Why is Marriage Such a Struggle?

Why is marriage such a struggle?  Why does it seem to be so tough to have a really meaningful relationship with my spouse? The most needful relationship that honors God is that one that occurs between a man and a woman in a marriage, and yet the fulfillment of it is so elusive.  Having a meaningful, lasting relationship with my soul-mate that gets better, and that gets richer, and more fulfilling, is just very, very, rare.  In fact, we look at marriage, and whenever we see marriage portrayed (even in the church) it's usually a fighting, unfaithful, discontented, bitter kind of wrangling thing that ends up in separation and divorce.

Well, there is a reason that marriage is difficult.  Why people in our world cannot make meaningful relationships.  For the most part, it is hard for them to make meaningful relationships at any level, but when it comes into a marital situation it becomes all the more difficult because Christ left it as the only model on earth that typify His relationship with sinners.

From the very beginning, God designed a loving leader and in return a reciprocal follower.  Someone to take care of the provision and some­ one to be provided for.  And from the very beginning the man had the husband role, and the woman had the role of the one for whom that headship was provided.  The man was the one who protected, provided, preserved, and

cared for the woman who was "a suitable helper" for him.  Now, God provides this suitable helper; the one to aid Adam as he operates for God in the pure and undefiled world of creation. 

Adam had no problem accepting her (his wife Eve), even though he had just met her.  Since there was no sin, there was no selfishness on either part.  There were no criteria on which to negatively evaluate her because there was no such thought.  It was as wondrous as the uniqueness of the relationship in and of itself.

So, that's God's design: an incredible union.  But at the same time, all of that is so beautifully blended in oneness, that you really don't see that. 

There is co-regency here.  It doesn't deny the man's place and the woman's place; it just simply shows that it can exist in such an incredible oneness, that there is nothing really seen but how they work togeth­er--"they two" literally becoming one flesh.

God designed marriage just to be a situation where you could have joy—pure joy.  Just the fun and the thrill of being married, and the thrill of having children.

If you want to know why marriage is tough, it’s because there has been since that temptation of the first couple, a switch to man-centerness; a failure to recognize marriage the way God has designed it. 

But, people don't seem to want to admit that the reason there is conflict in marriage is be­cause of sin in the beginning and God sort of put it in cement, and the whole human race is struggling to have to try to make a family when a man will be distracted leading and the woman becomes unhappy.

So you see there are things needful if you are going to have a marriage that works:

A man has got to go back to the place where his commitment is simply, in love, to take that woman as if she were one with him, and render to her every single thing that he would do for himself.  In other words, sacrificial love, just like it was before the "fall."  Do you want to know why we have got problems in marriage?  Because we started with a fallen marriage from the beginning.  We are dealing with two imperfect people, and depravity will manifest itself in the man by neglecting the woman without love--and we have that in our society today. 

Look, it doesn't have to be that way!  You can have a right relationship where a woman is lifted up and exalted and allowed to be all that God had ever in­tended her to be, and where a man knows how it is that he is to invest his life to provide for and to love that woman, so there is a marvelous co-

regency in life that fulfills every need of the human heart.  Anybody who doesn't want that doesn't love Jesus.

Now, if that isn't bad enough, Satan starts taking shots at the marriage.  So you add to the basic fall in the human nature, what Satan does and you are going to have problems.

On the other hand, there is that fantasy that somewhere there will be that perfect person, that wonderful love, that wonderful relationship, that rela­tionship that is so perfect that nothing can ever touch it, but people in our world aren't willing to listen to God, so they are not going to know that is false. 

The ultimate tragedy is conflict in a Christian marriage because it denies all the potential in that marriage that God has placed there.  If you are Christians then you have all the resources necessary to make your relationship all that God intended marriage to be before the "fall" and after the fall.

Now, don't say to me, "Well, my wife, she has gone too far!"  -your wife may be a sinner, but so are you!  , and the reverse is true also.

Oh, we lose the perspective.  "Well, I don't love him or her anymore; I just decided that I don't love him or her."  Then if you don't love him or her anymore, you are disobedient to the command of God.

"In like manner," 1 Peter 3:7 says, "ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge.

(be sensitive and understanding, and con­siderate). 

"give honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel."

(that's just talking about realizing that physically and emotionally you are the strength). 

"As being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindered." 

(communion: talk together, share together). 

God has given us the ingredients to make it work. 

Marriage will turn out to be everything God ever made it to be.  You will give a legacy to your children that will have repercussions when they marry also, and you'll start passing on the right kind of things to the generations to follow--and God help them if we don't!