A woman once shared with me her view of marriage:
"It's as though I'm scanning a desert with a pair of binoculars. Everywhere I look I see bodies strewn about in various stages of death and dying--divorce, isolation, abusive and decayed relationships, all types of devastation. After viewing this I ask myself, Why would I want to begin that journey?"
Many students today are asking the same question. Although they deeply desire the security and joy of a lifelong relationship, they fear marriage. One new bride said in a Newsweek article: "I had watched my parents' marriage fall apart, and I didn't know if I could keep one together."{1}
No generation reaching the age to marry has ever brought with it more baggage related to family breakdown. In the United States more than one million children each year experience the breakup of their families.{2}
A large number of students remember experiences like this:
Mary: One afternoon she came home from school and met her father coming out the door with a suitcase. He was leaving the family. "I'll be back to see you, Honey," he said. Mary's father kissed her on top of the head and left. She hasn't seen him since.
Robert: His parents divorced when he was five. He has lived with his mother who married three other men and drinks way too much. His first stepfather beat him up one time when Robert spilled a Coke in the car.
Carrie: Her parents are still married but heavily focused on their lucrative careers. Her dad and mom seldom attended her orchestra concerts during high school, and now that she's away at college, she rarely speaks to either of them. When the family communicates, usually it's by email or messages on their answering machines.
Philip: During junior high Philip was awakened one night by the sounds of his parents arguing. He heard a crash and a scream. Philip found his mother in the kitchen bleeding from a knife wound. Philip called the police and they arrested his father. Philip, his mom, and two younger sisters went to live in a shelter. He doesn't know where his dad lives.
You probably know people like Mary, Robert, Carrie, and Philip. Your own experiences may be similar to theirs or even worse. Maybe your home boiled with conflict, disharmony, and unrest.
As a result, you've thought a lot about whether you should get married--you don't want to end up in a relationship filled with pain and disappointment, and cause an emotional earthquake in your own children.
You like the idea of sharing your life with someone who loves you, but if you're honest, marriage is pretty scary. You may ask yourself, "Will I ever be able to get beyond the damage my family did to me? Will I be able to experience a happy and healthy marriage and family?"
The answer is unequivocally yes.
Since 1976 I have worked with an organization that helps families and have seen thousands of marriages succeed that looked hopeless. God has a way for broken people to experience whole relationships. More on that later.
The Attraction that marriage still holds
With all the problems and pain, why do people still want to get married? Even though marriage receives so much bad press these days, walking the aisle is still very popular exercise. A recent Louis Harris survey found that 96% of college students want to marry or already are married. Ninety-seven per cent agreed with this statement--"Having close family relationships is a key to happiness."{3}
So even though about one in four of American adults age eighteen and older are divorced,{4} the possibility of having a good, lasting marriage makes nearly everyone willing to give it a try. Just why is marriage so appealing?
The truth is that no one wants to be alone. Although we make a big deal out of "doing our own thing" and insisting on individual rights, we all long for the security and warmth of an intimate relationship with someone who is crazy about us. We may say we "want to be alone" and desire "some space," but our stronger desire is to share some space with someone who loves us.
And although sexual attraction is an important part of our desire for intimacy, these longings to connect deeply with another person are not just about sex. This fervent desire to be known and appreciated by someone else is how we were designed in the first place.
Why do so many marriages fail?
Why is it then that so many people, who want and need to be close to someone, end up divorced, often filled with anger and disappointment? Many who marry attempt to achieve a strong, enduring bond based primarily on emotions.
In most relationships the love and acceptance continue as long as the other person is meeting a certain level of expectation. If the feelings are warm, a husband and wife can enjoy one another's company, overlook a partner's troubling or annoying traits, communicate adequately, and still express affection.
The slippery slope of feelings
But when the feelings cool, one or both find they have no reserves or capability to love an obviously imperfect person. Now needs are not met, which causes hurt, which promotes defensiveness, which reduces positive communication, which heightens misunderstanding, which provokes conflict, which fuels anger and bitterness. If forgiveness and reconciliation do not break this downward spiral, the ability to love one another is paralyzed.
This pattern in nearly all relationships may be avoided for awhile as long as the tough issues that provoke selfishness do not exist or are obscured. But sooner or later reality hits. In spite of a couple's best intentions, they eventually realize that two independent people cannot both have all of their needs met all of the time.
For a relationship to succeed, teamwork is required and both persons need to deny many of their personal wishes. Self-sacrifice must replace selfishness. Sometimes one person in the marriage can do this reasonably well, but eventually patience runs out.
Self-sacrifice is not natural; selfishness is. But why is this so?
Continue to page 2 >> Why is selfishness our natural inclination? How can God help us with this in our relationships? 1.2.3
Copyright EveryStudent.com. Used with permission.
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