Marriage Tuesday

*This is an updated post from four or five years ago.  It’s worth revisiting.

Here’s a lesson Wanda and I learned the hard way:  You don’t get married out of “need”.  And if you did, you need to fix that problem… quickly.

When Wanda first walked into my life, we were just teenagers.  She was beautiful, godly, intelligent, intuitive, disciplined, compassionate, honest…a girl who was a thousand times more than I ever dreamed would ever be interested in me.  But below the surface, there was deep hurt and insecurities from growing up in an alcoholic home…years of abuse and conditional love and a life of painful emotional scars.

I grew up as an only child in a home where my mother loved me…but served me, babied me, protected me, enabled me, and made me think that the world revolved around me.  I never had any doubt my father loved me, also, but he was a typical man of the baby boom in the 50’s and 60’s.  A hard-working hunter-gatherer who didn’t have a great deal of time for talking, feeling, or relating.  My mother served him, also…a cup of coffee waiting at the door at the end of the work day, dinner on the table, and no demands.

Somehow, out of that childhood, I became a self-centered, people-pleasing, rescuer.  I‘ve battled it my whole life.  No blame.  No excuses.  It’s simply who I am.

But more importantly, at least for today, I became a rescuer…of Wanda.

Our relationship was built, from the very beginning, on meeting each others needs.  That sounds so good…but it is so deadly, if not lived out properly.  Wanda had huge unmet needs for belonging…for security…for protection…for healing…for self-confidence.  I had a huge need to be the knight in shining armor…to rescue and protect…to have my ego fed…to be in control and have someone depend on me.

Sounds like a recipe for a perfect marriage, huh?  Wrong.  So wrong.

When we look to people to fill needs in our life…the deepest needs of purpose and worth and belonging and security and significance…we are headed for failure.  Why?  Because people are not perfect.  They fail.  Eventually.  Sooner, usually, than later.

Being the created, there are needs that can only be met by the creator.  We cannot look to people…not even our spouses or our parents or our children…to meet them.  That’s asking too much.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:19

Once we start understanding this, life…and marriage…can be different.

• Wanda does not meet my need for a purpose in life.  I find that in kingdom-living.
• I cannot meet Wanda’s need for security…not perfectly.  She can only find that in a relationship with the one who can never ever fail her.
• Wanda cannot meet my need to have someone depend on me.  That comes from a twisted self-centeredness.  What I really need is to simply be a servant.
• I cannot meet Wanda’s need for healing.  That can only be met by a healer.

When we look at our spouses to provide the things that only God is designed to provide, we set our spouses…and ourselves…up for failure.

In the earliest years of our marriage, my failures to live up to her expectations led her to jealousy, frustration, loneliness, conflict and withdrawal.  Her failures to be what I needed her to be, led to my judgment, anger, emptiness, disappointment and alienation.

(It was at this point in our marriage…around years two and three…that we had the loving, but determined, involvement of others move into our lives for discipline and accountability.  Without it, I don’t think we would have figured this out on our own.  We were too young and stupid!)

That doesn’t mean we don’t give our spouses our best and continue to grow and develop and deepen.  But it does mean that we have to place responsibility where it belongs.

We have the capacity, by God’s design and presence, to be strong, confident, independent, loving, giving, serving, bold, forgiving, consistent, disciplined, honest, committed, dependable, secure, loving, healed and purposeful…and God may even use your spouse to build those characteristics in your life.

But your spouse was never, ever designed to meet the primary needs of personal worth, security, confidence, significance and purpose in your life.  Your marriage was never designed to define you, give you meaning, or fill holes in your life.

Marriage is designed to be the icing on the cake of your life…not the cake, itself!

Too much time…

wanda’s been down with the plague for three weeks.   definitely not the most memorable christmas holiday we’ve ever spent.  and i’m pretty sure she’s not any better, but my guess is she’s going back to work tomorrow.  good luck.

i, on the other hand, had some pretty good success keeping her and her germs at arm’s distance.  until the past three days.  her disease, plus baby-sitting a sick grandkid on monday, finally cornered me.  it’s been bad for a couple of days, but i’m back to winning the battle for my throat and sinus.

but i have had some time on my hands to think.  of course its been with the assistance of various over-the-counter, mind-altering drugs…  anyway, here’s what came to mind today.

essentially, there are two ways of proceeding when we come to grips with the reality of the person we are.   one thought says we need to identify our weaknesses and develop a plan for changing and strengthening those areas.  the other school says to stop wasting time trying to fix what we are weak at…and focus on making our strengths even stronger.

warning.  i hate admitting this.  i have probably spent the majority of my life doing the former and not the latter.  because i believe in the power of god and the power of change, i have always worked to see where i was falling short (or tried hard to listen to those people who had the courage to point those areas out)…and then studied, prayed, practiced, got counsel, and generally spent a lot of time obsessing about being “that” kind of person…and trying to be different.

this is not a theological issue.  this is not about me trying to usurp the power of god in my life.  nor is it about trying to prove my worth to god or earn his approval by being better.   really, i’ve just wanted to make sure i was giving my best to god and others in every area of my life.   but i’m afraid it was also an exercise in missing the point.

there’s a flip side to every “weakness” we have.  it’s called a strength.  it may even be called a gift.   and sometimes, instead of building on the strength of my abilities and personality,  i think i over-focused on trying to fix what needed to change.  maybe you have done this, too.

here’s an example.  there are four identities that are closely related, and i have been guilty of assuming all four of them at various times in my life.

• messiah – when i am the only and best person who can help a particular person in need.
• rescuer / codependent – when i let people depend on me too much to be the answer to their messes.
• enabler – when i unintentionally assist another person to continue in unhealthy behavior.
• people helper – when i do my best to help people without becoming an enabler…a rescuer…or the messiah.
  

i’ve spent time through the years beating myself up for being an enabler to people…for rescuing people from themselves…and even behaving like i was the messiah, even though i never set out to be one.  ouch.

but here’s the deal.  i’m a people helper by nature.  its part of how i’m wired.  it’s in my DNA.  i love helping.  i’ve studied my whole life to be able to help in as many ways as possible.   it’s not really who i am.   i don’t think god loves me any more or any less because i’m a people helper.  it does not secure my relationship with him.  i’m still a broken mess in need of help myself…just like everybody else.

but helping people is what i do.  people helping is probably what i do better than anything else in my life.  so i’ll continue to focus on developing those skills.  learn more about it.  study more so i can do it in more ways.  i recognize that rescuing and enabling are the ugly sides of people helping and i may be occasionally guilty of walking too close to the line that separates.

but i won’t run from helping.  it would be running from a gift god gave me.

how about you?  is there something you do well that you need to be spending more time strengthening and developing…instead of wasting time trying to fix problem areas of your life?