No Love in Marriage

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My fourth month marriage anniversary has arrived, and there are already commitments that shaped and continue to shape my own heart.  It is an amazing ride, being Christian with a wife, who shares the same belief, goal, and purpose, makes life beautiful.  The more I live in the union, the more I see the culture differences.  For example, why won't we see love in marriage? Don't get me wrong, there is love in marriage but that's not something we see advertised or talked about everyday; what I am trying to say, love, most of the time promoted, advertised in songs, movies between two people but almost never in the context of marriage.  It is interesting, have sex, date someone, you were made for happiness, just not in marriage—no wonder why there are too many broken lives as people age.

In one of my English classes, we talked about atmosphere that helps us be successful. I raised my hand, and said: my wife. She creates a beautiful atmosphere for me to be in college, this gives me a stimuli to live.  I feel loved by this person everyday.  Gently the subject was changed from marriage to just a close friend.  I can understand why most people have a hard time talking about marriage, most the people that sat there went through pain, it wasn't a pleasant experience for them.  That class was filled of people that went through divorced, some never married however lived with another person. When people hear the word marriage, right away what ever life experience they had comes to mind, most of the time, it's not a good one.  Marriage is often associated with hate, depression, fight, money loss, no contact with their children, constant battle, and a place where they don't experience love but anger and frustration.  But do Christian marriages have the same experience?

I've noticed that there are three central convictions to make and do: constantly grow in your relationship with your wife, serve her in every way you can even if you don't feel like, and have a purpose that both of you will live for.

Growing in Relationship
Love can't be without relationship. Most of relationships start with a romantic pursue, a guy expresses his feeling towards a girl, with flowers, walk on the bay, restaurant meals. Bussy text messages with every other word "I Love U." It is a wonderful feeling to have when some you love, loves you back. You can express your feels back and forth with cute ideas using pretty much everything, except in this stage, there are no physical contact. This is the moment where both of the people have big dreams and plans as they show their feelings toward each other. All this, I noticed, changes when I've took the new title: a husband.  For some reason, when people step into this new door called marriage, suddenly those flowers that she received every other day, turned into every other month, then every other year. The text message, "I love U," doesn't appear that often as it did before.  The eyes that had a spark, extinguished.  Why do we see wife's reproach their husband as they are not romantic anymore?  Yes, it is because their relationship had decreased instead of increased.

I've noticed communication makes relationship work.  Why don't we see relationship between two people that have different languages? Communication is broken.  It is possible when there is another language connects them.  To say, "I need water," to someone who has no idea what you are trying to say, is useless.  We turn to hand gestures, but hang gestures are limited to what you can express. What marriage is missing most of the time is communication. Communicate how you feel, communicate what you what, desire, think. Often we hear the phrase, "he doesn't understands me," or "she doesn't hear what I am trying to say," "he doesn't care."  Words that typically spoken out of anger.  But all of this targeting bad communication.

Growing in Servanthood
We all agree that love is giving.  To some point we were trained from our childhood that when someone gives you something, they love you.  Christmas presents is a perfect example, parents buys gifts and with those gifts they express their love to their children.  But growing in the atmosphere when the person most of the time ends up on the end of the receiving, will create a selfish person, this person can perfect in selfishness. Yes, part of love is receiving, but the bigger part is giving.  It is difficult when you come home, tired, a though goes through your mind, I'll get some rest, but that's not the case most of the time.  True love is when we seek the good of the person who is next to us, even when we don't feel like.  I don't know about you, but when I hear someone say that husbands need to rule the house, they are talking about the iron fist.  When I was approaching marriage, I heard numerous comments about husbands are the head of the family defining that they needs to take leadership as the commander, but only few that talked about servanthood.  No wonder most of the families are broken or struggling, the iron fist is braking the bond.

Married with a Purpose
The third area that had shaped and still shaping my life, is that marriage needs to have a purpose.  Marriage most of the time associated with sexual relationship.  A young man, who is growing up, experiences physical pressure towards sexuality, marriage becomes a solution.  “'It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.' But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (1 Corinthians 7:1-2).  But that's to a command to those who are not married, but what's the purpose to those who are married?  God did designed marriage that has bigger purpose then just to stay sexual pure, it is to pursue a sophisticated relationship with Him.  I believe that if a couples don't have a healthy relationship with God, then they will not have a healthy relationship among each other.  God defines the purpose for marriage and when that is honored, marriage makes more sense then just two people living together.  Purpose that flows directly for the scripture, not my others understanding, the purpose is to understand God through marriage—Christ and the church.

Marriage is a wonderful thing, but it can all be destroyed by just two selfish or ignorant people.  I noticed that if my marriage is struggling, then ignorance or selfishness represents my life.  It is not my wife, it is me who needs to change.  To live with a person who is beautiful in character and body, is to live with a person who uplifts communication, servanthood, and purposeful marriage.