Marriage Adaptability

Adaptivity can be briefly defined as “the capacity to adjust.” In marriage, as in life, we should adopt the mindset that “change is the only constant.” With that as our foundation, how do we set ourselves up for success?

As the saying goes, “only a wet baby looks forward to change.” Scripture tells us that if we are in Christ, we are a “new” or “changed” creation. We must then find the ways and habits that lend to harmony and unity when the inevitable need to pivot occurs.

Let’s set the scene: The husband has promised to pick the children up after school, but he calls at 2:30 pm to say he must work late. The wife has scheduled the most important meeting she has had in months, right at the time the children are released. How successful and well planned is this scenario? This kind of planning is a recipe for failure: when no margin is left to allow for things to come up.

Steps to avoid this kind of snare in the harmony of cooperation:

• Is the situation at work truly mission-critical, or is the husband trying to earn brownie points with the boss?
• Do legitimate demands come up at work often, and despite his desire to want to help carry the load, school pick up may not be within his wheelhouse to accommodate currently.
• Should she set appointments in stone in the time frames where other mandatory tasks must be accomplished?
• Could this entire issue have been saved with a contingency plan in place?

The truth is, too often we treat our marriages as a competition for whose calendar is most important and should take precedence. That is the worst approach to a team mentality: Honeymoon Life.

With planning, investment, and prework, the entire scene would have played differently. Marriage is not a tug-of-war against each other; it’s a pulling together to bring about a result we cannot achieve alone. But it takes effort.

Investment: The marriage must be saturated with moments of filling the love tank. We must learn and speak our spouse's love language. We must be in devotions and prayer together and individually to ensure that God is at the head of our covenant. We should be praying over and for our spouse, out loud together and while apart.

Planning: In our marriage, Curtis’s job has national security ramifications; sometimes his need to stay is truly the highest value. I have learned not to set my most crucial appointments at a time when other obligations may need my attention. We have set our calendars to complement each other, not compete. There are best times to do these planning sessions and bad times to do it.

• Do not do planning meetings during family dinner with the children around.
• Do not schedule discussions at bedtime after a long, exhaustive day.
• Do not add these topics to an argument already in progress.
• DO take time to get away from distractions on walks to lay the foundations for expectations.
• DO take the time to drive an hour or more for a date night or day trip and set a business agenda during travel.
• DO realize that after sex can be a very powerful and productive time to discuss needs and wishes.

Prework: These are the strategies and mechanisms that a couple works out to avoid conflict. Much like a business plan, our marriage should identify risks that are ever-present in the environment. A marriage should have a vision and mission, with Kingdom building at its core. There must be an organizational agreement on who has what roles and responsibilities. There must be a contingency strategy available in moments of crisis.

If we gave the most important, most demanding relationship in our lives even an iota of the effort that we put into our other responsibilities, our marriages would radiate Christ’s love in this dark world. Which, of course, is the design for our marriages anyway.

Happy Honeymooning!

2 Corinthians 5 :17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, the new things have come.”