Marital Building Blocks, Part 4

There is one word that is conspicuously left out of God’s marriage manual (Genesis 1-3). It is the word “love.” Instead, couples are commanded to “cleave” (NIV: “be united”) to each other. When two marry, they are called to stick together. They are to form a bond that will endure through sickness and in health. It is this "til-death-do-us-part" commitment, rather than romantic feelings of love, that creates the one-flesh unity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."

Feelings of love wax and wane. As Mike Mason has written, emotional love won't sustain a marriage for very long: Marriages which are dependent on love fall apart, or at best are in for a stormy time of it. But marriages which consistently look back to their vows, to those wild promises made before God, find a continual source of strength and renewal. It is not passion that stirs me out of a warm bed on a winter night to tend to a sick grandchild while my exhausted wife catches up on sleep. Nor is it passion which motivates me to pay bills or change a dirty diaper (yuk!) or vacuum the house. I do these acts ungrudgingly (or at least I try to do them ungrudgingly!) because I have made a commitment to serve my mate.

But this one flesh relationship does not mean that we don’t need others. Carole Mayhall warns: I have seen too many wives try to force their husbands to meet their every need--a feat no human can do--and in the forcing have destroyed what could have been a beautiful relationship. Both husbands and wives need a variety of relationships to become whole people. No person can meet our every need.

If I am called to meet the needs of my spouse, what are those needs? Wisdom demands that I make her needs a subject of scrutiny. Through the years I have learned that she does not handle the pressure of an impending trip very well with all its extra errands, laundry, and packing added to her normal responsibilities. As a result, she can become a bit irritable. So what does God ask me to do? To stick with her in her grumpiness -- to help with some of her errands, to cut back on my schedule, to not snap back when I become irritated with her irritation!

Cleaving then is a commitment. It is a promise to love and serve your partner whether he becomes bitter or fat or unemployed or argumentative or boring or inattentive or jealous or selfish or ugly or lazy or insensitive or greedy or sickly. We have taken vows before God to love our deeply flawed mates for life. May God give us the grace and the strength to just that.