The 2nd Axiom of Marriage: We All Have Baggage

     There is no truer saying in the world than “When you marry someone, you marry his/her whole family.”  It doesn’t matter if your family was close or distant, if you get together every holiday or rarely see each other, or even if you love your family to excess or want nothing to do with your family ever again.  Your family is a part of who you are.  The things you say, the things you do, the way you think, what you believe, the way you treat people, your emotional responses—it is all influenced in some way by family.

     The second axiom of marriage says—You have baggage and your spouse has baggage, and you both bring that into the marriage.  A person’s experience of family often sets a deeply ingrained “default” in how we experience relationships.  While a multitude of things can contribute to our behaviors, it is essential that you look at your family of origin because the environment you grew up in—the family structure that (at least subconsciously) taught you what it means to be family—is always at work in your life.  It is virtually impossible to fully escape the influence of your family of origin.

     So, whether you are contemplating marriage, or have been married for over fifty years, it is incredible important to understand and be honest about your perception of the family you came from because you will do one of two things.  Either you will repeat what you’ve experienced or you will rebel against what you’ve experienced; and either one of those responses can be good or bad depending on what you are repeating or rebelling against.  To improve your own marriage, you can rebel against a bad behavior you saw modeled by one of your parents.  By the same token, you can repeat a pattern that has left generations of marriages in your family dysfunctional.  You must choose what you will do, but if you want to choose a path to a healthy, godly marriage you must be honest about the “family baggage” you are bringing into your own marriage.

     And amazingly, when we look at our family of origin, two things happen (and sometimes, paradoxically, they happen simultaneously).  First, we believe that our family experience is normative.  And second, we believe that our experience is entirely unique and no one else has ever experienced what we experienced.  As ironic as it sounds, it is not uncommon for someone who grew up with parents who yelled all the time to expect that is how families communicate (whether he wants that for his own marriage or not).  But at the same time, he might still say, “You just don’t understand.  You can’t know what it was like growing up with him as a father!”  We believe our situations to be completely unique, but we often have no other context from which to interpret other relationships, including our own marriages.

     So how do we process this?  First, be receptive to your spouse’s input.  Your spouse can recognize patterns which originate from your family that you might not recognize yourself.  Assuming that your mate is motivated by God's love and not by selfishness, he or she can help you identify behaviors that need to be maintained and behaviors that need to be eliminated for your marriage to be healthy.  Second, understand how incredibly difficult it really is to change an ingrained behavior, so continually practice forgiveness and grace and humility with your mate.  And third, never forget that in Christ, God can still work through us in spite of our messed up families to fulfill his divine purpose.  Just look at how screwed up Abraham’s family was, yet he is “the father of the faithful,” or David’s family, yet he was still “a man after God’s own heart.”

     We all have baggage, and we all bring that into our marriages.  But, in Christ, you can become, not just settle to be; and wouldn’t that make for an increasingly better marriage.

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To see all of the 10 Axioms of Marriage, click here.

To see a more detailed explanation of the first axiom of marriage, “At its heart, marriage is a theological relationship,”click here.

The 1st Axiom of Marriage: It's All About God!

     Healthy marriage is not a sociological or psychological pursuit.  At its heart it is a theological relationship.  Let me say that again.  Healthy marriage is not a sociological or psychological pursuit.  At its heart it is a theological relationship.

     Certainly sociology and psychology play a part in marriage.  They play a part in every human relationship.  It is legitimate to ask questions like, “How should I proceed in this relationship?  How does this benefit me? How does it harm me? What is my spouse’s role in this?”  But ultimately psychology-based or sociology-based models for marriage are individual-centric pursuits that, if left unchecked, will eventually lead toward a destructive, self-centered existence.  The questions then are no longer about my personal well-being for the sake of the relationship as a whole, but rather my personal well-being for the sake of my personal gratification.  The god of “self” rears its ugly head and everything in the relationship becomes about pleasing me, even at the expense of my mate.  The shared covenant relationship of Christian marriage is replaced by a parasitic relationship that seeks to use and devour the other partner, eventually killing the relationship.

     But healthy marriage is at its heart a theological pursuit.  All that simply means is Christian marriage should be centered in God and lived out in a way that points other toward God.  Marriage defined by God has both purpose and boundaries that bless the couple.  In God, marriage is a shared ministry that moves a couple’s focus beyond selfish interests and leads them to seek ways to actively bless each other as they participate together in the Kingdom of God.  The exact shape that takes will certainly differ from couple to couple, and will likely change multiple times throughout a couple’s lifetime.  But the common element is a shared purpose that is centered in God, allows the couple to look outside of just themselves, and ultimately points the world back toward God.

     In Genesis 2, the man and the woman are described as “one flesh.” Obviously, we live in a post-Garden-of-Eden world.  The Edenic paradise no longer exists.  The isolation and brokenness of this world is ever-present in all of our relationships, including (and often especially) marriage.  But through Christ, God still calls couples to a covenant relationship between husband, wife, and God.  God still calls spouses to find a purpose greater than selfish personal gratification.  God still provides boundaries for healthy marriage.  Only in Christ can spouses find a holy covenant relationship rather than the relationship-destroying parasite of selfishness.  At its heart, healthy Christian marriage is always a theological relationship.

Safe Marriage

     Safety is essential for healthy relationships. You can't thrive in a marriage unless both partners feel safe. The 10 Axioms of Marriage is a starting point from which couples can build real safety.  An axiom, if you're not familiar with the term, is a foundational truth, a place to be safe, to grow, to find strong roots that can withstand a storm.  I believe that if couples commit to knowing and understanding these 10 axioms, it will bless their marriage relationships, help center their marriages in Christ, and help them to see marriage as a powerful calling in the Kingdom of God .  The 10 Axioms of Marriage are:

1. At its heart, marriage is a theological relationship.
2. You have baggage and your spouse has baggage, and you both bring that into the marriage.
3. Guard your heart and mind, because your perception will become your reality.
4. We all have an innate need to feel heard.  When you have a voice, you have value.
5. Without communication, a relationship will die.
6. Conflict is not abnormal and does not have to be destructive to a marriage.
7. Controlling a healthy environment (this is NOT the same as trying to control your mate) is the best way to manage conflict.
8. God created sex and sex is good, but it is only a part of a holistic intimacy that also involves emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, social intimacy, spiritual intimacy, and non-sexual forms of physical intimacy.
9. Your resources always flow to your priorities.  Where you spend your time and your money indicates where your priorities lie within a marriage.
10. In marriage, THINGS WILL CHANGE, and your relationship will be dependent on how you and your spouse navigate changes.

Which of these axioms do you most relate to?  Which are you and your spouse doing well with?  Which are you struggling with?

     No two marriages are exactly alike, and context always determines how these axioms are experienced and lived out in a covenant Christian marriage relationship.  But these axioms are the structural skeleton —a necessary starting point— for deeper conversation and understanding with your mate.

     Over the next few days, I will expand on The 10 Axioms of Marriage and give some context to those 10 statements, but I would be interested in hearing, what are the axioms by which you and your spouse live? And more importantly, is what you're currently living by the axioms you want to define your marriage?