After we got back form our honeymoon, Jake and I went through all of the gifts and cards that everyone gave us. Pretty much everyone wrote some kind of marital advise on their gifts.
"Get over the little things!"
"Make sure you put the toilet seat DOWN!"
But the most repeated advice Jake and I got was this.
"Marriage is not a I give 50% you give 50% relationship. Marriage requires you to both give 100% to work."
Jake and I try our best to give each other 100%, but there are times and trials in life that make it impossible sometimes to give your 100%. And it is in those times where you find out the stuff that your marriage is made out of. There have been two distinct experiences I can recall that I would say were where our marriage was strengthened the most. And they weren't in the 100-100 ratio times. They were in the 0-100 and 100-0 times. It is the times where one spouse can give nothing, and how the other spouse reacts, that defines your marriage.
The natural thing to do when you are in a relationship and you feel like you are giving "more" than your spouse is to match what they are giving. Everyone knows that through your dating years if someone is more "invested" in the relationship than the other, it usually ends or fizzles out. That marital advice of 100-100% makes it seem unfair at times if your spouse isn't willing... or can't give their "fair share" to the relationship.
"Well If he/she is not going to make the effort to plan special things, then I won't."
"Well if he/she is going to criticize me and never compliment me, I am going to do the same".
How is that fair if my spouse is constantly doing x,y,z wrong... and I feel like I am giving 110% all the time and it seems like they are only giving 60%?! This relationship is not going to work!!
So out of anger, we as human beings purposefully stop making the effort out of spite and vengeance. And then your spouse follows suit. You each keep on decreasing your "effort" to match what you feel like your spouse is giving, which makes NO ONE happy.
Luckily, in a time when I needed it most. my husband showed me what true Christlike love is. Even when someone could say I was giving -10%... not only not giving but taking other's strength, my husband continued to give his 100%. Was that fair to him? No. Was it fair that I was taking away precious study time during his first finals week EVER of medical school to talk to him about all my insecurities? No. Was I draining his spirits? Yes. But did he stop giving? No. But there soon came a time afterward where I would like to think that I may have returned the favor to him. But THIS, these are the moments where you find out how willing you are to make your marriage work. Marriage was instituted because God knew that it was in moments like these, that ALWAYS happen in marriage, where we have the opportunity to become more like the Savoir.It is in these delicate times of marriage where the true bonds of love are formed. We can use our spouses weaknesses to "serve them right" to stomp them even deeper into the ground in their delicate vulnerable state. Or we can show selflessness and compassion, using our own strength to try to lift them up. One way turns a marital bond of rope into gold, the other shreds it so it is only holding on by a few threads.
This life's purpose is to become more like Christ, and Christ gave his EVERYTHING, and got NOTHING in return. Well, not nothing. This is what Christ got for his 100%"
"He was despised, and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and WE HID ...OUR FACES from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem his stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of his peace is upon us, and with his stripes, we are healed." (Isaiah 53: 3-5)
What did the savior of the world get for giving up his honor, his glory, and coming down to give us his 100%? Well....He got something- crucified, tortured, bruised, rejected, spat upon, and so much more. And yet, even when we were doing those things to him, he still loved us, and gave us his 100%. By his actions of pure Love and Charity, even in the times where we gave him much less that what he TRULY deserved, he still gave us his 100%, and by doing so, lifted us through his efforts to escape our dark hole where we couldn't give him anything, to a place where we could try to give him something back to show our love for him.
Now, I am not saying that if you are in an abusive relationship it is OK for you to give 100% and never get anything. There is ZERO tolerance for abusive situations. And there are always circumstances where it is time to move on, and I am not one to judge when that point is for anyone. But I do know one thing for sure, It is is the times that people seem to just take take take, and we STILL choose to give, that forms us into a new creature, that helps transforms us closer to the image of Christ.
So to my wise friends and family who gave me that wonderful marital advise, I would like to add one more sentence to supplement that....Our marriages WORK when we both give 100% at all times. Relationships THRIVE and GROW when we are able to give each other 100% in the times where the other can barely muster up 1%.
It is in those pits where charity- the pure love of Christ- is created. And when our spouses act in the example of Christ to give their 100% to help lift us out of those pits, that is where I have found the unbreakable bonds of MY marriage being forged.
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