Stages of Marriage

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

A man named Arthur Sueltz satirized a common problem in marriage by chronically the stages of the common cold in seven years of marriage.  The first year went something like this with the husband saying to the wife, “Sugar, I’m worried about my little baby girl.  You’ve got a bad sniffle. I want to put you in the hospital for a complete checkup.  I know the food is lousy, but I’ve arranged for meals to be sent for you from the local restaurant.”  The second year, “Listen honey, I don’t like the sound of that cough.  I’ve called Dr. Miller and he’s going to rush right over.  Now will you go to bed like a good girl, just for me, please?”  Third year, “Maybe you’d better lie down, honey, nothing like a little rest if you’re feeling bad.  I’ll bring you something to eat.  Have we got any soup in the house?”  Fourth year, “Look, dear.  Be sensible.  After you’ve fed the kids and washed the dishes, you’d better hit the sack.”  Fifth year, “Why don’t you take a couple of aspirin?”  Sixth year, “If you’d just gargle or something instead of sitting around barking like a seal.”  Seventh year, “For heaven’s sake, stop sneezing.  What are you trying to do, give me pneumonia?”

Last few weeks we’ve been doing a series of sermons on marriage and as we’ve done this we’ve realized there are different situations in the congregation.  Many of you have been married a long time, some not so long, some of you are not married, some of you have been married.  Our hope is that even as we focus on marriage there will be things that you will find that the Lord is teaching you through this series.  We have today and a couple of more weeks to go.  Today is about the stages of marriage.  There are stages in any relationship, many types of processes that we go through.  Wisdom begins with understanding those stages. 

I’ve chosen a couple of scriptures for you today.  The first comes from Proverbs 24 which talks about wisdom and then from 1 Corinthians 13 which I think talks about the last stage of marriage and its definition of love. 

First the Word of God from Proverbs:

By wisdom the house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.

From 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

This is the Word of the Lord. 

Thanks be to God.

Please pray with me.

Father, we pray that you would be with us as we hear the Word that is preached.  May it help us in our lives and our relationships, may it also prepare us as we partake of the Supper in a little while.  We ask you to be with us both the speaker and the listener.  We pray in Jesus name.  Amen.

What is stage one of a marriage? Well it’s obviously the honeymoon period.  Every relationship starts with everyone thinking how wonderful it is.  Even pastors talk about the honeymoon period of the first little while with a new church because, in my view, being a pastor or a church is a little like getting married.  We start out thinking things are wonderful.  We see this in the scriptures, if you read parts of the Song of Solomon you see this expressed.  Solomon says as he is talking about his wife, “Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens.” He is smitten.  His wife replies, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men.  I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to my taste. He’s taken me to the banquet hall and his banner over me I love.  Strengthen me with raisins and refresh me with apples for I am faint with love.”  She’s saying, “Wow, this guy’s a hunk.” “Listen my lover. Look! Here he comes leaping across the mountains bounding over the hills.”  Now you wives in listening to that you can just imagine your husbands bounding into the room in his boxer shorts, maybe leaping over hills and valleys.  What’s happening there?  It’s the honeymoon period. 

There are several words in which we can use to describe this period.  One would be focused attention or intensity.  They’re spell-bound, they’re absorbed, and they’re engrossed in one another.  “I only have eyes for you.”  One of my favorite words for this appears in the movie Bambie when all the animals at springtime are just floating around in love and they ask Owl what in the world is wrong with these animals.  He replies, “Oh, they’re twitter-patted.”  I love that word – twitter-patted and that’s true. 

There’s intensity and there’s idealism, your partner is on a pedestal.  Solomon says, “How beautiful you are my darling, how beautiful.”  Then he starts a comparison, “Your eyes behind your veils are doves.  Your hair is like a flock of goats.  Your teeth are like a flock of sheep.”  Now, don’t go too far with this one guys.  This is oriental imagery.  And then he says later, “Oh beautiful you are my darling.  There is no flaw in you.” 

Then there is indulgence.  You go along to get along.  You women may hate sports but you go to the games anyway.  You men may hate chick flicks but you go any ways because you are indulging your spouse.  

Then there is infatuation.  You’re in love, there’s a bounce in your step, everything’s great. 

Last but not least there is ignorance because you really don’t know each other.  One guy said, “I didn’t know puppy love would lead to a dog’s life.” 

