MInTheGap

I think Pastors like Father’s and Mother’s Day if only to take out and turn the screws up on those that are being celebrated.  For instance, yesterday at my church we were treated to five things fathers need to do to strengthen their marriage.

And, with what always appears on these lists, keeping the romance alive was high on that list. Amusing as it is to hear how many times the Pastor says that this is biblical and an acceptable thing to talk about from the pulpit because the book Song of Solomon is in the Bible not withstanding, this is hard!

I don’t believe that it’s hard because the couple are no longer in love, but rather the changes in the dynamics inside a family at each new life milestone.

There’s one that happens at the alter, where one life is pledged to another.  In that moment, the chase ends for the guy, and they both start the process of forsaking all others and concentrating on each other.  If you’re not careful, you can lose the spark you had while dating right then and there.

Then there are children—and the more that there are and the younger that they are you can find that you’re doing pretty well to be awake and communicative at the end of the day.

This is totally different from when you were dating.  You were either by yourself or with friends, but nothing equivalent to trying to wrangle multiple “totally depraved human beings”¹ into the van for a trip to the store to get groceries.

The problem is that the less you do of any activity—the less practice that is—the more that skill atrophies, and the more likely that it will drop off altogether.

That’s why there’s a whole industry growing up around giving out marriage help.  It’s because people find themselves in the place where they don’t know why they’re growing apart—and yet the investments they are making (in other people, in their job, even in their children) tell the story.

If you want a stronger marriage—the first step is knowing that there’s something that you need to do.  The second step is either getting help, or getting your mind wrapped around the concept that you need to “return to the first works” (to borrow from Revelation) and start to treat your wife/husband as someone you’re pursuing instead of someone you have already caught.

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1. AKA Children [↩]