception is brief, and maternity and delivery is a season, but parenting lasts a lifetime. The joys, challenges, duties, and opportunities change over the course of parenting, and the parent and child roles change with them, even switching. But parenting never really ends. Even when the kids are all out of the household for good, earning their own keep, and married, and the parental duties cease, one never quite stops wondering how one did as a parent, especially with every challenge one’s adult child faces and every stumble one’s adult child makes. Find an adult child repeatedly exhibiting a distinct character flaw or, worse, falling into a cycle of addiction, hospitalization, incarceration, and despair, and a parent suffers with the child. Most of us would far rather fail at a job and career, and even to make a mess of our own lives, than fail in raising children and to see them suffer as a consequence. In your marriage, give due attention to your joint parenting. Not only your children but also you, your spouse, and your marriage will suffer if you don’t.

Caring

Parenting begins with caring for one’s children. Bringing your baby home from the hospital makes that critical role instantly evident. You and your spouse are suddenly wholly and solely responsible for your child’s survival, which to the first-time parent in that moment can seem largely in question. If you and your spouse are not a well-coordinated and close-knit team before your first child, you will be after your first child arrives home with you from the hospital. No matter what the prior marital lifestyle looked like and how the two of you functioned together, in that moment everything in and around the marital household will turn on keeping that precious little infant alive. Better yet if your baby is reasonably comfortable, content, and peaceful, or you’ll both pay a steep price in the hours of wailing and in the long, sleepless nights. The first days, weeks, and months of caring for a newborn infant may bring much wonder and some bliss, but that time will also challenge, test, rearrange, and reorder a marriage like nothing else could. And while the child’s needs change dramatically over the course of the first few years, with the fantastic growth in their capability, caring for a child continues to shape and reshape the marriage at least until the child leaves a couple of decades later. 

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15  How Do We Share Our Time?

The years had passed quickly for Norma, filled with the challenges, joys, and general busyness of having a marriage, children, and household to manage. Her husband had been great through it all, maybe even more dedicated and reliable than she had been, Norma had to admit. They had made a great team together, Norma was sure. The only thing of which she was not so sure was whether they had adequately treasured their time together. Was it just that they had been too busy to make more time for one another and to give one another more energy? Or had they missed something in their marriage, like giving it too low of a priority, beneath the general duties of a household and maintaining the appearance of its normalcy? Norma wasn’t sure. But now that the children were gone, Norma was ready to make some changes to prioritize their marriage. She only hoped her husband was ready to do the same and that the changes they made would bring them closer together.

Time

The subject of time is a good way to look deep into the quality of a marriage and how each spouse perceives that quality. You’ll hear spouses question themselves and one another as to whether they spend time together, spend enough time together, spend quality time together, and enjoy or like spending time together. Try asking your spouse those questions, and you’ll see how your spouse’s answers and your reaction to them reveal underlying currents, feelings, expectations, and aspirations within your marital relationship. You and your spouse may, for instance, spend abundant quality time together, every spare minute outside of essential work or childcare duties. Yet you or your spouse may still express that you don’t spend enough quality time together. If that’s your spouse’s response, don’t take umbrage, argue the contrary facts, or cry in exasperation over what else you could possibly do. Instead, construe your spouse’s response as an abiding passion for you and your marriage together. Express the same attitude that more time would still not be enough, for time with your spouse should in a perfect world stand absolutely still.

Structure

That curious expression about time, that one occasionally wishes that it would stand still, reveals something helpful to know about time’s place in the cosmic structure. The material world, including you, your spouse, and your physical presence together in or outside of your marital household, is solid, perceptible, and in that sense stable. That’s why you and your spouse had wedding photographs taken, to freeze the moment for posterity so that you could reach back to hearten one another with it at any time. Time, though, is the material world’s invisible and mysterious change agent. Indeed, time may not in any independent sense even exist, but for the changes in the material world that occur, well, over time. Time is, in other words, only a way of expressing the material world’s instability and its tendency to constantly and episodically change. Eliminate the concept of time, and you’d simply think of time as change. If things never changed, time would indeed stand still, which is to mean that time would not exist. Looking at time in that sense of its place as a change agent in the cosmic structure helps reveal why spouses want time together. Spouses want each other, unchanged, continually, eternally. Spouses know that time carries the risk of losing one another, which is why they make time a marital issue. 

