Can the way you think about marriage actually hurt your marriage?
On August 18 my new book, 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, will officially launch (UPDATE: It’s now available!). And this month we’ll be looking at that essential question: is what you think holding you back from marital bliss?
Today’s Wednesday, the day that we always talk about marriage, so I thought it would be a good day to share an excerpt from the book about my own journey with faulty thinking–really the heart of the message. And then I’ll give you who are bloggers a chance to link up your own marriage posts below, too!
And now here’s the excerpt:
Keith and I had both waited for marriage to have sex, and we both assumed that it would be wonderful, mind-blowing, and perfectly natural. But it wasn’t. It was awkward, it was messy, and worst of all, it hurt. Whenever Keith wanted to make love, I felt rejected, because he wanted something that made me miserable.
My frustration finally grew to the point where I wondered, Why can’t he just love me for me and not for what I can do for him? I accused him of selfishness. Of not loving me. Of being a Neanderthal who couldn’t control his passions. The more we fought over sex, the more certain I became that he didn’t value me. I felt so lonely, and yet instead of being sympathetic and wrapping me in a bear hug, Keith lobbed accusations right back: “Why don’t you care about my feelings? Why don’t you want me?”
After I had prayed for two exhausting years that he would start caring about me, a thought entered my head: Do you believe the only one who can fix this relationship is Keith? Don’t you have something to do with it?
I didn’t particularly like that thought, and so I vehemently argued with myself about why changing was impossible. Even if we only considered sex, how was I supposed to enjoy something so gross and uncomfortable?
Then another thought hit me even harder: If God says that sex is good, and the whole world says that sex is good, maybe you should start figuring out how to make sex good.
I was stunned.
If that thought was right, then the responsibility fell on me to do something about my struggle.
I had to stop thinking sex was awful and start thinking, Sex is great—I just don’t have it all figured out yet. The problem may have started in the bedroom, but it wasn’t a problem with sex. It was a problem with how I was thinking.
The next few years in our marriage became my big research project into this thing called Us. I decided to conquer this sex issue once and for all, because if God created something this great, no way was I going to miss it! I read books and talked to friends about how to make sex work. I talked to wise mentors about how to deal with past issues that held people back. I studied Keith to glean what made him feel loved. Slowly but surely, I fell madly in love with Keith again. And thankfully, he with me too.
Faulty Thinking Leaves Us Stuck
My marriage was stuck when I believed that Keith’s libido was the cause of all our fights. After all, if his sex drive was the problem, then the only solution I could see was to make Keith want sex less. I threw my energy into that dead-end goal: I bought a wardrobe of long flannel nightgowns; I com-plained constantly about headaches; and I stopped kissing in all its forms.
I was fruitlessly expending all this energy, making myself and my husband frustrated, because I suffered from faulty thinking. It was only when I realized that I had a different option—instead of investing so much energy into getting Keith to want sex less, I could figure out how to make me want it more—did things begin to change.
When our options are limited, it’s easy to become hopeless. I believed that my marriage couldn’t get better until Keith changed, but I had no control over that. So I was stuck. And when you’re stuck, you stop trying—or you do counterproductive things, such as emptying out the local Salvation Army of all their granny nightgowns. You’re not fixing your marriage; you’re digging a deeper hole.
But what if that initial thought was wrong? What if peace and joy are not dependent on someone else changing,
but they instead flow from God giving us the ability to choose how to think, how to feel, and how to respond? We can choose to make our life fulfilling by aligning our thoughts more with God’s. Jesus, after all, isn’t just our way to salvation. He is Truth itself (John 14:6). When we grow close to Jesus, he reveals Truth. That lets us see all the options before us. Then we won’t feel stuck—we’ll know that there is always a way forward.
Christians Get Stuck in Marriage, Too
That sounds a bit like a clichéd bumper sticker, though, doesn’t it? “Are you stuck? You just need Jesus!” While this pat statement has a foundation of truth, if it were really that easy, wouldn’t all Christians have great marriages?
