Men and Women: Enjoying the Difference

Preface

Let me begin with the bad news: No marriage is exempt from trouble, the kind of trouble that can destroy intimacy. No relationship, not even a relationship between deeply committed Christians, will always run smoothly.

Here is more bad news: Our most natural response to relational difficulties is to look for a way to fix them. But every effort to fix problems and repair relational damage falls short of producing the kind of marriage we were designed to enjoy.

Now the good news: if there is one enduring truth that this book highlights, it is this: Problems in relationships present opportunities to discover what is most wrong with us that only Jesus knows how to deal with, and to release what is most right within us that Jesus has given us. I love how James, the half-brother of Jesus, describes this truth:

Consider it a sheer gift … when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2–4 MSG)

In my nearly fifty years of being married to the same woman and of counseling hundreds, maybe thousands, of married couples, I’ve encountered many other bad-news-good-news truths. Here are a few examples:

• No marriage needs to fail, but some marriages will. A godly person is sometimes married to a husband or wife who simply will not acknowledge and face the obstacles within them that make a good marriage impossible. The spouse willing to face those obstacles will be positioned, as a divorced man or woman, to form God-glorifying, meaningful, and richly satisfying relationships, either as a life-long single or in another marriage.

• There is really only one core obstacle to developing good relationships. It goes by several names, including narcissism, self-obsession, self-centeredness. But it’s best to call it what it is — relational sin. It presents itself as a demanding spirit; a proud, fear-driven sense of entitlement to whatever we think we need to get from another in order to experience personal wholeness. No one, not the most sincere Christ-follower, relates without the stain of self-centered motives. But it is possible to relate with enough real love — radical other-centeredness — to create the opportunity for a genuinely good marriage.

• Without the resources available only in Jesus, the best marriages cannot rise higher than well-socialized self-centeredness. Without his life within us, our most sincere commitment to love another is always corrupted by an ultimate concern with our well-being. Only the power of God provided in the gospel of Jesus and energized by God’s Spirit can release us from the stranglehold of stubborn self-interest. With that power, a marriage can meaningfully reveal the radical, other-centered nature of the God who shares his nature with us.

• Rules and roles in marriage never work, never over the long haul, and never deeply. The key to enjoying our gender differences in a marriage is to release who we are as God-worshiping, Jesus-following, Spirit-prompted men and women in the way we relate to one another. Men and women, who are masculine and feminine because they seize their uniquely gendered opportunity to reveal how God relates, can face every challenge and weather every storm to develop a really good marriage.

These lessons, and a few others, are spelled out in practical detail in Men and Women: Enjoying the Difference. Don’t expect to find a recipe guaranteed to whip up a trouble-free marriage. You won’t discover a well-tested formula to smooth out every bump on the road to the intimacy you desire. But you will see a new way to live as a man or woman, a way that continually recognizes and repents of self-centeredness as you relate to another and, in the process, revives and releases what is most alive in you as a Christian. This is the radically other-centered life of Jesus. The result? The relationship you were created to enjoy, first with the Trinity, then with the love of your life.

Introduction

The words leaped off the page of the newspaper I was reading: I am nineteen and have made the decision not to marry. Why am I so cynical? Let me explain.

In a letter to a newspaper advice columnist, the writer goes on to describe several miserable marriages in her extended family. Referring to great-aunts, grandmothers, and cousins after their husbands had died, she observed that for every woman in our family who was genuinely saddened by her husband’s death, five blossomed, smiled more, and did more interesting and exciting things. The quality of their lives was greatly improved, and it is obvious that they love widowhood.¹

How tragic when the death of a spouse provokes more of a sense of relief than loss!

The disillusioned young woman ended her letter with a comment that reveals more about the roots of her cynicism than she perhaps understood or intended: My father is a grim, stern, joyless person, and I’m pretty sure that my mother will enjoy life much more after he goes.²

I wish that such cynical attitudes about marriage were rare. But in response to the nineteen-year-old’s letter, the advice columnist received hundreds of letters from women stuck in unrewarding marriages.

More and more, it seems, people of all ages report that their exposure to marriage, including their own, does not encourage a confidence that years of living together will produce the joys of intimate relationship all of us want. Too often, what passes for a good marriage is a routine, pleasant arrangement that avoids loneliness and keeps things predictable and safe.

A closer look beneath the thin veneer of social courtesy often reveals tension, bickering, and rage that threaten to shatter any hope of harmony, and we are hard put to find couples who would make a good advertisement for marriage as a thrilling opportunity for warm, satisfying companionship and meaningful intimacy in an uncaring world.