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16  How Do We Retire Together?

The time had finally come after forty, nearly fifty, years of marriage. Carl had retired, joining his wife at home where they hoped to live out many more years of wedded bliss together without the burden or distraction of work. While some couples their age had grand plans for retirement, like ‘round-the-world tours or long cruises overseas, Carl and his wife only had the ambition to enjoy one another more often, regularly, and deeply than they had when raising their two children and completing a career that paid their debts and funded their retirement. Carl was confident that he and his wife would indeed enjoy one another, in whatever new marital routines they found. He only hoped that they would have some years in good health to establish and refine those new retirement routines.

Retirement

Long life is a blessing and privilege, certainly no guarantee. A long marriage is likewise a blessing and privilege, and no guarantee. With a long, married life comes the prospect for retirement years together. Retirement years are likewise a blessing and privilege, and no guarantee. Even if a married couple lives long together, they may not have the means or opportunity to retire. Grandchildren without able parents may demand their labors, to raise them as if they were the elderly couple’s own children. Or the elderly couple may simply need the earned income to maintain their marital household and provide for one another, whether due to prior financial reversals or later extraordinary expenses, including financially ruinous but medically necessary expenses. Retirement, if you and your spouse get there, is a special privilege, one to which spouses should look forward and for which they should plan, while not considering retirement a guarantee.

Definition

Retirement doesn’t look the same or even similar for every married couple. In general, retirement means the voluntary cessation of full-time work earning an income, having reasonably satisfied present and future financial needs. One or the other spouse may stop working, while the other continues, in which case the couple hasn’t retired, although one spouse has. The spouse no longer working will have new and relaxed routines, but the marital rhythms will still circulate around the schedule and energies the other spouse’s continuing work demands, as that spouse working full time meets the last few retirement funding requirements and interests. Only when both spouses voluntarily cease full-time employment, having met present and future financial needs, does the married couple enjoy their first opportunity to fully restructure their marital schedule and activities around one another rather than the employment of either or both spouses. 

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17  How Do We Love Grandchildren?

Wendy had so looked forward to having grandchildren that she felt her two adult daughters must have grown tired of her hints and pleading. But before long, they were both pregnant and had brought Wendy and her husband their first grandchildren. With one daughter living in town, and the other daughter not far away, Wendy had expected to be deeply involved in her grandchildren’s lives. Yet after a good start with both of them, Wendy felt that things had changed. Neither of her daughters or their husbands had said anything to her. But Wendy had just not felt right about spending so much time in her daughters’ homes with their precious little babies. Wendy hoped that things would change in time, but she had to admit that she was deeply disappointed.

Generations

When a young couple first marries, they may be the grandchildren, the youngest generation in their respective families, with their parents and grandparents still living. When the young couple has their own children, they become the middle generation, with parents above them and their children below them. When their children have children, the couple becomes the senior generation. Each generation, from the youngest to the middle and then the senior, brings to a married couple its own challenges, opportunities, expectations, responsibilities, and privileges. In the youngest generation, the couple has few resources other than the hope and energy of youth, but also few expectations other than to soon beget the next generation. In the middle or sandwich generation, the couple has both resources and energy, but also responsibility to care for the younger and senior generation. Yet once ascending to the senior generation with the birth of grandchildren, the couple has resources, little energy, and no responsibility other than for their own care. The generation the couple occupies colors the whole character of the marriage.

