Religiosity Won’t Help Your Marriage

09/30/15 • 19 min

We had this idea that we were trying to figure out. If you get really fanatical about church and ministry, does that form a point for your marriage to rally around? Or does that investment come at the expense of your marriage? This is, in part, prompted by the observation that a lot of highly involved spiritual leaders end up with failed marriages. We don’t want to get into the whole issue of fallen pastors and spiritual leaders and the psychology behind that, although that is a very interesting – and tragic – topic, but today want to bring this into our lives. All of us are vulnerable to going crazy about the church or some ministry or even a hobby together. As we build the meaning of our relationship around the intensity of our activity and involvement in spiritual works, we have to ask the question: Is this a good thing? This is where it gets tricky! How could you say, “No, it’s not good to be that involved at church or in Missions work or whatever”? It seems sacrilegious. On the other hand, we do know that when we get very, very busy our marriage doesn’t feel better, it feels worse. So we need to look at what is going on and what the right balance is for us so that we can, as a couple, engage in ministry that is meaningful but do so without sacrificing our marriage. Remember the Biblical principle found in the instructions of Samuel when he said, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). This reminds us that it is better to obey the command as husbands to love our wives than it is to sacrifice our relationship with our wives. It’s ironic how we can talk ourselves into something like it’s noble of us to sacrifice marriage and family in the name of God and for expanding his kingdom – but it is actually disobedience! This is in no way a voice of criticism here for those who are seriously committed to serving God. Each marriage has a different tolerance for time apart vs together, the amount of activity vs together time, etc. It’s a unique balance for each couple, but the principle of obedience being better than sacrifice is one we all need to consider and reflect on. Before we start looking into the research, let’s define a few terms. Religiosity: a word to characterize the activity or busyness or works of faith. Sacredness: a word meaning the process of assigning divine character or sacred significance to something. The “sacredness of marriage” is about the idea of Divine involvement/approval/blessing on the marriage. Here’s what the research shows. General religiosity has a very weak link with marital outcomes. In other words, being busy with ministry does not add to your marriage. On the other hand, sacredness strongly predicts desirable marital outcomes. “Spouses who regard their unions as sacred and who sense God’s presence in their relationships tend to report more good feelings and fewer negative emotions towards their partners”.[i] Spouses who value sacredness also generally use more collaborative problem solving and have less tendency towards aggression or stalemates in disputes. There are also more bonding experiences: everything from shared leisure, activities and conversation to a more rewarding sex life. Fundamentally, sacredness also predicts the degree of commitment in the marriage. We conclude from this study that the meaning we give to our marriage and the meaning that we ground our concept of togetherness on is more important than activities that we might base our marriage on. Sacredness trumps religiosity. We’re not saying you shouldn’t go to church or be involved in serving God through various ministries. What we are seeing from the research is that there is no benefit to your marriage to place more value on these activities than on the sacredness of your marriage. A second study from 2013 found very similar conclusions. After looking at 354 couples for a 3 year period, they found that the idea that religiosity is associated with stronger rel...

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Talk About It Sooner Before It’s a Big Deal

