Marriage is a marathon, not a sprint. It is a very long journey passing through a great many twists and turns. To make it to the end with love and joy intact you will almost certainly have to pass through each of the following marital crises.
The Crisis of Sin
Dating is all about seeing and loving the best in each other, and so it should be. Dating is about discovery and delight but marriage is about disclosure and reality. It doesn’t take too long together under the same roof and under the same covers before we discover the imperfections in our partner. It can be devastating to learn that your loved one is a sinner.
Mark this down: Your husband will sin. He will not live up to his own best intentions.
Note this: Your wife will sin. She will love you less than she should, and she will love other things more than is good for her or for your marriage.
You married a sinner. Now deal with it.
Don’t let the sin you should have known was there steal your joy or rob you of commitment.
The Bible is very clear: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 ESV). “All” have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
If that verse is true, and it is, then sooner or later you will discover that it accurately predicts the behavior of your loved one. He or she will sin. You will be disappointed. You will be hurt. But you can forgive.
Jesus said: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Before you are husband and wife, you are brother and sister in Christ. Your brother will sin. If he repents, you must forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, “I repent”, you must forgive him.
That verse is theoretically difficult when you are single; it is a full-blown crisis when you deal with it in your marriage.
Sin will come. You will face it in your marriage and to get past it, you must learn to forgive.
The Crisis Of Conflict
Dating is all about discovering and enjoying your commonalities and complementarity. You love how she gets your sense of humor, you like how he is good with the little details. This is as it should be, but marriage brings you inevitably into the realm of conflict.
There are no perfect people and there are no perfect matches—there are only marriages made out of two sinners at various stages of growth and rehabilitation. Therefore, there will be conflict. There will be places where sin rubs up against imperfection. There will be times when sin is exposed by new challenges, new deprivations and new responsibilities.
Don’t panic, and don’t beat each other up.
This isn’t proof that you married the wrong person. This is just proof that you aren’t a perfect person. You are in process, your partner is in process; therefore, conflict is inevitable.
Don’t let the conflict that you should have anticipated steal your faith or threaten your commitment. The Bible says that conflict can be a good thing: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:5–6 ESV) and “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”
The Bible is not conflict averse. It recognizes that conflict – in the context of a committed loving relationship – can serve to refine and sanctify both parties. Conflict reveals our hidden idols. James 4 says:
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
When we get angry at each other and when we yell and stamp our feet, we reveal the things we love too much. Perhaps it is our own dignity. Perhaps it is our possessions. Perhaps it is getting our own way. Perhaps it is our kids. Perhaps it is sex. Perhaps it is our career. Perhaps it is privacy.
One thing is for sure, if you live in close confines with another human for any length of time you will find out what it is. You will get angry. You will become irrationally upset and you will lose your temper. That can be a good thing. It tells you where the bodies are hidden and it shows you where to dig.
When conflict comes, and it will, work together to uncover and break down your hidden idols.
The Crisis of Children
Children are a blessing from the Lord, but they begin as a burden on the marriage. There is no way around that and there is no embarrassment in admitting that.
Children are a load.
They are very demanding. They require constant attention and they will not be ignored.
If you were selfish when you got married (and you almost certainly were), children will fix that in a hurry. You will be pushed to the curb of your marital world faster than you can say ‘dirty diaper’. That will be a crisis.
But you will recover.
