Two Things You Need When You Disagree With Your Spouse

Do you and your spouse seem to argue about the same issues that never get resolved? You are not alone. Even good marriages have these kinds of disagreements. In reality, all marriages have challenges. You can’t live in close proximity with another human being and not struggle to love them; and it’s the same with them as they relate to you.

John Gottman has spent a lifetime helping couples grow in their ability to love one another. In his most popular book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, he focuses on very practical ways we can love our spouses and enjoy our marriages through what he calls Positive Sentiment Override, or PSO. The first three aspects of PSO are:

• Enhance Your Love Maps: never stop learning who your spouse is.

• Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration: make sure you focus on the positive more than the negative.

• Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away: always try to tune into your spouse.

These first three enable a couple to build a solid friendship. Gottman has found that couples who have more positive than negative interactions and thoughts about their spouses are better able to deal with conflicts when they emerge.

Our research confirms the central role that bids play in a relationship. In our six-year follow-up of newlyweds, we found that couples who remained married had turned toward their partner’s bids an average of 86 percent of the time in the Love Lab, while those who ended up divorced had averaged only 33 percent (p.88)

With that foundation, Gottman says that you will more likely be able to navigate the challenges of marriage. He then proposes four things that are necessary for doing just that. Here are the first two:

Let Your Partner Influence You

In every relationship, there are power issues that must be acknowledged. In Genesis, immediately after the Fall, Adam and Eve entered into what some have described as the battle of the sexes. Genesis 3:16 says, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” This is describing sinful power plays between husband and wife as a result of the fall.

Gottman has observed and sees the importance of each partner sharing strengths and allowing each to influence the other:

In our long-term study of 130 newlywed couples, whom we followed for nine years, we found that, even in the first few months of marriage, men who allowed their wives to influence them had happier relationships and were less likely to eventually divorce than men who resisted their wives’ influence. Statistically speaking, when a man is not willing to share power with his partner there is an 81 percent chance that his marriage will self-destruct (p. 116).

Gottman goes on to say that no matter what your religious views are, mutual respect and learning from each other are necessary for a strong marriage. This is consistent with the appropriately understood meaning of Ephesians 5:22-33, which emphasizes serving one another within the context of marriage. The bottom line is mutual respect and a willingness to learn from one another is critical for a couple to enjoy their relationship.

Tim and Kathy Keller put it this way in their book, The Meaning of Marriage,

Whether we are husband or wife, we are not to live for ourselves but for the other. And that is the hardest yet single most important function of being a husband or a wife in marriage (p.50).

Solve Your Solvable Problems

At this point, he begins to address conflict. This comes on the heels of the first four principles. He isn’t avoiding the issue, he is saying that a couple’s ability to navigate conflict is equal to their friendship. But once he gets here, he spends four chapters providing some of the most practical advice and counsel I have read.

He first distinguishes between two types of conflict in a marriage,

Although you may feel your situation is unique, we have found that all marital conflicts, ranging from mundane annoyances to all-out wars, really fall into one of two categories: either they can be resolved, or they are perpetual, which means they will be a part of your lives forever in some form or another. Once you are able to identify and define your various disagreements, you’ll be able to customize your coping strategies, depending on which of these two types of conflict you’re having (p. 137).

Perpetual problems: make up about 69% of happy couples’ conflict (having kids, sex, money, housework, raising and disciplining kids to name a few). What happy couples are able to do is live with these differences and approach it with a sense of humor. In unstable marriages, these same problems eventually kill the relationship. Gottman calls this “gridlock.”

Solvable problems: make up the remaining 31% of conflict in a marriage. If not addressed in helpful ways, they can have a negative impact on the relationship, creating space for the four horsemen of the apocalypse (criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling). Here are the basic skills all couples need to deal with their solvable problems:

• Distinguishing between perpetual and solvable problems

• Soften your start-up

• Learn to make and receive repair attempts

• Soothe yourself and each other

• Compromise

• Process any grievances so that they don’t linger

In each of these items, you will find some practical skills that are easy to learn. He covers typical problems such as relations with in-laws, money, chores around the house, sex and becoming new parents.

I can’t stress enough how helpful these three chapters are!

