Rules of Engagement
At the start of any workshop or conflict resolution meeting, I ask participants to make two, sometimes three, commitments. These operate as rules of engagement. If you’re reading this book and doing the exercises together, you and your spouse may want to subscribe to them.
The first and most important commitment is to refrain from making killer statements. A killer statement is a disparaging comment without redeeming value. Such statements should never be made in a marriage. Nor, as much as possible, should you entertain them in your heart. They are neither constructive nor edifying, including for you, since what you think is what you become.
As we will explore in more detail, every marriage, like every family, develops its own subculture. What would be a killer statement in one marriage might be a term of endearment in another. The important thing is to avoid saying anything within your particular marital subculture that your spouse would experience as hurtful. Here are two examples of what all married people might regard as killer statements:
“You’re so lazy and useless, I can’t believe I married you.”
“You irritate me so much that I tune you out.”
It is also wise to avoid saying something hostile or critical, and then discounting it with, “I was only kidding.” Your spouse is likely to conclude, perhaps correctly, that you meant what you said. Disguised killer statements are still killer statements.
The second commitment is to agree that neither of you will break off the conversation without agreeing to continue it later. In chapter 4, we’re going to take a detailed look at how dismissive disengagement can do serious harm to a marriage. Agree in advance that, no matter what, both of you will always return to the work. By the work I mean whatever you intentionally do to cultivate your marriage.
The third commitment is never to utter a criticism camouflaged as a prayer or prayer request. “Father, I ask you to heal my husband’s temper” and “Please pray that my wife becomes more loving” and are both thinly veiled criticisms. So is, “My prayer for you is that you become more tolerant.”
These are all expressions of hostility. If you’re a Christian, you are part of the Body of Christ. This brings with it certain obligations about how to act toward other people, especially your husband or wife, which includes not dressing up nastiness in the language of caring.
Active Learning
If you implement the recommendations contained in this book, the quality of your marriage is likely to improve, perhaps dramatically. And, if you are not yet married, being aware of them may show you ways to help ensure that any future marriage you enter into will be successful and rewarding.
I am going to present plenty of solid content on marriage, but you can only gain so much from reading. At a certain point, to pursue the work, you have to begin actually to do something. I’m therefore going to give you many opportunities—occasions—to practice behaviors that will concretely strengthen your marriage.
It is important to understand the difference between two kinds of knowledge: knowing how and knowing that. Think of a motorcycle. You might know all about torque, gear ratios, tire traction, transmission systems, and how the gyroscopic effect keeps it upright when its wheels rotate. But none of this would get you one bit closer to knowing how to ride a motorcycle. You could spend three lifetimes becoming the world’s greatest expert on the physics of motorcycles, and you might still not know how to ride one.
Knowing facts is not the same as acquiring skills. This book is intended to be far more than an intellectual exercise.
Where We’re Headed
Here’s a preview:
• I first want to make clear what communication is and is not.
• We’ll consider the nature of good and bad marriages.
• I’ll outline the basic dimensions of all relationships, including marriages, and look at how, by what we say and do, we unconsciously teach other people how to treat us.
• We’ll discuss the nature of divorce and what predicts it. Research has shed light on the one thing couples do that often precedes marital dissolution.
• I’ll encourage you to recognize and reckon with what you most appreciate about your husband or wife.
• Then, I’ll ask you to express this appreciation.
• We’ll consider male and female differences and, along the way, mention a few realities that may surprise you.
• Others have written about languages of love. If you express your love in a mode that your spouse does not value, it will do little to strengthen your marriage. My intent, therefore, is to help you discover and use modes that will be most effective in your marriage.
• We’ll try to determine if you’re making incorrect assumptions about what your husband or wife wants or needs.
• Most if not all couples engage in conflict. For some, it takes the form of minor complaining, of nipping at the heels of a spouse. For others, it assumes the nature of all-out war. Regardless of where conflict shows up in your marriage, we’ll discuss some principles you should follow to prevent conflict from becoming destructive.
• I will encourage you to think of marriage as an ongoing negotiation, which implies that it would be good to know how to negotiate effectively and why doing so works for the benefit of both spouses.
• We’ll candidly discuss sex. There are some things you should never say to your spouse, and of course things that he or she should never say to you.
• I devote an entire chapter to why resentment is the lethal emotion, and why it’s pivotally important not to let it build up.
• We’ll briefly touch on humor—when to use it, and when not to.
• I’ll point to what I consider to be basic statements that every man and woman may want, and perhaps need, to hear.
• We’ll consider how best to offer support to and for your spouse.
• Near the end of the book, I’ll encourage you to develop a marital compact.
• I’ll then ask you to subscribe to that compact as a solemn and sacred act.
• I’ll conclude by sharing what I believe to be seven keys to enjoying a happy and fulfilling marriage.
If you ask people to describe their careers, most will tell you about their jobs. As suggested above, I recommend that you turn your marriage into a career. It is probably the most important one you’ll ever have. Unlike formal careers that may be cold, lonely, and competitive, marriage is the one in which love and companionship can be ever-present. There need be no competition, only cooperation, working together toward a set of common goals. Chief among them is to glorify God through your marriage.
I’d like to propose a thought experiment. What joy would it bring you to be wealthy or famous and own a large luxury yacht with the latest amenities, if you had no one with whom to share it, no one you loved and who loved you? Spending time on it might soon feel empty and depressing.
A great marriage is an exhilarating adventure. It need never become stale and it’s filled with incredible possibilities. Seize them.
6. Although his works remain controversial, I first encountered the idea of a sin principle, decades ago, in the late Watchman Nee’s Normal Christian Life.
7. This was roughly the title of a weekly television program featuring sermons by Lloyd John Ogilvie, then Senior Pastor of Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Ogilvie later became Chaplain of the United States Senate (1995–2003).
8.