Marriage Rebranded

by Tyler Ward

  However, as most of us are already aware, there’s a big difference between knowing what real love is and actually loving. One takes a cognitive assent. The other takes everyday choices. In the never-ending wrestle to put real love into practice, the central question becomes “How?”

  Glad you asked.

  GIVING VS INTELLIGENT GIVING

  Early on in our marriage, I was convinced that my wife had a bottomless love tank, as Dr. Gary Chapman has written about in The 5 Love Languages. At the very least, it seemed broken and leaky because I could never seem to fill it sufficiently. The more I gave to marriage, the more it asked of me—making it feel impossible to ever get ahead. My wife constantly felt unloved and I felt perpetually exhausted. Clearly something had to change.

  Upon closer examination, my wife’s love tank wasn’t broken, nor was it bottomless. As it turns out, most assets in our lives will inevitably become a liability if not intelligently maintained. This is true for our car, our bank account, and it is certainly true for our marriages. Though I prided myself on investing efficiently in my day job, I was apparently insanely inefficient at home.

  How? Because investment is thoroughly useless unless applied to the right things.

  Motivated by exhaustion, I began investigating the difference between giving and intelligent giving. My exploration led me to three ideas.

  Allow me to introduce you to them.

  1. Marriage is designed for first place

  I like to call this the “Priority Phenomenon,” which you can see at work in my home experiment. Simply put, outside of a relationship with the Divine, marriage is designed to be given first place in our life priorities. More so, the phenomenon implies that where marriage falls in the sequence of our priorities is more important than the amount of time, energy, and resources we give to it.

  This means that we can invest endless amounts of time and love into our spouse—but the moment they feel less important than our work, or friends, or hobbies, our efforts of love will cease to be enough.

  Once the sequence of our priorities is properly in place and we’re ready to invest, a mathematical equation can become incredibly helpful.

  2. 80 percent of the output comes from 20 percent of the input

  Also known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle was drawn from the observation of an early twentieth century economist. After observing various patterns in life such as wealth distribution, the growth of vegetables, and the general amount of investment required in various professions, Vilfredo Pareto concluded that in virtually every area of life, we can trace 20 percent of our input to 80 percent of its output (and vice versa). Here are a few examples to make sense of it.12

  80% (or more) of the results come from 20% (or less) of the effort and time invested.

  80% of revenue comes from 20% of the client base.

  80% of the health of our marriage is cultivated by 20% of our investment.

  The beauty of Pareto’s principle is that if you can identify that 20 percent and focus on it, you can save yourself from expending unnecessary—and unhelpful—time, energy, and investment in your marriage. Though we know there are no real universal formulas to having a successful marriage, the 80/20 principle can serve as a helpful guide to putting your days of exhaustion without fulfillment behind you.

  But the first question here is perhaps the hardest one. “What is the 20 percent in your relationship?” And the answer lies in the truth that…

  3. Everyone speaks a different language

  I could make every effort to spend time with my wife, hold her hand, kiss her—but if I don’t understand her love language, I still may find myself at the end of the day saying good night to a woman who does not feel loved.

  Dr. Gary Chapman, of course, popularized this idea in his landmark book, The 5 Love Languages. As Dr. Chapman told me, “If you’re not speaking your spouse’s love language, it doesn’t matter how much you’re giving, you will never answer her deepest questions about your love or fill her love tank completely.”

  You can design the best investment plan possible for your spouse—but unless you know how he or she truly receives love, your efforts are destined for little more than a heartless “nice try.” On the other hand, if you can identify exactly what is required to make your spouse feel loved, you’ll be well on your way to identifying that 20 percent that can make all the difference.

  If the love language idea is new to you, take ten minutes right now and take the free 5 Love Languages inventory: 5lovelanguages.com/profile. Trust me—it’s guaranteed to save you a lot of time in the future.

  Analee’s Point of View. Understanding our love languages changed everything for us. Do it! I was certain that I was loving Tyler to the max. How could he not be overwhelmed with all my loving? I was verbally affirming, went out of my way to do things for him—always thinking of ways to bless him. But words had little significance to him and it didn’t matter much if I did acts of service. I learned that it meant everything to him when I would stop dancing around singing affirmations, and instead simply be still with him, cuddle, and spend quality time in deep conversation.

  RECIPROCATION IS IRRELEVANT

  How to Respond When Your Spouse Doesn’t Seem to Care

  “What if I give and give and give, but my spouse doesn’t reciprocate?” Since publishing thoughts on the priority phenomenon, this is the dominant question I’ve received in response. So I’ve asked every marriage expert I could. Their answers are varied and enlightening.

  LOVE STIMULATES LOVE.

  “Love is a choice,” Dr. Gary Chapman told me when I had the chance to spend an hour interviewing him. “We can request love, but we cannot demand love. We cannot make our spouse speak our love language. However, my basic approach is that you can’t control your spouse but you can control your attitude and your behavior.”

