I’m not a sociologist but it seems to me that sustaining a marriage relationship these days requires far more effort than it did in the days of my grandparents or even the days of my parents. Sure, being married wasn’t a romantic breeze for my grandparents either. With some encouragement from my siblings, my father wrote his memoirs before dementia made that impossible. He wrote about the horrendous hardships that his parents suffered during the Great Depression – something that probably contributed to the early death of both my grandmothers. Life was difficult for them.
My parents had their struggles too and not merely with the occupation of their country by the Nazis and my father’s incarceration in a war-time labour camp – there was also their migration which meant starting from scratch in a different context and culture.
Of course there is a much more common hardship factor when it comes to marriage. When we marry we find we not only struggle with our own sins and imperfections but those of our spouse as well. However today there are many additional issues that put strains on a marriage. Many married couples do not have strong supportive family networks. They live hours away from their parents and siblings with whom they may not get on well anyway. In our highly mobile society we now move – on average – every five years and that breaks connections with friends and family.
Worst of all is that separation and divorce have become socially acceptable. I’m old enough to remember a time when divorce was very rare in our community. That all changed with the Whitlam Government and Lionel Murphy’s introduction of ‘no-fault divorce’ in 1975. That saw our divorce rate double almost overnight. So today the social pressure is on us to leave when it looks like it may not work out. But that means that healthy marriage relationships are not being modelled for the next generation either. And then I haven’t even mentioned yet the frantic pace of life in modern society. All of that comes on top of the normal tensions that arise in any relationship between two human beings. The truth is that sustaining a marriage relationship can at times be plain hard work.
In that context we can understand why people sometimes decide that they need ‘time out’. Well, the Bible does seem to support the idea of taking a break from our marriage partner. We find that in Paul’s instructions about marriage to the Corinthian Christians in 1Corinthians-7. The context there is Paul telling married Christians that they are not to deprive their partners of having their sexual needs met. But Paul does allow for ‘time out’. However he lays down three conditions.
First, it’s to be temporary. Second, it’s to be by mutual consent. And third, it’s to allow the couple time to devote themselves to prayer. Maybe when tension threatens to pull a marriage apart there is wisdom in some ‘time out’ – but only when Paul’s rules for ‘time out’ are strictly followed. Too often a husband takes time out from his marriage in an open-ended fashion. He’s only going to come back if he can work it out. Too often a wife takes a break from her marriage unilaterally and announces a trial separation to her husband as a fait accompli. I find myself wondering in those situations how many such folk take a break to do what Paul suggests: to devote themselves to prayer! It’s not surprising when such ‘breaks’ lead to temporary separation and then to the divorce courts.
I’ve heard people justifying such a break because ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. Sadly, too often absence makes the heart grow harder. Absence can only make the heart grow fonder if it’s already fond to begin with.
Today, more than ever we need a healthy dose of realism. Marriage relationships have been hard work ever since Adam and Eve. That was proven when Adam blamed Eve for his own disobedience to God. Our greatest hope for our relationship with our spouse is not a brief separation to sort ourselves out. And it’s certainly not the kind of break sanctioned by a divorce court. It’s rather that husbands and wives together submit to Him who turned water into wedding wine and whose saving work on Calvary’s cross is also meant to salvage our threatened marriages. We find in Jesus not only forgiveness for our marital failures but also the ability to live in love with our spouse.
John Westendorp