Yes, we would, and I think it’s to our shame that we don’t. But I’ve seen lots of faulty thinking in Christian circles that goes something like this:
Now prayer, of course, is one of the best weapons we have in bringing peace to our lives, and I certainly don’t mean to discount its importance. But the reason behind the prayer matters. If you pray only to get God to do something, then you treat God like Santa Claus or a rabbit’s foot, not a Savior with a claim on your life.
Prayer should always be about submission to God’s will; it should not be about convincing God to do yours.
Similarly, submission and love are among the noblest pursuits, but if your purpose in doing them is to cajole your husband into doing something to make you happy, then that’s manipulation too. And your faulty thinking—that you need your husband to change in order for you to be happy– limits your options for improving your marriage. You’re stuck.
These ideas that enter our consciousness—that by praying and loving enough we will have a happy marriage—are what I will call “pat answers.” They promise the moon and make marriage look so easy. But despite the initial seduction of the “promise,” ultimately these pat answers don’t work, because they put the responsibility for change in someone else’s hands. It’s not you, fully submitted to God, who acts to bring about change; it’s God all by himself, or your husband, or a friend. You become a bystander.
____
That’s from the intro!
So let me ask you today: Do you feel like a bystander in your marriage–like you’re twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to get someone else to fix things, because you figure there’s nothing that you can do?
Most of us are stuck there at some point or other. And unfortunately the church can make this problem worse. The way that we talk about prayer, and the way that we talk about male leadership, has made so many women stuck, just like I was.
It wasn’t that I didn’t pray–I did. I prayed a ton. But I prayed for the wrong things because I was thinking the wrong things. And I thought the responsibility for actually fixing things rested on my husband and on God.
It was only when I saw that God wanted so much more for me–freedom, and passion, and love–and that these things were possible if I just thought differently–that my marriage started to change.
That’s the heart for my book. I want women to see that God doesn’t want you stuck–and you aren’t really stuck. You just may need to think about your marriage in a different way. Whether it’s a relatively small issue, a general malaise, or a big thing that’s keeping you from feeling like you’re one, God does have a way forward for you. He really does. Let me show you!
Let me leave you with this thought: Instead of praying that God will make your marriage better, can you pray that God will help you think clearly about this issue? Maybe all it takes a bit of a mind shift to make all the difference in the world!
Are you PeaceKEEPING or PeaceMAKING?
There’s a better way!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 27 years and happily married for 22! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Sheila,
I really appreciated this because I have had similar issues. But I have a question. In the end, was not the answer to your problem a “pat answer”? It seemed to me that your story and the narrative of what you were trying to fit your story into didn’t work together. In the end was not your answer to change your thinking, but to have submit to God, your husband and have more sex? I hear what you are saying about motives and needing to change them and I sure agree with that but in the end didn’t weren’t the pat answers exactly right, you were just approaching them with wrong motives? In the end didn’t it involve scrunching yourself up into a pretzel to make changes that were really hard to make, even hurt and putting God and your husband first- not your own happiness?
Our story is not much different. I hated sex and it hurt somewhat. So I stopped having it. I had a good husband who loved me but eventually he just shut down. He eventually even turned to porn. At the end of my rope I eventually did much like you did. I finally looked at myself, my sin and started to be obedient to God and meeting my husbands needs. It was not easy at first but now three years later things have turned around immensely. Our marriage is thriving. But what the made the difference was instead of me doing what I wanted, even what “I thought” was right, I laid down my life to God and my husband. I turned to the “pat answers” that I had always dismissed because I was to focused on me, what I wanted and even because they hurt at times to live out.
What do you think?
Hi Cassie! That’s a really good question, and I’m glad you answered it. And by the way, I’m so glad that you emerged from that awful time in your marriage, too.
