Myths of Marriage
Myth #1: Marriage is the key to a fulfilled and happy life.
The key to a fulfilled life is a growing, vibrant relationship with God who created you. Seeking to gain fulfillment through any other means, including marriage to a loving partner, is futile. If you think of marriage as the key to your personal fulfillment, what you’re really doing is demanding that your spouse make you happy.Depending on someone else to make you happy and fulfilled is unfair to both of you. This attitude will eventually lead to resentment on the part of both spouse.
Myth #2: Happiness is the main purpose of marriage.
The main purpose of marriage is to glorify God by demonstrating a self-sacrificing love and commitment to each other. If you think that God invented marriage as a means of making us happy, then it’s easy to walk away from a marriage that doesn’t make you happy. God wants us to work together to overcome whatever problems might be causing a couple to be unhappy with each other. No relationship is happy all the time.
Myth #3: My commitment to Christ will guarantee that my marriage will work.
God doesn’t force people to respond to each other in a godly manner. Just because you are a Christian doesn’t guarantee that your spouse will be one or act like one. It take two people to make a marriage work.
Myth #4: If our relationship takes hard work, we must not be right for each other.
Some people think that good relationships happen spontaneously. The truth is that anything that looks effortless generally takes a great deal of work. Watching pairs ice skating looks so easy. What we see is the result of days, weeks, months, and years of practice that went into perfecting the routine. Marriages may be made in heaven, but the details are work out on earth. Old-fashioned hard work and perseverance are major elements of a lasting marriage. Once we marry, we are all very hard to live with.
Myth #5: My spouse can and should meet most, if not all, of my needs.
God has created us in such a way that no one person can meet all or most of our needs. We need a relationship with God, we need interdependent friendships outside of marriage, we need hobbies, exercise, etc. This kind of expectation develops a performance-based marriage where if my spouse doesn’t meet all my needs then I am disappointed.
Myth #6: If my spouse and I don’t always feel love for each other, that means our relationship is in trouble.
Love is more than a feeling. Feelings of romance come and go. The deeper aspects of true love transcend feelings and have more to do with commitment than emotion.
QUESTION: What other myths have you heard about marriage? What myths did you believe when you got married (or still do!)?