Gottman and the Gospel

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert

By Gottman PhD, John, Silver, Nan

Buy on Amazon

John Gottman’s research will serve you and your spouse well. If you are a helper/counselor, his material will serve well those you seek to help. I continue to find that true in my own marriage and those I minister to. Scripture confirms Gottman’s research and his astute observations. But the Christian has an additional perspective that is truly humbling, comforting and liberating. We have deeper themes of grace, mercy and forgiveness that are available to us in Christ. While skills are important, building skillful living on the foundation of the Gospel is transformational. While happy marriages are good, happy marriages where each spouse is being conformed into the likeness of Christ is much better.

Copyright © 2016 Timothy S. Lane

The Canterbury Tales: Transforming Culture?

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales and they are considered late medieval British literature. At first glance, you may not think that Chaucer's tales are significant until you pay attention to the types of British Literature that preceded it. Early medieval literature was represented by works like Beowulf. This genre of literature is considered "epic" in that it focuses on big national themes, great heroes, and warring nations. The Canterbury Tales is a radical shift from the epic to the mundane.

Chaucer was born a commoner but lived amongst the noble and served in many prestigious roles throughout his life. He had the adroit and uncanny ability to move between the various classes of society. This is apparent in the pilgrims he describes on the way to Canterbury. Here are a few reasons you might consider picking up this medieval classic (a good modern translation is by David Wright, Oxford Press).

•    Chaucer’s Appreciation of the Wide Range of Humanity

Wel nine and twenty in a campaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrims were they alle
That toward Caterbury wolden ride.

Chaucer introduces us to 30 (if you include Chaucer, himself) pilgrims who are on their way to Canterbury where a great Christian, Saint Thomas a Becket, was murdered. The characters Chaucer introduces are described as “sondry folk”. We see people of both noble and common origin; moral and immoral, chaste and unchaste, and those with integrity and hypocrites. All have flaws and warts which are part of the human condition. In reading Chaucer you find a writer who is genial, not embarrassed by our humanity and not self-righteously judgmental.
Chaucer exhibits an ability to celebrate and make light of human foibles without waxing moralistic. Too often, Christians can take an antagonistic stance towards culture and the plight of humanity with a sanctimonious attitude that contradicts Jesus’s willingness to dwell with the lowly and sinful. Chaucer introduces us to ourselves and those with whom we live. His posture is one from which we can learn much.

•    Chaucer’s Artistic use of Comedy

In literature, there are two uses of the word “comedy”. The first is a reference to a “U-shaped” plot of creation, fall and redemption. We owe the Bible for this definition. The second has to do with the comedic; that which is laughable and humorous. This second use of humor is what The Canterbury Tales illustrates. The comedy in the tales ranges from the sublime (subtle irony) to the ridiculous (bathroom humor). Leland Ryken, in his book, Realms of God: The Classics in Christian Perspective, says this:

In Chaucer’s hands, for example, the comic vision encompasses an affectionate understanding of human nature and a compassionate reproof of human weakness. As we participate in comedy, we celebrate the richness, the diversity, and the failings of common humanity, recognizing our own place in that community. In comedy we are reconciled to what it means to be human, even though we might not like all that we see. Perhaps compassion is the dominant tone of comic literature (page 59-60).

What might the Christian high school student learn about how to love those who live very different lifestyles with different values? How might they be better prepared to interact with the human lot they will encounter on the college campus? Chaucer embodies something that can possibly teach us a biblical answer to this question. He does not do this through didactic propositional truth but rather through a story and the comedic.

•    Chaucer’s Focus on the Individual

For Chaucer, the individual was of utmost interest. Prior to this, much medieval literature focused on warriors, kings and battles that were the theme of epic tales. Chaucer rivets his attention on the individual; physical appearance, social standing and inner character. As you read each tale, you develop a unique bond with each pilgrim. The simple and common become complex and uncommon. Daily life and simple human beings become the focus of the story. This is utterly Christian. Frederick Buechner, in his book, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale says this,

The good news breaks into a world where the news has been so bad for so long that when it is good nobody hears it much except for a few. And who are the few that hear it?...They are the last people you might expect to hear it, themselves the bad jokes and stooges and scarecrows of the world, the tax collectors and whores and misfits(pp. 70-71).

