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Progressing In Marriage Quality
Brian Mashburn
June 20, 2010
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Navigating The Seasons of Marriage
We didn’t have many real “seasons” in Houston, TX growing up. We had a few cool breezes in the fall, a couple of days of cold in the winter, but mostly it was hot and humid. When the seasons are so much alike, you can pretty much count on your preparation for the summer season to be completely appropriate for the Spring, Fall, and Winter, too. When you’re close enough to the equator, there is no need for a winter wardrobe, 4-wheel drive vehicle, pipe wrapping material, or a snow shovel. There might be occasional exceptions but not enough to invest in a whole different set of tools.
It would be so nice if only a single preparation were needed for a life-long marriage, wouldn’t it? If the tools, resources, attitudes, and behaviors that are useful in courting each other were the same ones necessary for newlyweds, couples with young kids, couples with teenagers, middle age couples, empty nesters, and retired couples, we all would just need one course on marriage, with one set of tools, and be set for life!
But this is not the case.
Like the whole Christian experience, marriage is a journey, with seasons and stages. Marriage needs to be “progressive” in the truest sense of the word if it is going to thrive through tough transitions and changing circumstances.
Too many of us are not thinking this way. Even in Christian communities the devastating effects of this lack of understanding and preparation are rampant.
Many couples sit at home in separate rooms because they don’t know how to be with each other. Too many bemoan the loss of their youth and try to reclaim it by seeing if they can still attract the attention of a new man or woman. Too many give up and decide to divorce (or merely stay together in a dead marriage) because they never thought that a “winter” would come and catch them unprepared.
Let’s take a look at some of the different seasons of marriage, and some tools that might help us survive and even progress in our marriages.