Of course this stage doesn’t last.  It may last a day, it may last a year, it may last several years but you always, always, always get to stage two, the place where “Familiarity (as the old saying goes) can breed contempt.”  The same fellow who wrote the Songs of Solomon we believe wrote the Proverbs and all the wonderful things about his lover he wrote and then he writes this in Proverbs.  The attitude has changed.  He says, “That a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day.  Restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil in the hand.”  The party is over.  Like a man who complained to his pastor two months after the marriage, “I got false advertising.”  The pastor said, “You took her for better or for worse.”  The man said, “Yeah, but she’s a lot worse than I took her for.”  There are just reams of jokes about marriage. 

Some other words describe this stage two:

Dullness was one.  It’s back to the routine and boredom sets in.  Before it’s, “Anything you want darling,” and after the marriage it’s “get it yourself.” 

There’s Disagreements.  You begin with a clash over differences and then you begin to argue.  It’s very interesting that you can take couples in counseling and you can watch a very serious thing happen it’s like a spiral that goes up its called escalation.  “You did this.”  “No, you did that.”  “Well, you’re like this and you thought that.”  Disagreements.

Then there is defensiveness.  After a while it gets so escalated basic human nature is to protect yourself and when that begins to happen too much the openness disappears.  So excuse and accuse and resentment builds up.

Then there is disapproval.  Before, its, “Everything he does is right,” and afterward “Everything is wrong.”  Like the wife who said, “I knew my husband was temperamental but I found out it was 75% temper and 25% mental.”

Last but not least, and there are many words, there is disappointment.  It’s the idea that you have buyer’s regret, disillusioned.  So many people say, “I feel cheated.  I got into this marriage and now I have secret feelings of regret.  I’m trapped.  I do the ‘if only’ game.”  The inevitable result of this stage is either depression or divorce.  Divorce, when you split up when you get to the place where you don’t feel like you can go any further.  It’s what happens.  Many marriages don’t get past this stage.  The average marriage in the United States is a little over seven years.  It means they never got to stage three.

What is stage three?  It is, what I believe, is described in 1 Corinthians 13.  It’s the kind of love that we all need to aspire to.  “Love is patient. Love is kind.  It does not envy.  It does not boast.  It is not proud.  It is not rude.  It is not self-seeking.  It is not easily angered.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.” In English we are a little bit hampered.  English is a great language but with regard to the word love its limited.  We have the same word for love of say our dog and our spouse.  What’s the difference?  Well, there’s a huge difference. 

In Greek there are four words for love.  Actually, there a few more than that but there are four basic. One is called storgay.  A storgay is kind of like that old shoe sort of love the couples who have been married a long, long time. They are comfortable with each other.  Then there is phileo, which is the friendship or brotherly love.  It’s the friendship that people have. There is eros, which is sexual love or romantic love.  And there’s agape, which is the kind of love described here.  Agape love is not primarily a feeling. The train that drives love in the Bible is agape love.  It’s like the locomotive or the engine that is up front and all the other loves follow. 

But our society has placed eros at the top.  It’s the kind of love we read about in the books, all the romance novels that you go into the bookstore and are lined up, selling by the millions every year.  Or the movies or the TV shows.  It’s the kind of love you fall into you can’t help it.  Certainly love can be very powerful in its emotions but the problem with it if you fall into this kind of love you can fall out and then we might as well get divorced.  “You’ve lost that loving feeling.”  It’s gone, gone, gone.  That’s what it is.  We have elevated eros until it is the kind of love but the kind of love the Bible is talking about is action.  “Love is kind.  It does not envy.  It does not boast.  It is not proud.  It is not rude.”  Do you hear romance in that?  It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It protects it trusts it hopes it perseveres.  I don’t hear romance in that.  Now there is nothing wrong with romance, we want that, we all want that.  Eros is a good thing but it’s not first.  If it’s first, your marriage will never last.  Action first. 

I remember talking about this many years ago.  A man who had separated from his wife and he came up after the sermon and said, “I don’t believe you!”  What he didn’t believe is I said, “if you act like you love someone many times the  feelings will come back.”  He was one he said he had lost his feelings for his wife.  “I don’t believe you.”  And he is still separated.  You have to have the action.  You know when the Bible says love your enemies it doesn’t mean have eros toward them.  It means to do good to them. 

There is an acrostic we can use for the kind of mature love we are talking about – TRUST.

T - Tenderness.  There’s tenderness in your marriage.  Being gentle without judgment.  You’re not out to destroy you’re out to be on the same team. 