Children

Grandchildren definitely bring a new season for a married couple, indeed a new stage in married life. Yes, having grandchildren generally means that you’re older, wiser, and richer, but increasingly less vital, energetic and capable. Yet setting those conditions aside, grandchildren instantly change a married couple’s relationship with their adult children, particularly the child who bore the grandchild. Your child is no longer just a child but also a parent, with all of the responsibilities, authority, and privileges of parenthood. If you and your spouse had still regarded and treated your adult child as childlike, with the birth of the grandchild, that treatment must end. Your adult child needs and deserves the respect owed a parent, not the condescension sometimes accorded a child. Some of us have a harder time affording our children the respect owed a parent because we’ve only known them as a child. But make the adjustment and show the due respect, or you and your spouse may have a more-difficult relationship with your child and uncertain access to your grandchild. Indeed, quickly learn to treat your child like a fellow parent, not just a child.

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18  How Do We Handle Disability?

Don hadn’t expected his wife to lose her ability to walk so quickly. The degenerative nerve condition from which she suffered came on so fast that neither were prepared for it. Don had never given much thought to the chance of his wife’s disability, although he had insured through his employment for his own disability. His wife’s disability hit Don, his wife, and their marriage like the proverbial ton of bricks. Don found that having his wife suddenly bound to a wheelchair to move around had turned their entire life upside down, from where and how they lived, how they cared for one another, and even when and whether Don worked. The change in their lives and marriage was so swift and complete that they each reeled from it. And their marriage reeled with them.

Definition

Spouses have their physical and mental ups and downs through the course of a long marriage. At any one time, one spouse or the other may be sick with a flu bug or other condition, physically ailing from a nagging condition or injury, or mentally out of it due to some physiological, hormonal, or circumstantial cause. But in the usual case, the spouse functioning at a slowed pace or barely at all soon recovers, to the relief of the healthy spouse who had been caring and concerned for the ailing spouse, while carrying the full burden of maintaining the marital household. Spouses help one another get through short-term illnesses, recover from them, and maintain the marital household in the interim. Disability, though, involves a spouse’s incapability to function in the usual marital role for a period long enough to require both spouses to adjust to the incapacity with a long-term change in circumstances and roles. A spousal illness, you soon both get through. With a spouse’s disability, you soon both take on adjusted roles.

Onset

As the above story illustrates, the onset of a spouse’s disability can have a lot to do with how well or poorly the marital couple copes with the disability. Spouses can see some disabilities coming from a long distance away. You and your spouse may have months or even years to plan for the anticipated disability from a slow-moving neurological condition, slowly progressing diabetes or heart disease, and other disabling conditions. Prayer and treatment in the meantime may extend that period of full or nearly full ability, or may even prevent it. But the long notice gives the couple time to prepare. Other disabilities come on quickly, within just weeks or even days. And some disabilities give no notice at all, such as disability from an auto accident, workplace accident, heart attack or stroke, or home fall down stairs. Generally, the quicker the onset, the greater the upset, and the harder the couple will find it to plan, prepare, adjust, and manage. Stay on the lookout for approaching disability. Don’t stick your head in the sand. If you can see disability coming, for either you or your spouse, give diligent study and preparation to ease the transition and provide for the necessary support and care.

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19  How Do We Navigate Passing?

Candace sat at her husband’s bedside, watching his measured breath as he slept or endured whatever unresponsive state he was right then in. Sometimes, he awoke and opened his eyes, but only for a brief moment, and not of clarity but of confusion or even panic. In those moments, he seemed not to hear Candace’s reassuring words or feel her squeeze of his hand. But thankfully, he would soon close his eyes again, to sink back down in the nursing home’s bed. After each of these brief troubling but also somehow precious and important moments, Candace would take a deep breath of both thanks and relief, and herself close her eyes for prayer. Soon, very soon the nurses said, her husband would pass. Candace wondered whether that moment, too, would be a precious mix of trouble, distress, and relief.

