This morning I was reading a book and the author talked about “soulmate shopping” and consumerism applied to dating (Deal, 2012). After pondering on this topic, I came to the conclusion “shopping mentality” focuses mainly on acquisition and rarely on building, and the difference between acquiring and building are abysmal, specially when applying these concepts to relationships.
Both, in my practice and in my own life I see this mentality as one of the most common myths with couples coming into marriage: the illusion of marriage as an acquisition to be obtained vs a relationship to build and invest in long-term. I remember back in 2001 my first year of marriage was followed by about 8 months of couples counseling. I remember thinking “this isn’t right… this should be the honeymoon season…”. Well, it could have well be an extension of our honeymoon if only I would not have checked the “married box” and reverted to live life as I saw it fit. Obviously I failed at seeing marriage as a continuum, and instead I treated it as a goal to cross off, to obtain and to keep, to purchase and store.
When meeting couples and introducing them to couples counseling one of the first concepts to review is the foundation of every functional marriage, which in Gottman theory is called Love Maps (Gottman, 2012). When our couples are first presented with the concepts of love maps a common reaction is “I know my spouse”, however there is a difference between knowing “of” your spouse and knowing your spouse in “real time”. It is possible to know about somebody and not know them at the same time. How could this be? How could someone know their partner and later on only know “of” them? By not updating their love maps. All maps need to be updated. This is true of car maps, cellphone maps, but even more true to relationship maps. Why? Because people change, people evolve. A jovial person while dating will show an evolved part of themselves as a first-time mother. It is not that the couple deceived each other while courting, but that life evolves and with it people also change and grow. The problem ensues when we do not keep checking in, updating our love maps with each other.
The Bible equates marriage to a process of holiness in which both partners submit to each other and God is glorified in the process. Ephesians 5:21-25 tells us “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (New International Version, 1978/2011). The spirit of this passage is a-work-in-progress, or in keeping with this piece, a building relationship. In this building relationship both partners continue working in their own submission to the Lord, which in turn morphs into mutual submission, which in turns produces such a peculiar aroma to society and God gets all the credit, all the glory.
Marriage is both a destination and a journey. Let us not make it a one stop trip, but a journey of a lifetime!
References
Deal, R. L. (2012). Dating and the Single Parent. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781441271013/
Gottman, J. (2012). Why Marriages Succeed or Fail. [Place of publication not identified]: Simon & Schuster.
New International Version Bible. (2011). Zondervan. (Original work published 1978)
