Choosing to Love My Spouse

In a talk that Tim Keller once gave at Google, he spoke about the choice to love. We often talk about love as feeling we fall into, like a hole in the middle of the sidewalk. In reality, however, we don’t fall into love, we make a conscious choice to love another person. Sure, when the average person finds the one they think they will marry, their thoughts, choices, and actions are associated with all kinds of warm feelings. But anyone who has had a long-term relationship, been married, or has children, knows that those warm feelings come and go. There is no guarantee that you will feel great affection on your next wedding anniversary or the next time you are frustrated with your spouse’s behavior.

What character traits are necessary to develop a heart that chooses to love?

Patience

The pastor who officiated my wedding also provided pre-marital counseling to my wife and me. He said that, within the first seven years of marriage, you’ll come to the realization that the person you married is not a fantasy but a reality. In a fantasy, you get to be the author and creator of the story. You can imagine what kind of personality your spouse has, whether or not she or he likes to make the bed in the morning, or how often she or he likes to have sex. In reality, you have no control over any of that. When spouses are met with a real, flawed, human being, they can either get frustrated or they can accept God’s invitation to a path of patience. The path of patience has many ups, downs, twists and turns, but it leads you to the real person you married. You get to actually know who this person is and they get to know you! Knowing and being known is a mark of true love. Even the Apostle Paul put patience at the top of his definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

Generous Grace

On the path of patience, as you get to know who your spouse really is, you’ll be confronted by the reality that they are a sinner. Of course, you knew they were a sinner when you married them, but you didn’t know they’d commit the sins that offend you. Most people who are in love and plan to get married assume the best of their potential mate’s worst behavior. We might think to ourselves, “Oh, he’s lazy today because he was out too late last night,” or “She lied about her spending habits because she is just a private person.” When we get married, we find out that some of these sins stick around. All of a sudden you feel like you are at your wits end with your spouse's spending habits or your tired of the way your spouse always finds an excuse for not helping with chores around the home. And remember, your spouse is getting to know the real, flawed you, too. That’s when that path of patience must be met with generous grace. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:5, “Love keeps no record of wrong.” Generous grace extends the forgiveness of Jesus time and again, but it also says to “sin no more.” It sets boundaries and expectations to live up to, but those expectations are within the security of grace. This is the framework God uses in his relationship to us and he calls us to model that framework in our own relationships.

Spontaneous selflessness

When my wife and I were dating, I spent all kinds of time planning special dates, writing notes, and finding all kinds of ways to show her my affection and love. I’ve noticed that after eleven years of marriage, I’m not as likely to be spontaneous with my acts of love and affection. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go back to my dating days. Our love is so much deeper now because we’ve traveled the path of patience and experienced generous grace from one another. Going back to my dating days would be like regressing back to diapers and pacifiers. What I mean is that there is a temptation to go into autopilot in any relationship. You’ve been through the thick and thin with a person and you are confident they are not going to leave anytime soon, so you begin to coast. You assume everything is going smooth and you take your foot off the gas to concentrate on other things. The problem with this is that the path of patience and generous grace is a lifetime journey. If we step off the path, then it won’t be long before we are back in fantasy land. Fantasy leads to unrealistic expectations of our spouse. Unrealistic expectations lead to resentment and frustration. When we are intentional in putting our spouse first and finding selfless ways to show affection and love, we will find ourselves drawn back to the long path of patience and grace. We’ll find this path to be satisfying and worthwhile because it’s the path that draws us closer to God. 

Tim Keller put it this way, “Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating, and to say, 

"I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!” 

What a privilege to be part of God’s healing work in another human being. What a blessing to have someone be part of that work in you.