My first reaction to single people who express how much they want to get married is always “don’t do it”, I know they will anyway but I put the warning out there as a responsible citizen. It’s not that I have a terrible marriage, to be honest, although my marriage isn’t perfect, I quite enjoy it in most seasons, I enjoy the benefits and the role it plays in grooming me to be the best version of myself. So at the end of it, my reaction is not based on marriage being a nice place or not, but it’s more about what the call of marriage requires from us that I feel most people are not ready for.
I generally come on here when I feel I have valuable lessons to share about my journey, and I think in the last few weeks, God has been laying profound lessons in my soul about marriage and I thought they might help someone out there.
One thing that tends to cause tension and frustration in us is our desire to control who people are to us in marriage. We want to control how they make us feel, how they make us look to others, who they are in relationship with, etc. We tend to want to mould them into an environment best suited for our comfort and joy. I will admit in some marriages this formula perhaps works, but I have also seen how detrimental it can be to others. Perhaps it’s a personality thing? I don’t know, what I know is that it has terribly failed in my marriage, and so I had to sit, re-evaluate my views and try create an environment where my marriage can thrive.
I realised that the more controlling partner (in this context perhaps I took on this label) will be successful at creating a thriving environment for themselves, but the risk is that the environment might be doing the opposite for the “controlled” partner, and so when my husband started drawing clear boundaries for himself, it was a painful and perhaps unfamiliar thing for me (still is sometimes), but I’m learning to appreciate it because it’s allowing him to also build an environment he can thrive in, instead of being the sacrificial lamb for one person’s happiness in a union two people belong to.
I will not lie, in some seasons it is really hard to feel like you aren’t in control, to feel like you cannot put a gun to your partner’s head to force them into things, yes, EVEN if the things are good for them (like therapy **side eye**), but I think the lesson I’m learning is that love needs to have space to make a choice. We can definitely hold each other accountable to the vows we made to each other, but when you take away peoples choice in love, it denies love the potential to be life giving.
I think the most profound revelation for me recently was God making me aware that I am first accountable to Him before I am to any human on earth. I had been feeling really frustrated in my marriage and it was affecting how I show up for my husband, so in one of my venting sessions with God, I remember Him making me aware that my wedding vows, the covenant I made before Him and witnesses, was first unto Him before it was unto my spouse. God takes covenants seriously, similar to when we make promises to people, God instructs us to keep our word, so me keeping my end of the bargain is obedience to God.
I remember Him saying “Mahadi, if you spent all your energy towards doing the things you promised and vowed to do, you would be less frustrated and concerned about how well or how badly your husband is doing his part, you are barely getting through your own list, perhaps focus on that”…. I really had to pause in that moment and think about it, is God really pleased with how well I’m keeping my vows? If not, perhaps I do indeed need to refocus on pleasing God vs trying to see how well my husband is keeping his promises to me and stop trying to control how best he loves me.
I think that conversation with God really free’d me in many ways, it’s not that I won’t be affected by my husband’s imperfections, I think it’s just free’d me to feel like I’m first accountable to Adonai before any other human, and that’s the “person” I want to please. That’s the prize. God Himself. How others fail or succeed to love us should not impact how faithful we are to what we vowed to do, what we vowed to be here for. Even if marriages do fall apart, may we at least be found having been faithful in the things we promised.
Let our labour of love be pleasing to The One who rules over us.
Psalm 24 vs 1 -6
(0) By David. A psalm:
(1) The earth is Adonai’s, with all that is in it,
the world and those who live there;
2 for he set its foundations on the seas
and established it on the rivers.
3 Who may go up to the mountain of Adonai?
Who can stand in his holy place?
4 Those with clean hands and pure hearts,
who don’t make vanities the purpose of their lives or swear oaths just to deceive.
5 They will receive a blessing from Adonai
and justice from God, who saves them.
6 Such is the character of those who seek him,of Ya‘akov, who seeks your face. (Selah)
Rudimental Truths 