Do you ever NOT deal with something between you and your spouse, hoping it will just blow over or that it’s a passing issue? And perhaps life does sail smoothly for a while and then later, BOOM, it comes backs to bite you!? Making it a principle in your marriage to talk about issues sooner rather than later will save you a lot of headaches. For example, it is my nature to procrastinate (or avoid) dealing with issues and just hope they’ll blow over or go away. Unfortunately, it never seems to work that way, and instead, all these minor issues collect behind a temporary dam. Whenever I react with WAY TOO MUCH emotion over something small (that’s the dam bursting), it’s a good indication to me that I haven’t been dealing with the issues as they arrive. So, what I want to know is, WHY DO WE HOLD BACK? As usual, let's look at the research: A study was done in 2004 which looked at decisions to withhold complaints in marriage. It points out that even in a satisfying relationship there are almost daily relational irritations. (We’re normal, Yay!) Even though the couple may uphold the principles of open and direct communication, the spouses frequently hold back on addressing the irritations. This study then looked at how these complaints related to power in the relationship. It turns out that the person who complains the least holds the least power because they’re withholding in order to avoid negative consequences. A spouse who values his/her relationship is more likely to encourage the expression of complaints to their spouse.[i] Learning that blew my theories out the window. I always thought that it was the “strong one” who would let things go or suck-it-up. Turns out I was wrong... Another thing that affected whether a spouse would bring up irritations, was the type of relationship. In a relationship with more independent spouses, where they valued companionship and closeness but also valued keeping their independence, couples were most likely to express their irritations. More traditional relationships that are invested in stability over spontaneity and hold traditional sex roles, tend to report a moderate proportion of unexpressed irritations. Finally, more individuated companionship type relationship that maintains psychological distance and values individual freedom report the high proportion of unexpressed irritations. What we see here, is that the ore you build a relationship focussed on a strong emotional bond and respecting each other’s individuality, the more likely you are to bring things up. Or, in more psychobabblish language, the more differentiated the relationship, the more likely you are to deal with things sooner. We have a whole episode on differentiation, but the quick gist of it is the idea of being securely bonded yet individuated is a healthy posture for marriage. A differentiated spouse knows their marriage is not at risk and can handle the anxiety of pointing out something about their spouse that has upset them. Daily & Palomares (2004) also looked at couples avoiding topics. They found that the more individuals reported avoiding topics overall, the less satisfied they were with their romantically involved dating relationship. They also found a negative relationship between topic avoidance and satisfaction in families. They conclude that people avoid topics because they are unsatisfied, and those that are satisfied are lead to discuss freely. BUT, they’re not sure about cause and effect. Does dissatisfaction lead to avoidance? Or avoidance to dissatisfaction?[ii] We actually don’t know, but we DO know there is a correlation. Does Holding Back Work? We don’t think so, and neither do Daily & Palomares. The more you avoid current relationship concerns, the less satisfied you are relationally. It only makes sense that you can’t feel intimate if you can’t discuss everything. The closeness between you is mediated by the range of topics you are free to discuss with e...

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Parenting For The Benefit Of Your Marriage

It is a well-researched fact that having a baby usually has a negative impact on your marital satisfaction. Let’s look at the whole early parenting thing and draw out some important lessons for married couples who are parents or about to become parents. As you transition into parenthood, you’ll want to have some pretty specific parenting and marriages strategies to make sure that mom, babe, and dad are all taken care of because babies make for busy lives! They take a lot of time. But there is some good news here. Studies show that as demands on our time have increased over the past 40 years, generally speaking, most couples have decreased their involvement in paid employment so that they can keep up with time spent with their spouse and children.[i] We think this is great! That shows good values are at work. It also speaks to those of you considering having children that this is something you’ll be challenged with as well so be prepared for that. Most couples are adding time into their weekdays by reducing the number of hours they work. Weekends are a little different story. Most couples end up paying a social and personal cost for maintaining their levels of spousal time. If you’re married with kids you’re probably spending less time with friends and extended family on weekends. Again, this is reasonable. It is so great to see that in contemporary marriages spousal companionship is important and people are prioritizing it. However, we would urge you not to become too isolated from your social networks. There needs to be a balance. So, that’s parenting and marriage in terms of time management. Some ideas there for you if you need a change. Now in terms of your marriage itself and how you’re relating to each other - you need to stay connected as a couple. As we’ve already established in other episodes, having kids does put a dent in your marital satisfaction, so this is something we all need to work at. A study by some major marriage researchers looked at couples' marital friendship at the start of their marriage versus the decline over the transition to parenthood.[ii] They followed these newlywed couples for 6 years and compared the new parents to a control group who remained childless over that time. Here is what helped mothers to have stable or increasing marital satisfaction: The husband’s expression of fondness toward her. The more warmth he puts in, the more satisfied she feels. The husband’s high awareness for her and their relationship. This really ties to the first one. If he is more aware of the stress she is experiencing and responds with more fondness: this is a huge help. It goes the other way too - if she is aware of his efforts to be supportive and loving, she is way more satisfied in her marriage. Her awareness for her husband and their relationship. Not only can husbands help by being aware and acting out of that in a generous way but she also needs to be alert enough to acknowledge, receive and even reciprocate this. What about the other side? What predicts a decline in marital satisfaction of mothers? The husband’s negativity towards her wife. Corrosive. The husband’s disappointment in the marriage. Also corrosive. The husband or wife describing their lives as chaotic. Chaos as a feeling comes from the sense that there are changes in their lives that are out of control. This adds a lot of stress to a major life transition. So, how does this transition work then? In 2006, some researchers looked at the quality of the intimate relationship six months after delivery.[iii] They uncovered four factors that were influential. The first relates to this whole subject of transition to parenting. It’s the most mentioned category in the study. The factors here that were most frequently mentioned were the “loyal sharing of responsibility” and “mutual respect and regard”. What is happening in these marriages that are transitioning successfully is that the...