Why Get Married?

Love

I want someone to love me. I want to feel loved. I want to experience being loved. I think there is a deep-seated desire to love someone, to know that out of all the people in this world, there is one that I love and that loves me back. My life has meaning because I am in love. Love is the ultimate cure for loneliness. Even when you are not together, you are still connected by this mutual feeling of love.

When I was dating my wife, we had a long-distance relationship of about 200 miles. But when we fell in love, it didn’t matter how far we were away from each other because we were in each other’s hearts. You get married because you are in love.

Happiness

Being in a romantic relationship makes you feel happy. A 2012 study found that during the initial stages of love your body produces elevated levels of the hormone Oxytocin. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling. And being in love does make you feel happy. Who doesn’t want to feel happy? Who doesn’t want to be in love?

I am happily married but still get ads when I am on the internet about finding someone to love. Single people are searching for the happiness of love. Even married people are looking to fall in love again or looking for it in someone or something outside of their marriage.

I think most people see marriage as a vehicle to get you to the happiness that you want. It starts with just being in love, then it becomes having a family, and finally having someone to share your life with, to grow old together.

Needs

This is where it gets interesting because everyone has needs that marriage can facilitate. And it’s those needs that drive us into the marketplace of love. At its base marriage is an exchange of goods. One person needs physical intimacy, while another needs providing for. So they enter into a partnership of love and marriage. In exchange for this, I am giving you this.

Those needs vary from person to person, but regardless of what those needs are, they are a part of the exchange that takes place in the marketplace of love. When you are single, you are looking for the best person to meet those needs. So you meet and develop this understanding that you are both capable and willing to meet those needs in that exchange.

I once read this book entitled “His Needs Her Needs” by Willard Harley. I would recommend it to anyone because it was very insightful and helpful. It outlines the needs of men and women and how individuals sort out those needs and how marriage can by design meet them. Love allows you to partner with someone else to have those needs met.

The Problem

Things Change

Maybe you mutually agree to end the whole thing and you file for divorce. “Let’s go our separate ways because we no longer can keep the exchange going and maybe we can find a better exchange somewhere else.” Maybe you both just live with the “lemon” of a deal you got stuck with. Or maybe marriage is about something entirely different.

The Real Problem

But what happens when the reasons you got married are no longer valid? What happens when you don’t feel in love anymore, you’re not happy, or your needs are not being met? So we made this agreement that I would give you these things and in exchange, you would give me those things. But now you are not keeping up your end of the deal.

The real problem is in the way you look at marriage, to begin with. When people say, “I love you” what they mean is, “I love me”. I love what you do for me. I love the way you make me feel. I love how you take care of me. Love is a big circle and I am in the middle of it.

But what if love were more than that? What if love is about the other person? “I love YOU.” It’s a turning point in love. God teaches us about a different view of love. A different way to love.

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Ephesians 5:24-25

I Love You

The subject (the person doing the action) is I. The verb(the action) is love. The object is (you). In “I love you” you are doing the loving and the other receives that love. So the focus is on the other.

The actions of love (the verb) are what the Bible emphasizes. So to the wife God says, give yourself to your husband. And to the husband He says, die to yourself for your wife. So this is not the same as the market exchange idea that most of us have. You don’t give this for that, instead, you give everything away in love to the other person.

Love Is Leaving

People

Way back at the beginning of human relationships in Genesis 2:24 God makes this earth-shattering statement. Leave the people you know for the love of your life. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother; and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” This is what happens in marriage. This doesn’t mean that you ignore all the other people in your life, but it does mean that all those people play a different role. They all go to the backseat for your love.

All the relationships that you had before you married your spouse are still there but their meaning and importance change. You have to give yourself 100 percent of yourself to your spouse.

Love is about you giving yourself away for your spouse.

Time

This is the most valuable possession that you have and it’s the most important you can leave for your spouse. Before you were married you had all your time to yourself. Now you are giving that time to your spouse. But here’s the thing, you are giving all of it to them. However your time gets divided up, your spouse gets 100 percent of it.

This does not mean that you should never have a chance to pursue a hobby or spend time on something that you enjoy. But if you don’t spend time with your spouse you are stealing that time from them. Your relationship will pay for it.

Think about your time as a pie chart. What percent of that chart is taken up by work, chores, hobbies, sleep? So you just give your spouse whatever is leftover, right? No, you give your spouse all that time because they are the most important part of your life. Instead, you give all those other things your leftover time. Say what you want, but at the end of the day, you do what you want with your time.

Time together is what made you fall in love, to begin with. So if you want to stay in love you have to spend time together. Depending on what season of marriage you are in, you may have to get more creative with that time. But the actual amount of time is not as important as the value you place on it.

You may have to work to pay the bills, but you don’t have to work all the time or let your job consume your life. That time to work is a necessity. You may have to take care of the kids but time with your spouse is more important. What are some times during your day that y...