by Libby DuPont
I have a kiddo with a gluten intolerance. When he was younger, we spent a year doing a pretty strict elimination diet, which helped his behavior, learning, skin and allergies. While he’s back to eating all the things we once eliminated, we do try and keep them at a minimum. Recently, he was having some skin irritation. Initially, we considered switching all the products he was using that touched that skin. But then it occurred to me: he had recently been in an activity at school that provided dinner for a week straight: pizza (twice), subs, pasta- way more gluten than he was used to! After a few days back to his normal, more balanced diet, the irritation cleared up. Once we dealt with the inside, the outside worked itself out.
In our marriages, it can be the same. We spend so much time and energy looking on the surface of things, and just end up frustrated and disappointed. “Man looks at the appearance, but God looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14) Let’s take three examples in marriage of how a look deeper can change everything.
Sex
Outside approach: When there is tension in the physical relationship between husband and wife, the world will usually approach it by examining the externals of the situation. Every time I check out at the grocery store, I see magazines attempting to help with this approach. “Seven new positions that will light a spark!” “The move that will make her beg for more!” If there is hurt, or restlessness or distance between husband and wife in their lovemaking, no amount of “spicing things up” will do the trick.
Inside approach: For sex to be fulfilling for spouses, we need to look beneath the surface. Our bodies and souls are integrated, so for lovemaking to bring us closer, both body and soul must be communicating to our spouse. We spend a lot of time in all our experiences examining the meaning and purpose of sex, because it is so fundamental to a healthy spousal relationship.
Daily annoyances
Outside approach: Your husband can come home from work, sit on the couch and not even see the huge piles of clutter all over the house. How can he just sit there with all that mess? Ugh, it’s so ANNOYING! We all have little situations like this with our spouses, whether it revolves around the dishwasher, how we fold the towels, or leaving the last drop of milk in the carton. When we focus on the behaviors themselves, they just keep getting more frustrating.
Inside approach: The solution to this is to look below the surface to the value that drives the behavior at hand. Maybe your husband comes home stressed out from work, and needs some decompression time before he could ever tackle cleaning. You, on the other hand, may find clutter itself to be stressful and would rather spend a few minutes picking up so that it doesn’t bother you later when you want to relax. Focusing on the value beneath our behaviors enables us to see the good in our spouse and will ultimately make their behavior less annoying, and a solution easier to agree upon!
Marriage Issues
Outside approach: Every marriage has issues. Serious ones, like addiction, infidelity or abuse often need professional help, but most run-of-the-mill things like taking each other for granted, being controlling, nit-picking or miscommunication can be greatly reduced by looking deeper. When these things come up between us, we often focus on them, which just causes us to notice them and mull over them, making it difficult to solve anything because we are so hurt!
Inside approach: If we focus instead on the mission of our marriage: to convince our spouse that he/she is loved and lovable, we are much more effective at eradicating little “issues.” An other-centered approach of looking at how I can minister to the heart of my spouse, with forgiveness, affirmation, and smart loving, goes much further than criticism. Also, if we look at what is happening when things are going right between us, we can switch our attention to these things. When the playful, romantic atmosphere of love is operative in our homes, it becomes way easier to solve any challenge that comes our way!
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Brad and Libby DuPont have been married since 2003 and live in Overland Park, KS with their son and daughter. They have been involved in national leadership for EverMore in Love for several years, and Libby currently serves as Director. They are grateful for strong coffee, decent wine and the fact that they both found someone who laughs at their jokes (usually).
