I live in Austin, TX and Austin has slowly become the wedding capital of Texas over the years. It might be vineyard in the hill country, a room at the Westin downtown or a bachelorette party at the Domain on a Saturday, but it is pretty common to see wedding events in Austin.
Over the years, I have noticed an increasing pattern of either young man avoiding marriage or feeling overly responsible for loving their wife in marriage. After all, is it possible to love your wife too much?
I am sure it is a version of marriage that sounds beautiful until you realize no human being could possibly pull it off. A husband loves his wife. He sacrifices for her by noticing what she needs. If she wants to talk about her day, he makes himself available to talk about her day. Or, if her car breaks down at 10pm, he gets out of bed and goes to get her. It’s called marriage!
But somewhere along the way, I think we’ve taken that beautiful picture of sacrificial love and added another expectation: a good husband makes his wife happy. But, those aren’t the same thing. And I wonder if the distinction matters more than we realize, particularly for young men trying to imagine marriage.
Marriage Is Going to Cost You
There is no version of a healthy marriage that doesn’t involve sacrifice. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” That’s an incredibly high calling.
Sometimes loving your wife means getting out of bed when you’re tired. And, sometimes it means listening when you’d rather solve the problem. And presumably the wife is learning to love sacrificially too.
The problem comes when sacrificial love quietly becomes responsibility for someone else’s happiness. Those are very different assignments. Imagine a husband and wife disagree about a major financial decision. She wants to buy the house. He doesn’t think they can afford it. He listens to her and takes the conversation serious, but when he looks at the numbers he isn’t comfortable moving forward. This isn’t being dismissive or controlling. This is being involved in a marriage and there is a possibility the wife will be disappointed.
What Does A Husband Do with That?
I think a lot of men have absorbed the idea that her disappointment means something has gone wrong. But there is another possibility. It’s the possibility that a husband can love his wife faithfully and at the same time she can still be disappointed.
A spouse being disappointed isn’t necessarily evidence of failure. The same is obviously true in reverse. That’s what happens when two actual human beings get married. This isn’t an argument for indifference. It’s an argument for realistic expectations that can go the distance to “Till Death Do Us Part?”
Marriage means your spouse’s happiness matters deeply to you. But caring about someone’s happiness and being responsible for someone’s happiness aren’t the same thing. One produces compassion. The other can produce anxiety. If I believe my job is to make my wife happy, then every negative emotion becomes a referendum on my performance.
Young Men Feel This More Than We Realize
I wonder whether this is one small part of why marriage can seem intimidating to some young men. Listen to everything we tell a young man a good husband should be; provide, protect, lead, sacrifice, communicate, emotionally mature, supportive, helpful, engaged, romantic, faithful, growing as a person and remembering every calendar event.
Again, almost everything on that list is good. But now add, “And make sure she’s happy at all times.” It’s an impossible assignment, because eventually she won’t be happy. She’s human! There will be seasons when she’s discouraged. And, at some point in the marriage, there will be things she wants that they can’t afford. The husband might try to solve some of those problems, but eventually there will be problems he can’t solve. That’s true in every meaningful relationship.
The Goal in Marriage Isn’t Happiness. It’s Faithfulness.
There’s an equally important message here for women. Your husband cannot carry the responsibility for your emotional well-being, and you cannot carry his. Marriage isn’t two people constantly monitoring each other’s happiness and adjusting themselves accordingly. It’s two people learning to love each other faithfully.
Sometimes that produces incredible happiness, and sometimes it means getting up in the middle of the night because the other person needs you. But, the question in that moment isn’t necessarily: “How do I make this feeling go away?”
Instead, the better question is: “What does faithfulness look like right now?” That’s a much more sustainable vision of marriage. My wife and I have been married 27-years, and I am increasingly convinced the desire for my wife to be happy has to sit underneath something more important than me.
Serving North Central Austin 