The Selfless Marriage

I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine the other day. She had a boyfriend, and I was talking with her about marriage. After some conversation, she asked me: “what is the point staying in a marriage when you’re not in love?” My instant response was this: “How would you feel if your husband, who you loved, left you simply because he didn’t feel any love for you?” That was my short response. Here is my long response.

Everyone is selfish. This is something that psychologists, evolutionary theorists, and theologians all generally agree on. And this selfishness is involved in every marriage breakdown. But you may argue “I’m not selfish – it’s almost the very opposite – I always seem to be giving up my own interests for others!” Now at one level, that’s true. People do things that do not appear to benefit them a great deal. However, if I was able to look deep inside your heart and into the motives that drive you, I would find some level of selfishness. Most acts that appear selfless actually function to serve the person’s own agenda; feeding their own self-perception, their need for approval, or a sacrifice designed to improve their stature in the eyes of their object of worship (i.e. God). This is a contentious point I know, but it is crucial for understanding where marriages fall apart, and how to keep your marriage together.

If all of our actions flow from selfish desire, then why would someone continue to stay married if their spouse not longer satisfies their needs? The most likely answer is that their need to stay married outweighs their need for personal satisfaction. This was a likely occurrence a few decades ago because a person’s personal satisfaction was intimately intertwined with their marriage. If they were to get divorced, the social, psychological, and spiritual ramifications of such an act were highly detrimental to the person’s personal satisfaction. How much things have changed!

The overwhelming cultural message of today is that our own personal satisfaction is paramount, and that this can be achieved through buying things, lifestyle choices, and ‘upgrading’. As a result, personal satisfaction is no longer intertwined with marital status. Satisfaction is something for the individual to achieve. So when marriage starts to intrude upon a person’s own personal satisfaction, there is simply nothing to stop the movement towards divorce. After all, if satisfaction can be achieved by simply upgrading, why would someone stay in an unsatisfying marriage? It wouldn’t make sense.

You see, marriage doesn’t make sense in our culture. It’s a mis-fit. Marriage is all about giving up your own satisfaction, your own interests, your own time, your own money, your own power, your own dreams, and your own life for the sake of your spouse and your children. And in doing so, a new idea of life emerges. A shared life. A shared dream. This may do nothing for your own personal satisfaction, but it often does. However, if personal satisfaction is your goal, then it probably won’t, because your desire for satisfaction will actually get in the way of successfully being selfless. What a paradox!

 This is why books such a “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman are not the solution to marriage breakdown. Whilst there is some great advice in there, the underlying message is that personal satisfaction can be achieved through loving your spouse in the right way, and informing your partner of your own love needs in a non-confrontational way, in the hope that your own love needs are more likely to be met. It’s a glorified version of selfishness, hidden under pop psychology terminology. Now it is true that your spouse is more likely to be satisfied and reciprocate the love you give when you speak their ‘love language’, but if satisfaction is what you’re after, you’re setting yourself up for disaster, because truly loving your spouse will inevitably lead to a reduction in your own individual level of satisfaction. It’s like digging a hole and then putting the dirt back in. You always end up not quite filling the hole up again. And your spouse will never quite fill up the love that you’ve given them. Too much love is lost in the conversion process.

So why would a selfish person choose to enter into a union which requires for their own interests to be secondary? My suspicion is that most people think that marriage will satisfy their needs. They simply don’t see what marriage is all about. My hope is that you will see through this, and seek a selfless view of marriage. But you’re probably wondering now, “If we’re all selfish, then how can we be selfless?”

Basically, we can’t unless our motives, thoughts, emotions, and perceptions change in such a way that being selfless within marriage is the thing that we most deeply desire. How is this done? It takes time. But first, you need to want to want this! You need to have such a glorious view of marriage that being in a selfless marriage is something that will be most deeply satisfying; more than any individual pursuit of relational satisfaction can provide. My hope is that future marriage.com.au articles, our conversations, and our communities will provide such a glorious view of marriage that we will all selfishly pursue the selfless marriage.