This post is part three of a mini-series on Being a Wife - Biblical or Cultural. Part one can be read here and part read two here.
Speed Bumps to Fulfillment
It’s a rare, but precious sight when two people open their hearts to each other, letting love lead to a covenant marriage that fully grasps God’s heart for their new one-flesh relationship. It’s even more rare that they understand their prospective job descriptions as husband or wife, let alone be in touch with any personal expectations, desires or needs.
So, what has happened? What has caused so much pain and confusion in marriages today? Why is it that there are more divorces today in the church? What are the speed bumps that impede the fulfillment of God’s beautiful plan?
Another speed bump is when a couple comes into this new, holy partnership and dance with their own ideas of what they think marriage is like. It is as if they already have their own “tune” to dance to. If that “tune” is not God’s—watch out.
Besides wrong modeling of marriage, many of those “tunes” are based on vows and judgments.
Every marriage has some icky stuff tucked away. Often a bride or groom aren’t aware of the icky stuffy. The icky stuff I am talking about are hidden vows and judgments. They are also speed bumps in the pursuit of doing marriage God’s way.
Vows and judgments often reside deep in the soul, and at the moment of a hurt or pain or something not going the way a woman (or a man) expects, the icky stuff (vows and judgments) rise quickly to the surface.
Shame, about who we are, is the igniter of the icky stuff. Shame drives those defensive and knee jerk reactions that cause fights or conflicts in a marriage.
So, what are vows and a judgments?
A vow is something we internally say. A vow is that that “self talk stuff” that isn’t healthy. It can sounds like, “I’m never going to...” or “I won’t let that happen again…”
A vow looks like a self-protective stance, and we often “work” life around them to prevent ourselves from being hurt. Vows are planted deep as seeds in the soul. There is what I call a “Vow Closet.” Only we know about the closet. And, only we know where we keep the key. At any given moment, we can go to the “Vow Closet,” unlock the door and bring out the vow up and place it as a filter for the situation.
Most of them were planted as little girls when something scary, shaming, hurtful, confusing happened we made a conclusion about that experience and followed it up with a decision to NOT let that happen again. When a little girl is afraid or hurt (and no authority figure is sensitive to that to bring clarity or comfort) she will automatically by default vow to not let “that” happen again. The “that” can be just about anything.
Judgments come on the heel of a vow. We will judge, or conclude a person to be a certain way because there are “similarities” with that person (personality, style, etc.) that remind us of someone in our past that we have unresolved issues of hurt with. The unresolved issues will generally be with mom or dad.
Criticalness, Demandingness & Expectations
Instead of first thinking, the person we are judging is a good-willed person; we go to the “Vow Closet” and unlock it and up pops the past and the unresolved issue (hurt, fear, abuse, neglect, or whatever). When we have unresolved issues that are vows, they drive us to make a judgment. A judgment then locks the person (usually the husband), into never changing. A judgment will end up as criticalness toward our husbands because they cannot meet our expectations as to what we think our men should be or what they should do.
We try to make them become what we think we missed out on!
Sometimes a wife will have this “idea” or secret measuring stick as to what a perfect husband looks like. She will think he is supposed to do or not do certain things or behave a certain way. She will bring out the secret measuring stick (based on her own insecurity and fears) and then and she will judge him as weak, inadequate, pitiful. She’ll lock him in to never being quite good enough.
When a wife has unrealistic expectations, she will live by unenforceable rules and if someone breaks her rule, she’ll get angry. In time her critical spirit will completely take the life out of his maleness. Relating like Your Parents Did
Another speed bump is when a couple relates to each other in the same unhealthy way that their parents did. Add to this a lack of good communication skills with the ability to verbalize hurt, disappointment, needs, dreams, desires, etc., and the ability to really listen to the heart of their spouse and you will have a mess on your hands.
Then add the inability to work through conflicts successfully (I'll have to do a how to post on that subject soon) and then go ahead and add unhealed wounds of the past, any sexual “imprints” from other people, along with shame based behavior (we all have this) – we’ve got quite the ‘stuff’ to sort through and unravel (not impossible though).
What I have observed and experienced is that marriage and this “one-flesh” relationship (worked out) is hard stuff. When things are “hard,” skill is lacking, and hurts and disappointments remain underneath the ‘un-talked’ surface, and add to this that the job description is not clear, then two people will often gravitate to two worlds that only collide with each other.
However, God has a plan and His plan works. I'm coming to the Plan...soon . . .I want to lay more groundwork soon. IF you need to talk some of this out - my Life Coach Mom Partner, Linda Fox, is available for a 1 hour gift lifecoaching session. Email her at Linda@lifecoachmoms.com
Speed Bumps to Fulfillment - Part 3 in Biblical or Cultural Wife Series
http://lylahledner.blogspot.com/2008/01/speed-bumps-to-fulfillment-part-3-in.html
Jillian's extra bed-buddies. 
A very fun present from Auntie Candace, fondly called T-T. 
The play/food place where we celebrated Miriam's 3rd.
Griffin's and Ane at Di Berti Park.
