“…for richer, for poorer… The traditional wedding vows are critical for the momentum of your marriage and your faith life. This is the second of a 4 month series on wedding vows.
When we exchanged wedding vows in 1976, no one ever thought of writing their own vows. That wasn’t a thing. So we stood facing each other, repeating like parrots all the priest said. Bla-bla-bla-bla.
That sounds so irreverent, but back then we hadn’t decided what to do about God. My commitment to Bruce was made in good faith – in myself, I suppose. At any rate, I was sure poverty wasn’t going to be in the picture for us. So I planned on richer.
Our finances have been blessed by God. But we’ve experienced unmet expectations and scarcity in many other areas. Maybe you have too.
Loving for Richer, for Poorer when there are Unmet Expectations
One challenge to our vows of for richer, for poorer is when our expectations are unmet.
Shaunti Feldhahn is an author and researcher who uses her gifts to help couples build great marriages. She says that unmet expectations about finances is a common source of conflict in marriage.
She hears from many spouses who wish they could get their partner on the same page with them. What they really mean is they want to change their spouse to agree with them. Shaunti believes that their differences are based on their values, and they should plan on valuing different things. She encourages couples to honor each other’s reasons for why they value certain things above others. Our values dictate so much of our behavior and attitudes; here’s a list of 50 core values, for example.
We should expect our values to be different from our spouse’s values.
Shaunti Feldhahn
Dr. John Gottman, a marriage and relationship researcher, would agree with Shaunti. He says that up to 69% of all marital problems are perpetual problems. These problems stem from basic differences between the partners such as personalities, values, and faith. Couples will get entrenched in conflict over these areas which are basically never going to change. We hear many of the couples we mentor say they have the same disagreements over and over again.
Happy couples, Gottman says, learn to identify the perpetual problems and adapt to them, in many cases using humor.
Click here for a short interview with Shaunti about valuing financial differences.
Click here for a short video with Ron Blue, a financial expert, about money and marriage.
We’ve Walked through Unmet Expectations
One of the ways Bruce and I are very different is how much time we enjoy being with people vs. being alone. I thrive on being with people, it fills me up. Bruce likes being with people, but he gets filled up being alone and quiet. These are the ways we are wired, and mostly people don’t change a lot in their preferences for introversion vs. extroversion.
We often had conflict when we were out with people, because you-know-who always wanted to come home before me. 🙂 I tried to change him, he tried to change me, and we got really crabby about it. Once we were mentors and learned about Gottman and his theory we realized we needed to tackle this a different way.
So now we have a short convo before leaving for an event. We negotiate and come up with a target time to come home. At the event, we both try to keep that time in mind, knowing that we won’t always be able to walk out the door at that exact moment. Mostly it works well for us. I’m willing to honor his personality by respecting his need for downtime, and he is willing to honor my personality by not dragging me out in the middle of a conversation. It works for us!
Basically, what we’ve done is honor each other’s why.
Loving for Richer, for Poorer when there is Scarcity
When we’re living in scarcity, we find it more challenging to keep our promise to love for richer, for poorer.
Living in situations of scarcity can make us feel cheated. It makes us turn on one another and our oneness takes a plunge. Our security vanishes. Scarcity comes from many different areas:
- Income is spread too thin.
- There’s never enough time for all the things.
- I need more affection than I’m getting.
- My responsibilities are greater than yours and that’s not fair.
Scarcity can crank up my selfishness. And when that happens, I easily forget that Bruce has needs too. If we lack one of these commodities, we are both starving.
We’ve walked through Scarcity
We’ve often struggled with not having enough time. In June of 1982, two major events took place in our lives. Our firstborn, Jason, was born. And Bruce became one of the founders of a robotics joint venture.
I was in the hospital after giving birth to Jason while Bruce attended the closing of this new company and partied at the black tie gala. We made the decision that he should take this once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity, but we never dreamed how time-starved we would become.
We didn’t navigate it well. I felt resentful that I had to shoulder so much responsibility at home while he worked 7 days a week. My reaction was to draw away from him, withholding affection. He (physical touch is his Love Language like so many men) felt stressed because of the lack of affection and the endless nagging that met him at the door after a long day of work. Needless to say, we grew apart.
It took us quite a few years before we turned to God and began to grow together in our marriage. We know now that scarcity – with any commodity – is meant by God to train us to grow in resilience and maturity. We embraced the truth that if one of us is experiencing scarcity, we both are. We’re a team, and scarcity can’t break us when we face it together.
Oneness in marriage really is the antidote to unmet expectations and scarcity. It’s the secret sauce to keeping our vows of love for richer, for poorer. And when we are willing to honor each other’s values even if they differ from ours, our oneness grows more beautiful.
…walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Ephesians 4:1-3
Last Month
Our marriage mentor moments blog last month kicked off our four month series on Wedding Vows. Here’s last month’s post in case you missed it: Wedding Vows: For Better, For Worse.
We’ve introduced a new follow-up meditation called Momentum that dives deeper into the monthly marriage theme, helping us to build a solid core for stability, balance, purpose, and momentum in your Christian life. These posts are meant for anyone, whether you’re married or not. Here are last month’s Momentum posts:
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Resource Recommendation
Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn are the co-authors of the book I referred to above, Thriving in Love and Money (this is an affiliate link). In the book, they provide 5 Game-changing Insights About Your Relationship, Your Money, and Yourself.
Next month we will continue our four month journey through the traditional marriage vows, and why they are critical for your marriage and your spiritual life. Stop by in May when our topic will be “In Sickness and in Health.”