What "WE" Want

The Oxymoron of Heart Postures and Desires in Marriage

“I want a partner that meets me 50/50 in this thing, you know, one that meets me half way. She needs to sacrifice as much as I am.” Does this sound familiar to you? As a marriage coach, it sounds incredibly familiar to me. I hear it quite often in my work with couples. However, this is one of the many reasons why we work predominantly with married couples. Why? Because the standard, expectation, and call of a man in marriage is vastly different from that of a man outside of marriage who’s simply in a relationship.

Although I’ve worked with couples outside of marriage, here’s the thing; if I heard that phrase above from a man outside of marriage (and I have), I cannot hold him to the standard of what scripture describes a bridegroom should live up to. The biggest reason being that he has not chosen to make an eternal vow before God and man about what he will and won’t do. He has not given his voice and his heart to what God demands of us within marriage. So I would expect that man to have that exact mentality of expectation or entitlement when it comes to what he wants from the relationship. But to turn the paradigm on its head for a moment, that’s also what men within marriage can tend to say if not reoriented with scripture’s calling of the role of “husband”.

Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her,”

That verse, that standard, is weighty! It’s as Christ also loved the church, how did he do that? He sacrificed himself and gave himself up. That means he fully surrendered and served her, that’s 100% to our brides, men! That means we don’t get to have an “I want” mentality, or an “I demand” mentality, or even to hold the place of communicating or crying out for what we get out of it. The standard and call is to lay ourselves down completely. Does that feel uncomfortable? It should. It’s in contradiction to how our flesh operates, how our needs operate, or how we expect marriage should go. It’s hard to adopt the mindset of serving and surrendering first and foremost. And yet, this is the call of our lives within scripture and its guidelines as husbands.

Now stick with me gents, I’m not gonna leave you hanging. Both women and men, inside and outside of marriage, have this mindset and expectation. If you ask most people why they want to get married you’ll often hear, “Because I want…..” and then they complete that sentence with an unlimited list of expectations or desires within marriage. Almost all of them self-seeking or fulfilling. When have you ever heard, “I want to get married because I want to lay my life down and serve completely and utterly without question despite how hard to trying it might be”? Probably never.

And yet, in so much of that work I facilitate with couples, it’s each side fighting for what they want, what they don’t have, or what they aren’t getting. They argue for their side, for their desires being more important than their spouses, or for their way of doing something to be the utmost and correct way to do it. I see this in couples regardless of age, whether in their early 20’s or their 70’s. But what’s the problem here? The problem is the whole perspective of “me” within marriage is secondary to the call to serve our spouse. Now, without muddying the complications of relationships, and I realize, there are many, here’s the generality of it:

if we chose to undertake the assignment of renewing our minds and shifting to serve our spouse before fighting for our needs first, and this is true of both spouses, we’d find our needs and desires equally filled in return.

What many couples find to be the scariest part is the thought that if they choose to serve and pursue their spouse first, their spouse won’t respond in kind, leaving none of their needs or desires met. But far more often that not, when one chooses to lay down the fear or selfish death grip on the order of things, the other spouse will naturally respond in kind.

When I remove the demands of my spouse (which come from entitlement to begin with), a freedom can begin to open up where both spouses want to pursue and love the other, not simply meet a duty or demand that is hitting them over the head, but one that creates space where both find life in the sacrifice and service because they see how it lights up their spouse.

The idea of what each of us wants, is found in the laying down of our lives within marriage, and within that, the circle of reciprocity is created, thereby fulfilling our hope and desires within marriage organically.

Our roles within marriage were never to first seek what “we” want, but to learn that in the sacrifice and service, both spouses needs and desires are met beyond expectation and find the joy in serving one another. Our society has taught us to give up on a relationship if we’re not getting what we want. Maybe, just maybe, the key in getting what we want, is to lay those things down, only to find themselves return to us in the end anyway.

My challenge to you today is to pray about how to serve your spouse before yourself, or without watching like a hawk for how it comes back to you, but to truly do something thoughtful or loving for the sake of doing it. Take the baby step, let it turn into big steps, and in the process, find out what a spouse who feels loved, pursued, and cared for will turn into.