Grandpa Lake’s Weblog

Years ago, I was in a marriage relationship that failed. In fact, it was a failure from the beginning, but, because I wanted it to succeed, I kept working to make it so.

Expectations

I would expect her to behave in a certain way and she didn’t. I’d get angry. So, what was the solution? I would reduce my expectations so that I would not expect of her what she could not or would not deliver, whether it was doing something I didn’t like or not doing something I wanted her to do. It worked.

In situation after situation, I’d check myself and decide to not expect what she would not conform to. Soon, there was nothing she did that made me angry. That solved my anger problem. But, there were unintended consequences.

What I had not considered was that relationships are built around expectations. What is it that defines a relationship? Is it not that each party in the relationship expects to give certain things to and receive certain things from the other party? As my expectations of her were reduced to nothing, so also did our relationship become nothing. We became two individuals sharing one house. Eventually, we didn’t share the house – or anything else.

The lesson that I learned was that to sustain a positive relationship, there must be expectations on the part of both parties, but they must agree what those expectations are to be. Then, they must hold each other accountable.

Accountability

One of the features of a relationship is that it has accountability built into it. Whether one is talking about a business contract or a marriage contract there needs to be a mechanism for holding the other party accountable for meeting the mutual expectations that create the relationship.

In a business contract, the means of holding the other party accountable is usually spelled out. In a marriage contract, acceptable means of enforcing accountability is seldom spelled out. I think that it is assumed that love or mutual dependence will indirectly perform that function. It often doesn’t work.

In a marriage, a person will sometimes venture to mark off an area of his life and refuse to be accountable for what he does within it. They may go so far as to want to keep the partner ignorant about what is going on there. The problem is that life cannot be segmented so that one part of it doesn’t affect other parts. What is more likely to happen is that one partner expects that the other should be more accountable than the other agrees to. Then, we’re back to the expectations problem again.

Solution

This whole relationship dilemma can be solved if both parties are subject to authority external to themselves. Christian married couples are required by their commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord to submit to the authority of God’s Word. I was reared in an atmosphere where Dad constantly reminded everyone, especially Mom, “Wives, submit to your own husbands…” I appreciated the preacher who, in a sermon, said “Men! Read your own mail!” I’m not going to try to give an exposition of Ephesians 5. Others have done a better job than I could. What I wish to express is that both husbands and wives can find in that chapter what they need to know to have a profitable, satisfying relationship.