Getting Ready for Marriage
Submit to One Another
Read Ephesians 5:21.
Superiority Attitude: If one person in the relationship becomes the dictator (or boss), the relationship will head toward destruction. As long as you feel superior to your partner, you won’t resolve problems together. A dictator spouse can become scornful and harsh because he or she doesn’t see the other as an equal. A healthy marriage requires you to be committed to serving one another. Paul’s relationship advice in Ephesians 5:21 summarizes this beautifully: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In a growing marriage there is no room for superiority, but there is always room for emotional humility (or what Tim Keller calls emotional wealth, which is fundamentally an inner joy and confidence). To keep an attitude of superiority from becoming a block in your marriage, we encourage you to learn to walk humbly with God and with your partner. You will find it much easier to serve your spouse when you realize God is the One who is superior—not you.
Attack Mode: Another way to not submit to your spouse, is to enter attack mode. Nothing will inflame conflict like attacking your partner. Attacking appears in the forms of blaming, shaming, yelling, bringing up the past—all of these will trigger defensiveness, fear of disapproval, and feelings of rejection. The moment the attacking begins is the moment healthy communication stops. As you move toward marriage, it’s important to learn that some actions just never work—this is one of them. You will get mad in a marriage. We promise it will happen… probably many times over the course of your lives together. She may become more like her mother or he may treat you exactly like his father treated his mother—both in negative ways—but those realities will never be healed or reconciled if you yell or move into attack mode.
* Have you been guilty of superiority attitude or attack mode so far in your relationship? Did your fiancé call you out on it? What safeguards did you put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again?
Taken from their book Getting Ready for Marriage, join relationship experts Jim Burns and Doug Fields as they help you start planning now for your lasting union. Finances, in-laws, communication, forgiveness, sexual expectations, no topic is off-limits as you and your fiancé get ready to step from engagement into a life-long covenant to each other. Copyright 2015 by David C Cook; all rights reserved.