Passing

Helping one another navigate the final journey of passing is the last act of love and care married couples share. Giving due attention together to that process of passing can help one another maintain the greatest possible degree of comfort, peace, security, and assurance, while avoiding fear, confusion, and chaos. Think of the process of helping one another toward and through demise as the last and greatest act of love and greatest witness to the beauty, tenderness, strength, and devotion of your marriage. Help one another navigate passing in grace, poise, and confidence, and you will immeasurably bless not only your spouse but also your children and grandchildren, while reassuring your community. The confident, orderly, and celebratory passing of you and your spouse is the capstone to the broader legacy that you leave as a married couple.

Planning

The earliest part of the process of a married couple’s passing involves estate planning. An estate is an artificial construct providing for the identification, management, and distribution of the decedent’s accumulated interests, according to the decedent’s instructions, if any, and according to state law if none. You and your spouse have the opportunity, and in some respects the expectation and even obligation, of planning for how your adult children or others manage and distribute the property you leave behind. If you and your spouse hold any significant property interests, you and your spouse should together form an estate plan, including retaining an estate planning attorney to prepare the necessary documents. You and your spouse should put at least a preliminary estate plan in place as soon as you acquire any significant property or have children, for whose guardianship while still minors your estate plan would provide. Don’t wait to put an estate plan in place until you or your spouse have a terminal illness. Start with a simple plan in your thirties or forties, refine the plan in your fifties and sixties, and ensure the plan’s appropriateness in your seventies or eighties if you have the good fortune to live that long. Revisit the plan with any significant change in family relationships such as the passing of your spouse, divorce, remarriage, or the birth or death of children or grandchildren.

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20  Should I Remarry?

Since her marriage, indeed since her engagement, Denise had never given a thought to being married to anyone else besides her husband... until shortly after he died. When he mercifully passed after a sudden and painful illness, far earlier than either of them had expected and far too suddenly in her own selfish view, Denise still hadn’t given a thought to remarriage, until she started to notice other unmarried men, either widowed like her or divorced, her own age. Or perhaps it was that other men her age were noticing her and signaling to her their interest in dating. Denise surprised and in some ways disappointed herself when she discovered that she was taking a return interest in one of them. She still had no idea, though, how to go about deciding whether to remarry.

Deciding

Whether to remarry is a deeply personal decision for the widowed or divorced individual. How, indeed, do surviving spouses, or for that matter those who have recently divorced, go about deciding whether to remarry? Somehow, the thought that one might have had when young of finding the one person on the planet made for you in marriage no longer makes much sense. That person either died or divorced, leaving their presumed perfect companion behind and alone. Does the creator make two such persons, in case of the demise or disappearance of the first of them? The thought doesn’t seem to hold much to it. While a first marriage may seem profoundly intuitive, divine, and romantic, a second marriage, especially one much later in life, can instead have a ring of practicality to it. The scriptures clearly sanction remarriage after death and may sanction remarriage after divorce due to adultery or abandonment. And scripture also gives an air of practicality to the marriage of singles who cannot control their desires. Remarriage after a beloved and irreplaceable spouse’s death may indeed be more a matter of practicalities, like relieving loneliness and ensuring greater care and support, than finding a second love of one’s life somewhere deep in the call of one’s heart. You be the judge, while discerning the heart and desire of your beloved maker.

Advice

Surviving or divorced spouses may of course get sound advice about remarriage from pastors, grief counselors, psychologists, therapists, family members, and friends. Consulting professionals can confirm sound thoughts, bring fresh perspective, and correct misimpressions. Consulting family members and friends can do the same but may also alert, for better or worse, your social network of your potential availability as a marriage or dating partner. Don’t spread the thought of remarriage around your network of acquaintances if remarriage is not your desire. Having others gossip and speculate, and facing dating overtures or even marriage talk and proposals, may cause you substantial emotional turbulence or distress. Keep it to yourself, and deny all interest, if you need to grieve your spouse’s passing without the burden of others speculating about your potential remarriage. One season at a time. 

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