5 Secrets to Making a Marriage Thrive (Part 2)

Why does submission matter in marriage? Should only wives submit? How do you make your spouse feel loved? What does it mean to be friends in marriage? These are questions we address in Part 2 of Secrets to making a marriage thrive.

3. Mutual submission in effort to serve

Submission only works with God’s help. That said, scripture calls both husband and wife to submit to the other. For husbands, you are to love your wife as Christ loves you. Wives, you are to humble yourself under your husband’s leadership as you do so with Christ. This implies, of course, the man is also submitting to God’s leadership. Otherwise, it is impossible for the woman to submit. When the man doesn’t submit to God’s leadership but requires submission from his wife, what was intended for good now turns into oppression.

A deeply satisfying marriage comes through mutual submission in an effort to serve. In other words, you are not to live for yourself. A simple example of how this may play out in everyday life is when you and your spouse are deciding where to eat for dinner. Your spouse may want Mexican food, but you have a taste for barbecue. You have three choices: You could offer to eat where your spouse wants with no hard feelings, offer to eat where your spouse wants but with coldness and resentment, or selfishly insist on your own way. Unfortunately, I have responded in all three ways with Aleasha. But marriages thrive when spouses are responding regularly to each other in the first way.

Surely, it is not natural to repeatedly deny yourself to serve the other. But this is foundational to a great marriage. How do you gain this ability? By submitting to the lordship or leadership of Christ. When you give him the right to tell you what to do in every area of your life, you will be freed to serve the other. Pastor and author Tim Keller provides even more practical ways to serve your spouse in his book The Meaning of Marriage:

Serving each other begins with the most practical and mental tasks. If the wife is largely or fully engaged in childcare and housekeeping, that may entail the husband’s participation in that work as much as possible. For example, it means happily changing diapers or helping with the house cleaning without being asked.

But serving your spouse also means showing him or her great respect. It means giving your spouse the confidence that you will always speak up and stand up for him, that you will show loyalty and appreciation for her before other family and friends.

Serving your spouse also means showing that you are committed to his or her well-being and flourishing. This kind of love is given when you seek to help your spouse develop gifts and pursue aspirations for growth.

One of the greatest expressions of love is the willingness to change, to make a commitment to change attitudes and behaviors in yourself that trouble or hurt your spouse. There must be an ability to take correction and to be accountable for real concrete changes. This kind of change is always hard, and nearly impossible without the grace of God, but it is also one of the most powerful signs of love in a marriage…

Another example might be allowing your spouse privacy, either for brief or longer periods, depending on emotional needs. There can be no excuses for shutting one’s spouse out of one’s life, but different people have different capacities and needs for time alone or outside interests. (p. 160-161)

4. “Speak” each other’s love language

In his book The 5 Love Languages, marriage counselor Gary Chapman detailed the ways in which different people best give and receive love. These are Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. If you want to effectively communicate your love for your spouse, then it is important that you learn his or her primary love language, brainstorm ways together to express them, then execute often. Aleasha’s primary love language is Acts of Service. So, she gets a thrill when I do things like take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, or do the dishes. Loving her is literally hard work! But it is my priority that she feels loved.

The implication of Chapman’s Love Languages is that love is more than a feeling, it is a choice. The fuel of being in-love is not enough to power your marriage to new heights. It soon drains empty and can only be replaced by the choices you make. The danger of failing to refill your spouse’s tank through speaking his or her love language often is the rust of unmet emotional needs. This leads to a breakdown in your marriage, leaving your spouse vulnerable to falling in love with someone else. Refill the tank!

5. Be friends

True friends care for your well-being. They offer comfort through tough times and hold you accountable for bad choices. They want to see you grow. It is God’s will that you become more like his Son in character and thinking. Marriage is a tool he uses to that end—to help you grow out of your sins and flaws into the new self he is creating. How might this perspective change how you react to your spouse’s shortcomings? Paul wrote “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace” (Ephesians 4:2-3). In addition, “speak the truth in love” so the two of you grow in every way “more and more like Christ” (verse 15).

Practically, friendship is built through quality time. In marriage, this means doing something together that at least one of you loves to do that allows you to also communicate with the other. Recreation and entertainment are common go-to’s. But a bond can also grow through tasks such as cooking or putting together your child’s trampoline. The point is to show your spouse that time with him or her is a priority to you.

Friendship also involves sharing each other’s mental world, such as reading books together or discussing your thoughts on topics or current events. One book Aleasha is reading is Words that change minds by Shelle Rose Charvat. It was fascinating to converse with her and learn that I tend not to give a lot of praise or Words of Affirmation because I don’t need or depend on it myself. I find our intellectual conversations invaluable!

Finally, friendship grows through vulnerability. As Keller wrote, “Friendship is above all a relationship in which it is safe to share fears, hurts, and weaknesses—an emotional refuge” (p. 159). It is not enough to listen to your spouse. You must also share your innermost thoughts and feelings. One way Aleasha and I bonded this way recently was through her sharing how I forced her to carry the emotional burden in our family, as detailed in Part 1. In response, I provided insight into the depth of my dark thoughts partly through sharing with her the cycle that has kept me emotionally low.

Conclusion

When two people commit to mutually submitting to one another with God’s help, they lay the groundwork for a fulfilling marriage. If you are a believer, this life is not about you. It is about God and others. You are a reflection, pointing others to Christ. Marriage and the family you create through it is your greatest ministry. Love grows between spouses through speaking the language by which each was wired to receive love: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and/or Physical Touch. Friendship grows through quality time, sharing each other’s mental world, vulnerability, among other ways. But true friendship in marriage is marked by helping one another become more like Christ in character and thinking. Marriage is a mirror God uses to show you your ailments. So, allow yourselves to hold each other accountable, but speak the truth in love so as to not create bitterness and stunt each other’s growth.