As you move through June, you might attend a wedding service, as this is one of the most popular months for scheduling that ceremony. While almost all couples will say they are getting married for “love,” there is considerable variance as to what they mean when they say they love each other. Understanding those differences is critical to the success of a marriage.
For many in our culture, the love being referred to is emotional/physical attraction: the “feeling” that many people describe as being “in love.” I refer to this as “touchy-feely 0-100 love,” since it is driven primarily by the way the other person makes us feel when we are with them. The problem with such feelings is that they tend to ebb and flow over time, influenced by everything from stress to illness to weather conditions to job challenges to misbehaving children. Unfortunately, when those feelings seem to fade, the common cultural conclusion is that we must no longer be “in love.”
Wiser persons will say that they are marrying their best friend, highlighting what I refer to as “partnership love.” This friendship-based love is a commitment to share life 50-50 together. That sounds good, until we face the reality that the work of marriage relationships is seldom split evenly between partners. At any given time, life stresses and circumstances can mean a marriage is more 60-40 or even 80-20, with one spouse doing more of the marriage “work.” Over time, the perceived imbalance can lead spouses to seek an exit because they are carrying more than their “fair share.”
That is why a traditional wedding service does not include questions about how the two participants are feeling about each other that day, or even a statement asking those partners to commit to a fair 50-50 relationship.
Instead, the traditional wedding vows are built on 1 Corinthians 13.4-8 “decision making” love. This 100-0 love is a commitment to choose the other partner’s best, regardless of what they do. Take the time to read that 1 Corinthians passage carefully, and it will be clear this love has nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with a decision to “sell out” for the other person’s best, even if that involves personal sacrifice.
So, in a traditional wedding service, before the couple joins hands and shares vows face to face, and even before the bride is “given away” by her father, the officiant looks first to the groom and asks for a statement of intent: “Will you take this woman to be your wife, to live together after God’s ordinances in the holy estate of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep yourself only for her for as long as you both shall live?” The officiant challenges that groom to answer “I will.” That officiant then addresses the same intent challenge to the bride.
It is only after the two persons have gone on record before the wedding witnesses as each individually having decided to make that commitment that the father presents the bride, the couple joins hands, and the vows to one another begin.
The point is direct: before anything else, the groom and the bride must each acknowledge the individual “100-0” decision that is the essence of the kind of love that holds a marriage together. It is only that “all in no matter what” decision that can provide the opportunity for feelings of love to flow and ebb and flow again over time. It is only that decision making love that can allow for the imbalances that are a natural part of any life-long relationship to “re-balance” in God’s ratios and timing.
I tell couples that I hope they swim in “touchy feely” love throughout their lives and that their partnership never faces long stints of non- 50/50 life sharing. However, most of all, I challenge them to recognize that the love they must have as the foundation for their marriage is the 100-0 decision to be all in for the other person no matter what, trusting Jesus to provide the 1 Corinthians 13.4-8 love that allows a marriage to last a lifetime.