None of us is immune to the spirit of cynicism. As I recently watched two good friends exchange vows, I couldn’t help wondering, for at least a moment, if they would have what it takes to nurture a truly good relationship. Would they be able to successfully work through the strains that inevitably develop when two imperfect people carrying baggage from their past link their lives together? I’m not sure. I never am. I know that very few couples escape those terrible times when anger is intense, divorce seems attractive, and hopes for enjoying each other seem unrealistic.

When I notice the eager smiles of the bride and groom as they turn to face life together as Mr. and Mrs., I sometimes think of the hundreds of couples I’ve counseled who smiled just as broadly on their wedding day but who now have little reason to rejoice. The honeymoon has ended, and they’re bored, irritable, desperate, or comfortably detached from one another in a passionless routine that neither partner has the energy to break.

What does it take to build a good marriage? Is it really possible? With all the attention we have given to understanding relationships, have we learned anything about what is required to develop a closeness that deepens with time, or are we moving away from the understanding we need? We do not lack ideas about communication, commitment, self-understanding, and personal growth; so it seems the picture should be brightening. But it’s not.

As I reflect on ongoing struggles with marriage and think hard about biblical teaching on who we are and what’s wrong with us, it seems to me that our culture addresses secondary problems as though they were central and, in the process of energetically dealing with those problems, overlooks the real killer of relationships.

Sometimes we labor so carefully to define proper roles for husbands and wives that we produce a pharisaical code of conduct that gives birth to stiffly courteous relationships. Other times we emphasize so strongly the importance of learning to like ourselves and focus so intently on repairing the damage to our self inflicted on us by a rejecting, insensitive, and sometimes brutal world, that fixing ourselves becomes more important than giving ourselves. We replace stiff courtesy with self-absorbed vulnerability that fails to produce intimacy.

Either we try hard to do better, thinking that the problem is lack of discipline and effort, or we work to develop ourselves, hoping to overcome the self-hatred and feelings of emptiness that we assume are the real culprits getting in the way of good relating. But neither approach replaces an overriding commitment to our own well-being with a humble, freely chosen concern for the well-being of others. Neither approach leads to our becoming the giving men and women we were designed to be.

Something is missing in our efforts to build good marital relationships. Perhaps a fundamental flaw in the way we try to create intimacy must be corrected before any other attempts to improve things will have effect. And perhaps this flaw has something to do with our having lost the uniqueness of what it means to relate to one another as men and women. Maybe cramming people into tightly defined roles according to gender has stifled the appropriate expression of our sexuality. On the other hand, maybe emphasizing that men and women are equal in worth, in redemption, and in capacity for service has blurred legitimate distinctions in the way we were designed to relate to one another, distinctions that should be enjoyed, not dismissed as outdated.

I wrote this book in an effort to think through one central question: What can a man and woman bring to a marriage that, more than anything else, will create a relationship that gets better with time? Or, to put it more simply, what does it take to make a marriage work?

If we can answer this question, then perhaps we will be able to face honestly what is happening in marriages today with the confidence that married couples can realize the potential for intimacy and with the hope that marriage — two becoming one — will be cause for celebration, not cynicism.

Part One

Why Relationships Don’t Work: The Problem Men and Women Share

Chapter 1

What’s Wrong with Our Marriage?

Original sin means we all originate out of a sinful world which taints us from the word go. We all tend to make ourselves the center of the universe.

FREDERICK BUECHNER

Listen to these comments I’ve heard from four individuals, each in a different troubled marriage.

Wife A: It’s gotten to the point where I can’t take it anymore. I’ve got to start thinking of myself. I’m totally unhappy as his wife.

Husband B: After twenty-six years of no affection, I’ve had it. If just once she would warmly reach over and show an interest in giving me pleasure, I could stick it out.

Wife C: I just don’t feel alive anymore. Somewhere along the line I died. He thinks that the only reason I exist is to supply him with food, sex, and clean shirts. I’ve got to break out of this coffin.

Husband D: I’m not sure why, but life doesn’t mean much anymore. I love my wife, but not the way I used to. The spark just isn’t there. Everything seems so boring. There’s got to be more to life than this.

No one would quarrel with the observation that these folks are hurting. Each one is feeling real pain. They are angry, scared, empty, frustrated, and sometimes desperate.

Most caring people would want to find some way to relieve their pain, to give immediate attention to their wounded hearts.

Many counselors would agree. The most important thing to do is to heal their wounds: Build up self-images, uncover dynamic forces within personalities that block the free expression of identity, break patterns of co-dependency, help people erect boundaries between themselves and others that protect them from negative influences and provide them with enough space to grow. A thousand strategies exist for helping people feel better about themselves.

But notice something else, something that seems almost unkind to point out, something so terribly obvious that we might pass right over it. The four spouses regard their hurt as the most important problem. They are committed, first of all, to themselves.

Each one, without blushing, holds fast to an overriding concern for his or her own well-being. Other things may matter, but nothing matters more than their own happiness and personal satisfaction.

When I talked with these four men and women, it became clear that not one thought of his or her self-centeredness as a serious problem. When each thought about this commitment to self at all, it seemed not only as natural as breathing, but entirely justified.

What is wrong with these wives and husbands, and countless others like them, who know very little of the enjoyment marriage is supposed to provide? Is the core problem the personal damage that patterns of poor relating have produced? Are they wounded victims in need of healing? Or is there a problem within that is worse than whatever wounds they carry? Is there a self-interest that is not healthy and normal but destructive and wrong?

There is, of course, legitimate self-interest. When I order my meal from a restaurant menu, I choose food I want to eat. I’m thinking about myself. Choosing items I don’t like (disgusting things like lima beans or sweet potatoes) would show not mature self-denial, but a lapse in sensible living. It is not wrong to indulge our taste buds, for our sake alone. Similarly, it is not selfish to marry someone whom we expect to enjoy. To do otherwise is foolish.

Desiring our own good is not sinful in itself, but natural and instinctive. God gave us everything, even our very existence. He wants us to take care of what he gave us. It is the act of putting ourselves at the center of the universe, where God belongs, that is unqualified sin. This is, in fact, the very definition of sin.

When self-interest continues as the dominant commitment of our lives, when we devote our energy to serving ourselves above all others, then we are wrongly self-centered. And this form of self-interest is a far more serious and dangerous problem than the wounds we suffer at the hands of others.

But very few people even notice their commitment to self-interest, and among those who do, even fewer are deeply concerned about it. More often, self-centeredness is encouraged: Look out for yourself. Who else is going to? You shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of treatment. You must learn to take care of yourself before you can properly give to others.

All relationships, even the best ones, have hard, disappointing moments. And when we are treated unfairly, an energetic determination to recover some measure of personal comfort seems reasonable and thoroughly justified. Nothing is more natural, especially when we suffer from wounds caused by unjust treatment from another, than to regard our immediate well-being as the final purpose justice should serve.

People are wounded, and people are self-centered. We must decide which is the greater problem.

The wounds of men, in some ways, are different from the wounds of women. In marriage, men complain more of sexual frustration, and women hurt more over the lack of sensitive involvement. Differences like these need to be explored and understood to help us give more meaningfully to one another. But neither men nor women are naturally inclined to give of themselves on behalf of others. Those who rightly insist on the equality of both sexes would do well to begin by insisting that men and women are equally fallen and are therefore equally committed to advancing their own interest. Whatever our similarities and differences, men and women are bound up in a self-centered approach to life that can be dislodged only by an ongoing encounter with a forgiving and gracious God.

We will not move very far in our efforts to develop good marriages until we understand that repairing a damaged sense of identity and healing the wound in our hearts is not the first order of business. It is rather dealing with the subtle, pervasive, stubborn commitment to ourselves.

Self-centeredness is the killer. In every bad relationship, it is the deadliest culprit. Poor communication, temper problems, unhealthy responses to dysfunctional family backgrounds, co-dependent relationships, and personal incompatibility — everything (unless medically caused) flows out of the cesspool of self-centeredness.

Before we can begin to talk about putting marriages together, before we can properly discuss the differences between men and women and how they can be enjoyed, before we can recover from our wounds, we must deal with our common problem of self-centeredness in a way that transforms us more and more into other-centered people.

Two Ways of Thinking

In Christian circles, two popular approaches to building relationships exist. Though they are different, each moves us away from correcting our deep problem of self-centeredness. The first approach insists that suffering is such an unthinkable violation of a person’s dignity that nothing matters more than healing wounds and restoring identity. Woundedness is treated as a far more urgent problem than self-centeredness.

The second approach clubs hurting people over the head with biblical standards in a way that drives them not to Christ and to selfless living, but rather to frustration when they fail or pride when they think they don’t. Those holding to this way of thinking reduce self-centeredness to acts of blatant sinfulness that can be cured by exhortations and scoldings. They hammer against sin, superficially defined, with an insensitivity to hurt and pain.

The first way of thinking regards wounds from unjust treatment as a far more significant problem than self-centeredness. The second, in its pressured demands to do what’s right, contemptuously ignores deep hurt. Neither humanists who put self-development at the center of everything, nor Pharisees who self-righteously enforce the law provide much help in putting joy back into marriage.

Self-Development

Consider the counsel that advocates of the first approach, where self-development is key, might offer the four hurting, self-committed spouses mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

Response to Wife A: Let’s explore your pain and see what can be done to relieve it.

Response to Husband B: I wonder if you’ve felt starved for affection for a long time. Perhaps your strong response to your wife’s coldness reflects a deep insecurity that we could work on.

Response to Wife C: "Certainly there’s more to you than cook, sex partner, and provider of clean shirts.