Let’s Digress About Reasons for Marriage
Why get married? Because I can be a jerk.
Marriage is an interesting thing. I was watching a comedian on a Dry Bar comedy clip the other day, and like all good comedians, at one point he said something somewhat profound. Paraphrased, he said that we know God has a sense of humor because marriage exists. Basically, God intentionally made men and women as completely different beings and said Poof, marriage! Now you two flawed people spend the rest of your lives together being completely different and we’ll see how it goes.
Not only did I find that intriguing, but the rest of the clip was also hilarious.
Like many of my thoughts about things, I first picked this up from one of Eric Metaxas’s podcasts several years ago.
With men and women being completely different in how we perceive, process, deal with things, and address everything relationally, why would we even want to get married as opposed to just dating indefinitely?
One of the reasons I got married is because I can be a jerk.
I shall elaborate.
I, like everyone, am profoundly broken and flawed. I can also be a jerk if I’m disgruntled, which happens from time to time. Really, I’m the deluxe model of broken because I can be a jerk even when I’m gruntled. Just ask Gabby. She’ll confirm it.
Anyway, since Gabby and I are married, I can be a jerk and she can’t leave me. Well, she can’t leave me easily. She’s legally and covenantally bound to me for the rest of forever as long as we both shall live. So, whenever we have bickerments and no matter how big of an obnoxious jerk I am, at the end of the day we’re still bound to love and cherish each other.
That also means I need to not be a jerk in the first place and should love her in the best possible way and treat her well because 1) it’s the right thing to do, 2) I literally vowed to do it, and 3) since we’re bound together forever, it would be in our best interest to get along like the loving spouses we agreed to be.
The point I’m attempting to make is that there is a lot of security in knowing that Gabby can’t just up-and-leave and be done with me forever on a whim, inconvenience, or fit of irritation, like how many dating relationships actually do end.
There isn’t—at least there shouldn’t be—any teetering or on-and-off relationship behavior while being tied in marriage like there often is in dating relationships. If there is, then that married couple likely needs professional counseling. But that teetering isn’t even supposed to be a thing with marriage.
If both parties take their vows as seriously as they promised to, then they both have the relational security and freedom to be jerks sometimes and to show their brokenness to each other.
And I think that is a wonderful thing.
Fun reading: