Defining Moments in a Durable Marriage
Imagine going through airport security with enough weapons stashed to start a small revolution. Then imagine the TSA just waving you through, allowing you to skip the inspection completely.
Pretty unthinkable, huh? Yet our sin luggage is rarely opened and inspected before our marriage. As a result, the honeymoon and first years can add to the weight we carry. Pretty soon the luggage flies open and our baggage spills out all over each other.
When Kimm and I were first married, I remember being baffled by the ways I behaved and the conflicts we experienced. I remember thinking, “What’s happening here? Am I possessed? Or wait . . . is she possessed? Oh Lord, is our marriage cursed? I mean, if marriage is so good, why do we seem to make each other feel so bad?”
Over time we discovered that saying “I do” is a defining experience. Getting married opens your luggage. And when that happens, the sin inside can foul the air and soil the relationship. To ignore sin’s reality and potency is to deny the very reason Jesus lived, died, and rose on the third day. So I wrote When Sinners Say “I Do” (WSSID) to help couples—engaged, newlywed, or in crisis—to understand that when sin becomes bitter, Christ becomes sweet. And marriage gets pretty sweet too.
AFTER WHEN SINNERS SAY ‘I DO’
Ten years after WSSID was published, Kimm and I celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. The milestone prompted me to reflect upon the feedback I’ve received about that first book. Some readers talked about specific chapters as important moments in their understanding of marriage. But most often the audience was a premarital group, or newlyweds, or folks experiencing some crisis in marriage because they never laid proper foundations.
So I got to thinking, As marriages grow and age, what defining moments do they experience? What are the unique points of trouble and transformation that visit us as our marriages mature—as we navigate the realities of job and financial challenges, keep our heads above water in the kiddie years, raise teenagers or adult children, empty the nest, suffer, age, or prepare for final good-byes?
What moments define a durable marriage?
“Something more than our sin is exposed when we say ‘I do.’”
For one thing, I’ve learned that something more than our sin is exposed when we say “I do.” Yes, the luggage of our sin required God to become a man and spill his precious blood as the only remedy. But the baggage we bring into our marriage represents more than our sin.
NOT FEELING IT
Sinfulness, while central, isn’t the only thing that impacts a couple’s marital union. As Kimm and I stacked up more and more anniversaries, we began to see these other influences—factors that could not readily be ascribed to our sinful hearts.
Here’s one example.
Expressing emotion has never come easy for me. I’m not talking here about the typical “guy thing,” though it’s true that some men would rather be dragged naked across broken glass than appear to be weak or macho-lite.
No, my lack of emotion is much worse. It’s something more primal, more visceral. For some reason I struggle to access and define my feelings while I instinctively cap emotional displays. When I came into marriage, I thought denying my emotions was a good thing and conveying them was bad.
Ladies, how would you like to be married to a piece of work like that?
Where did my avoidance of emotions come from? Was it a maneuver of my active, sinful heart I’d developed to avoid repenting from selfishness? Maybe. But assuming my avoidance of emotions was the result of sin didn’t bottom it out for me. I needed to get in touch with a part of myself that seemed genetically coded in my constitution. I explored and confessed my control issues, but my feelings remained concealed, floating out of reach behind an impenetrable fog.
How could Kimm possibly feel treasured unless light pierced my emotional darkness? And if my visceral reaction to emotional displays wasn’t just a result of willful sin, what could it be?
THROUGH LIFE’S DEFINING MOMENTS
To thrive in marriage over the long haul, we need to care for our spouse as a whole person. That means seeing how God’s good news speaks not only to their sin but also to their suffering, weakness, family history, disappointed dreams, physical limitations, and changes in sexual appetite. Lasting marriages need more than just luggage sorting. They need to know how Jesus can help them navigate the complexities of growing older together.
Over the years Kimm and I have had some marriage-defining moments where we just didn’t know what to do. Those experiences have often determined our progress and sometimes, quite honestly, have marked points where we plateaued. We learned that falling in love is easy; remaining in love is something entirely different. Kimm and I have often looked back and thought, Gee, it would have been really nice to know that sooner!
“Growth is about applying truth over time; it’s a long, slow obedience.”
Admittedly, most of life is made up of pretty ordinary days where big moments don’t exactly break into our monotony. We’re not superheroes, spies, or sports stars who have one shining moment to rise above the routines of life. There are no gold medals for what we do. Our days are occupied with carpools, careers, and colon checks. Moments in our world feel pretty ordinary. Growth is about applying truth over time; it’s a long, slow obedience.
But the need for ordinary endurance does not eliminate the reality of defining moments.
God presents such moments in the life of every couple. They become doorways to new insights or trailheads that redirect our paths. Some of these invitations will be self-evident; others will be downright astonishing.
But one thing remains certain. How we respond to these moments in marriage determines whether we stumble along separately or move forward together toward maturity.
As Charles Spurgeon soberly observed, “Failure at a crucial moment may mar the entire outcome of a life.
From I Still Do: Growing Stronger and Closer through Life’s Defining Moments, by Dave Harvey (Baker Books, January 2020). Used by permission.
Dave Harvey (D.Min., Westminster Theological Seminary) serves as the president of Great Commission Collective, a church planting ministry in the US, Canada, and abroad. Dave founded AmICalled.com, pastored for thirty-three years, serves on the board of CCEF, and travels widely across networks and denominations as a popular conference speaker. He is the author of When Sinners Say "I Do”, Am I Called?, and Rescuing Ambition, and a co-author of Letting Go: Rugged Love for Wayward Souls. He and his wife, Kimm, have four kids and four grandchildren and live in southwest Florida. For videos, articles, or to book an event, visit revdaveharvey.com.