Though Chaucer wrote well over 1000 years after the Scriptures were written, you find an indelible mark of the Gospel in The Canterbury Tales. This does not mean that Chaucer, himself, was a devout believer (it is hard to know). None the less, it is a refreshing display of the Christian faith shaping the culture for good.

Copyright © 2014 Timothy S. Lane

The Trinity and the New Atheists

What in the world does the Trinity have to do with engaging someone who rejects Christianity? Okay, I have to admit that thought never crossed my mind until I read Reeves’ book. In chapter 5 he talks about the “New Atheism” and references Christopher Hitchens. I was personally fond of Hitchens. I was drawn to his utter honesty about God. Hitchens and others moved past denying God’s existence to arguing that the existence of God would be a very bad thing. They were not atheists but “antitheists.” It’s like the movie "Spinal Tap" with the amp turned up to eleven!

Reeves quotes Hitchens from his book, God is Not Great:

I think it would be rather awful if it was true. If there was a permanent, total, round-the clock divine supervision and invigilation of everything you did, you would never have a waking moment or sleeping moment when you weren’t being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death…It would be like living in North Korea. (p.108)

In response, Reeves makes a case for the existence of God by actually agreeing with Hitchens:

For Hitchens, God is the Ruler, and so must by definition be a Stalin-in-the-sky, a Big Brother. And who in their right mind would ever want such a being to exist? In other words, the antitheist’s problem is not so much with the existence of God as with the character of God. He will write and fight against the existence of God because he is repelled by the thought of that sort of being. That God is not great.

But the triune God is not that God. Hitchens, clearly, had it in his head that God is fundamentally The Ruler, The One in Charge, characterized by “supervision and invigilation.” The picture changes entirely, though, if God is fundamentally the most kind and loving Father, and only ever exercises his rule as who he is—as a Father. In that case, living under his roof is not like living in North Korea at all, but like living in the household of the sort of caring father Hitchens himself wished for. (p. 109)

As Reeves later goes on to write, most people who reject God are like Hitchens. They rightly reject an image of God that is not rooted in Scripture. I would imagine that there are many professing Christians, too, who struggle to love God and trust him in their daily lives. They have shifted their understanding from God being a loving Father who oversees and cares for them to a Ruler who is playing capricious games with their lives.

I am reading my Bible a bit differently these days. I am thankful that God is my Father!

Delighting in the Trinity

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. John 17:24-26

A friend recently recommended Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith written by Michael Reeves and published by IVP Academic. My friend recommended this because I had been searching for books on the doctrine of the Trinity, looking for something that was going to bring this doctrine down to street level.

After about four or five books, I had almost given up. Most of the books I found were rather scholastic in nature. Each one was highly academic and seemingly sophisticated but hardly relevant. Then I downloaded the Kindle version of Reeves’ book to read on my Galaxy Note 8. I love my tablet and the S Pen that allows me to highlight text and go back for a quick cruise through the high points. I counted about 95 highlights in what is a surprisingly short read for such a heady topic!

Reeves contends that unless you understand the doctrine of the Trinity, you can’t begin to understand the Christian faith or live the Christian life. For anyone, that is a bold statement for what seems like a fairly obscure doctrine. Hear it for yourself from Reeves,

“God is love”: those three words could hardly be more bouncy. They seem lively, lovely and as warming as a crackling fire. But “God is a Trinity”? No, hardly the same effect: that just sounds cold and stodgy. All quite understandable, but the aim of this book is to stop the madness. Yes, the Trinity can be presented as a fusty and irrelevant dogma, but the truth is that God is love because God is a Trinity. (page 9)

The rest of the book is a litany of wonderful turns of phrase, warm quotes from theologians of old, and priceless application that brings to life the reality that the Triune God is the only true and loving God. Here is just one more quote,

Such are the problems with non-triune gods and creation. Single-person gods, having spent eternity alone, are inevitably self-centered beings, and so it becomes hard to see why they would ever cause anything to exist. Wouldn’t the existence of a universe be an irritating distraction for the god whose greatest pleasure is looking in a mirror? Everything changes when it comes to the Father, Son and Spirit. Here is a God who is not essentially lonely but who has been loving for all eternity as the Father has loved the Son in the Spirit. Loving others is not a strange or novel thing for this God at all; it is at the root of who he is. (page 40-41)

I won’t spoil the book for you. Go get it yourself and enjoy!