  He continued, “The good news is that love stimulates love. And though the object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love, it is a fact that when we receive love we are far more likely to be motivated to reciprocate and do something our spouse desires.”

  When I asked him for a practical suggestion on how to get started, he said, “Try this: Choose an attitude of love. Learn the love language of your spouse and speak it on a regular basis. Then three months down the road you can say to them, ‘On a scale of zero to ten, how much love do you feel coming from me?’ If they give you a seven, eight, nine, ten—you’re at the top. Or if they say anything less than ten, you say, ‘What can I do to bring it up to a ten or bring it up to a nine?’ and they give you a suggestion, then to the best of your ability you do that.”

  Dr. Chapman recommended repeating this process every two weeks by simply asking your spouse what you can do to love them better, and taking their answer to heart.

  “There’s a good chance that before long they’re going to say, ‘Well, wait a minute here. I’m turning this around. On a scale of zero to ten, how much love do you feel coming from me?’ ”13

  And that is exactly how love stimulates love.

  THE SCHOOL OF LOVE.

  Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage, shared some great insight on the issue in a recent interview with me as well.

  He started by paraphrasing Luke 6 in which Jesus says, “ ‘If you love those that love you, what good is that to you? If you give to receive, what good is that? Even the world loves that way. If you’re kind to those that are kind to you, well that’s how the world operates. How does that prove it there? Jesus loves even your enemies, do good to them.’ Then He says, ‘And men, love them without expecting to get anything back.’ ”

  Gary continued, “God doesn’t command us to get married; He offers it to us as an opportunity. God lets us choose whom we’re going to love. Yes, this spouse might be difficult to love at times, but that’s what marriage is for—to teach us how to love. And once I accept that my greatest need is to learn how to love—not to be loved—then th
e things that used to frustrate me about my marriage, now I appreciate. … There isn’t a day when marriage doesn’t give you an opportunity to love.”

  I love Gary’s idea here of marriage as the best school for learning love—in which, as he says, the very “things that tick us off become training.” He explained to me, “I need to learn how to love somebody who’s impatient … I might need to learn to love somebody who is selfish. My marriage gives me an opportunity to do that.”

  So what does this look like practically, I asked Gary. Here’s his response: “Allow your marriage relationship to stretch your love and to enlarge your capacity for love. Use marriage as a practice court, where you learn to accept another person and serve him or her. And please don’t limit this love to ‘spiritual’ things like praying, preaching, and exhorting. Part of the experience of love is delighting each other in very earthy ways.”14

  Logically, it doesn’t make sense to me that it is better to give than to receive. But practically, this theory seems to work in marriage. If I’m focusing on giving to my wife, I experience great joy. This joy is connected to my worship because I’m loving my wife out of love for my heavenly Father.

  On the other hand, if I’m in my marriage only to receive, there’s a lust released in me. Suddenly, I can’t be loved enough. I can’t be appreciated enough. I can’t be paid attention to enough. And so I think Jesus is just telling us, “You get to choose where your marriage is headed. Are you in this together only to receive love, or to learn how to love?”

  It’s up to us. But I think we all know where the greatest joy is.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ONE + ONE = ONE

  Love Isn’t Something We Fall Into

  “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

  —Mignon McLaughlin

  I’ll never forget the first time I said “I love you” to Analee. It was an absolute nightmare.

  Some people find it incredibly easy to start professing their love for a significant other. Then there’s me. Up until this point in life, I was able to avoid using the infamous three words and had no intention of dusting them off until marriage. Of course, that was before I met the five-foot-nothing firecracker I now call my wife.

  It was a lazy late afternoon in Los Angeles and two influencing dynamics were in play.

  First, Analee and I had just hit the six-month-dating mark—a big deal among twentysomethings—and we had made a unanimous decision to keep this exclusive experiment going. This newfound mutual commitment was like pouring gasoline on an already raging fire, which had a way of extending our lip-locking sessions and inspiring more and more time together.

  Second, though we both were aware of each other’s spirituality, we had not yet shared many of our thoughts about God. Even if you go to the same church or gathering, often your thoughts about the character of God can greatly differ, having dramatic implications on the way you want to design your relationship and family and life. This conversation was a massive missing piece of our relationship’s puzzle.

  We had recently braved this “thoughts on God” conversation and the shared perspective we found calmed any possible doubt about developing a future together. To make our newfound connection even hotter, she had just mentioned that she was halfway through a book written by one of my favorite spiritual thinkers. I asked her to read a chapter or two as we spent our afternoon together.

  Analee diligently read aloud in her best narrator’s voice, but the only voice I was listening to was the one in my head telling me that I had found the one I was looking for.

  Then it just happened.

  Before she could even finish the sentence—and about as awkwardly as you could imagine—I cut her off.

  “I love you.”

  Analee’s Point of View. I was thinking, Am I boring him or is he just not interested in the chapter? Then out of nowhere—with no warning or tact—he blurted out those three words. I didn’t know what to think. I knew he had never said those words to anyone before and part of me was obviously ecstatic to hear it. But the other part of me was like, “Now?! Sitting on my couch while reading a book? You just waited your whole life to say those three words and you couldn’t even wait for me to finish my sentence?! Or perhaps a more romantic, special setting?! What do I do? Do I say it back?” Oh, gosh. I tried really hard to hide my smile, but couldn’t stop nervously giggling.

  She had stopped reading, though her eyes never left the book. I wasn’t sure if it was the daunting words that made her uncomfortable, or just the general awkwardness of a guy cutting her off to randomly profess his love. Or worse, maybe both. Either way, she was obviously stunned speechless.

  I panicked. Then my thoughts crucified me.

  How could I wait my entire life to say this to a woman and let it go down like this?

  On a random Sunday afternoon?!

  We’ve only been dating for six months!

  I couldn’t even wait for her to finish her sentence?!

  Do I even really love her? Or am I just being impulsive?

  Am I ready for this?

  No. We’re not ready for this yet.

  I’ve blown it!

  Still, she sat silently. And in a matter of seconds, my mind rocketed from confidence to fear to intimidation to regret to rational reasoning—but all emotions in the end pointed to one thing: This was a colossal mistake.

  So, I did what any relational moron would do in this situation …

  “I’m sorry. We aren’t ready for this. Can I take it back?”

  Analee’s Point of View. “WHAT?! Who does that? I felt like we were in fifth grade. You just told me you loved me for the first time in your life and now you’re taking it back?!”

  I could already tell by the look on her face that it was too late.

  “Of course you can take it back.” She said with a smirk, “But I already know the truth.”

  Analee’s Point of View. And the truth will set you free!

  It’s only one of the epic blunders I made while dating my wife that we still laugh about today. However, my pathetic delivery is only half the humor in the story. The arguably more humorous part is that I actually believed that what we were experiencing in that season was falling “in love.”

  Turns out, I wasn’t “in love” with my wife at all. Not then. Not on our wedding day. And in some moments, not even now.

  Analee’s Point of View. For all the rest of you hopeless romantics out there like me, just hold on. It’s only wordplay! And you’re about to find out exactly what it means.

  LOVE IS A VICTIM OF MODERN CULTURE.

  It’s a classic conclusion: “I think we’re falling in love.” At some point, you gather the courage to see if the sentiment is reciprocated, then, of course, you start talking long-term. And why wouldn’t you talk marriage? After all, love is the foundation for marriage, right?

  This was certainly my story. After a few stomach butterflies, a few DTRs (Define the Relationship), and plenty of time together, I thought Analee and I had arrived at the much-sought-after phenomenon of being in love.

  Unfortunately for us and our socially reinforced illusions, love isn’t something we simply fall into.

  However, infatuation is.

  INFATUATION VS LOVE.

  First, the bad news.

  We often assume the emotions we feel in dating and the early stage of marriage are evidence of love. However, these emotions are better explained by the consistent neurochemical reaction that biology calls the state of infatuation.1

  The early stage of romantic attraction and a cocaine high may have drastically different effects on a person’s life, but both endeavors share quite a bit in common. Each one induces a rush of several chemicals to your brain. One of the more dominant of these chemicals is called dopamine—otherwise known as our body’s reward drug. This means that when our brain tastes the chemical, it instantly dispenses a reward of positive emotions throughout our body. As Helen Fisher, an anth
ropologist at Rutgers University reflects, “The properties of infatuation have many of the same elements of a cocaine high. Most importantly, infatuation can overtake the rational part of your brain.”2

  Now, let’s not take the association of infatuation and cocaine too far. Obviously experiencing a heightened rush of dopamine is not inherently a negative thing. In fact, it is a completely natural and healthy and celebrated part of romance. Even when the Bible walks us through the stages of an epic love story between Solomon and his Shulamite bride, infatuation plays a foundational role both in the beginning and all throughout their relationship. Song of Solomon reads, “Kiss me—full on the mouth! Yes! For your love is better than wine … Take me away with you! Let’s run off together! An elopement with my King-Lover! We’ll celebrate, we’ll sing, we’ll make great music. Yes! For your love is better than vintage wine. Everyone loves you—of course! And why not?”3

  Analee’s Point of View. Whatever you want to call it, I love infatuation! I am so thankful God lets us have the love-drug high and I don’t believe it’s off-limits throughout marriage. I sing “Sober” by Little Big Town often as I dance around my kitchen: “‘Cause I love being in love. It’s the best kind of drug …”