R – Respect and responsibility.  You respect your spouse treat them with appreciation, another of the old pop songs “Cherish is the word.”  I like that. Cherish your spouse.  Accept responsibility to make the marriage work.  You know can fall out of stage three back into stage two at any time.  It takes work to stay here.  It takes action. 

U – Understanding.  The only way to make stage three is to know and accept the differences.  You know it’s not politically correct to say these days that men and women are different.  People want to say that men and women are exactly the same.  That’s just hogwash.  Men and women are not the same.  We think differently.  We feel differently.  We are different and thank God we’re different.  That doesn’t mean one is better and one is worse by no means.   And I sometimes have wondered, “God, why did you make us so different in how we are?”  I think God wanted to make it interesting.  But also, we are required to give to the other what they need.  God has rigged it.  He’s rigged it to make us love.  And love means getting out of yourself.  It’s not about you. It’s not about me.  It’s about the other.  God has rigged it to be that way and if it isn’t that way it will never work.  If it’s just about us, you might as well forget it. 

U – Understanding.  The only way to make it is to know and accept the differences.

S – Security. Mature love has security.  This says, “no matter what happens, no matter what goes on we will make it. You may fail in your life, you may do well.  You may get sick, you may stay healthy.  You may change and not look so good in your old age, you may stay beautiful.  Whatever happens, I’m here.” 

T –Truthful and trusting.  Mature love is truthful.  Paul says, “Love delights and rejoices in the truth.” 

That leads to three things that we can do particularly to maintain the stage.  The first is to open up, we have to communicate.  We have heard that all before.  We need to really listen and we need to really talk.  I want to talk particularly to you guys.  I know many guys can talk very well but it’s generally true that guys don’t say a lot.  It’s hard to get them to open up.  It’s kind of like the woman talking to her husband and she says, “John, you think my hair is beautiful, don’t you?” “Yep.”  “You think my skin is smooth and white and wonderful, don’t you?” “Yep.” “You think I’ve lost a lot of weight and my figure is great, you think I’m beautiful, don’t you?” “Yep.”  “Oh John, you say the most wonderful things.”  There’s some truth to that.  I heard that people were telling on me to my family that I was using them as an example and so here it is.  Okay girls, it’s not too bad.  I talk for a living and yet when all my women get in the house, they can shut me up very quickly.  They can out talk me and that’s not a bad thing.  It’s just the way it is.  Guys we have to work to speak.  We have to do what doesn’t come natural, now again, there are lots of exceptions to that. 

We also have to give up.  We have to give up the ways of reacting that just plain don’t work:

            -The silent treatment. 

-Threatening to walk out, “If you don’t do this just watch what happens!”

-Sarcasm and ridicule, “Only you could be that stupid!”

-Trying to change your partner.  Now that’s a biggie.  Kind of like the woman that came up and said, “At the wedding first you have the aisle, then you have the alter, then you sing the hymn.  Aisle, alter, hymn.  And after the marriage it turns into that – I’ll alter him!”

There are many things we can do but last but not least is you need to grow up.  Many people who come for counseling, at least one of the partners have never grown up it doesn’t matter how old they are.  They’ve never grown up out of their self centeredness.  They’ve never given up the previous lifestyle that they.  There are things in their lives that they hold on to and they can’t give them up for the sake of the marriage.  Selfish, immature, living in a fantasy world. 

Change is rarely instant for anyone.  It’s never radical and rarely dramatic.  So it takes time.  It takes a whole lifetime to change.  But the way to make a marriage work is that one word and it is love.  I often say to people who come to me for counseling or for particularly for marriage counseling as they are getting ready to get married that, “Your spouse is not the be all, end all of your life nor should she or he be.”  And that takes them back a little bit because often that’s the way we treat it, “This person is going to be my all and end all.”  But the person who should the be all end all is God.  And if you treat your spouse that way, you are going to have that person up on a pedestal that they will always fall off.  Always.  It won’t take very long.  The person that should be on a pedestal in your marriage is God.  You stand before God and in hand before Him, forgiving and being forgiven.  That’s what love is.  Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It doesn’t keep any record of wrongs. It always protects, always loves, always cherishes.

Would you pray with me?

Father, thank you for loving us so much that you gave your one and only son.  Thank you for entering into a relationship with us.  Help us keep you at the center of our relationships, all of them including our marriages especially.  We ask you Lord to take us now wherever we are in our relationships and heal us and help us to make these things better with your help.  And now Lord we come before you and ask that you would be with us as we partake in the communion.  Renew us, forgive us, and send us out of this place with joy. In Jesus name, amen.