This is how I’d explain it:
A pat answer is something that gives a solution to a problem that sounds relatively simple and yet profound, but which doesn’t address the heart of the issue and doesn’t understand the complexity of it. It’s true in a few cases, but it can’t be generalized to every case, even though people try to generalize it.
An example would be: “just pray about it and you’ll be healed!”. Well, yes, Jesus heals. But often people aren’t healed because there’s a larger purpose. So you can’t always say that.
A real solution may actually sound “pat”–in the sense that it looks relatively simple and profound–but the difference is that it CAN be generalized and it would still work.
So if the solution is: look at yourself first; go to God and ask for wisdom; ask God what you should do; start taking responsibility for your own issues; that’s not pat. Because it does work in every situation. Now, it won’t necessarily give the same solution in every situation, because every situation is different. But it is relevant for every situation.
A pat answer takes something that works in a few simple situations and makes it sound like it’s the only thing that will work in all situations. And that’s not true!
I hope that makes sense!
Wise words! And congrats on the new book, Sheila! Sounds like a page-turner! Thanks for the linkup my friend!
Interesting conversation on what is a pat answer. As I was reading your article and the comments here and on FB I had a thought about it too. As you say it’s not that the pat answer doesn’t have truth in it, its how its delivered. When someone instead of listening to a problem and maybe even just admitting that it really sucks, just casually says “Just pray about it” it makes me feel like they didn’t really listen to me. Not that the prayer isn’t powerful, but I feel like the person delivering the pat answer doesn’t really get how tough going through this situation is. I think most people aren’t expecting to hear a solution from someone, but hearing a pat answer can be irritating in the sense of “do you really think I haven’t been doing that?”
I’ve even heard pastors admit that when they go through a personal crisis hearing pat advice or even verses being quoted can be quite painful. Yes, of course they know all things work for good, but that may not want to be what they need to hear right at that moment.
I’ve been learning in the last few years that sometimes just admitting to someone that “I don’t know the answer to your problem” or “I’m sorry that does sound terrible” can be a lot more helpful then just rambling off scripture. And then if I tell them I’ll pray for them, I really do – I don’t just say it as the default Christian answer but never really remember them.
Hope that makes sense. What do you think?
I think we miss the heart of the person who is going through a tough time – whatever that tough time may be. And while the pat answers are true, it doesn’t really touch the heart of the person. I agree with Viviana above – just giving a pat answer, while true, can be quite hurtful. We need to get to the heart of the person, to who they truly are, to what they are truly struggling with – and stand beside them and let them know that while we may not truly understand there current circumstances, we do understand hurt and pain, and we are with them. I’ve said before, I think that we need to Christians have to start keeping quiet more, talk less, and let people know who God is by what we do. So people can see God’s love in action. And that may be mean walking someone through a really bad patch in their lives by being with them, and not glibly saying, “just pray”. Giving a pat answer shows that we truly don’t understand what a person is going through – and that we don’t truly understand God’s love for us!
Just my 5c worth…
Wow – I guess I was typing too fast… That one sentence makes no sense! *blush*
…I’ve said before, I think that we need Christians to start keeping quiet more, talk less, and let people know who God is by what we do. So people can see God’s love in action. And that may be mean walking someone through a really bad patch in their lives by being with them, and not glibly saying, “just pray”. Giving a pat answer shows that we truly don’t understand what a person is going through – and that we don’t truly understand God’s love for us!
I agree that changing your thoughts can help you in marriage. I’m at the point of frustration because I’m the only one in this marriage seeking to make it better. Reading marriage blogs and books, finding and catering to his love language, doing love dares and he couldn’t care less about seeking to know and love me that way. We have a good marriage most days until my feelings get hurt (usually because my love language isn’t being given) and then he thinks I can’t see all that he does because of the one thing that lacks. Why do women care so much more? I don’t see men rushing out to find ways to make marriage better and quite frankly I’m tired of being the only one in this marriage.