Sustainable Marriage
Marriage, like all communities, is best when it works sustainably. What is sustainability? A co-worker of mine once told me that he hoped his children would understand the need to “in-put” into life as much or more than they take out. I think that’s a great definition for sustainability: The choice to in-put the same amount or more than one removes from life.
At its core, marriage is an agreement between two people. Unlike an agreement we make with a bank to repay a loan in full by a specific date, marriage doesn’t begin with specifics or fine print. Instead, we have to figure out what our marriage will require. We learn about marriage as we invest more and more in it. The longer you learn to love your partner the more you learn what questions to ask. Will you need to put extra time into creative gift-giving? Should you spend your time finishing the ten projects you’ve begun instead of promising your partner you’ll start and complete two more?
No one really knows what their marriage will require of them until they’ve been married for a while. A sustainable marriage is one in which partners are conscious of their need to in-put as much or more than their partner, so that the marriage grows strong and vibrant. You may not always know if your spouse feels loved but you can always make the choice to in-put love, affection, warmth and generosity. These kinds of demonstrations produce the healthy soul of a long relationship.
Investing warmth and generosity into a marriage might seem like a no-brainer for many couples. In reality, life is tough and your partner’s needs can be a mystery much of the time. We can easily acquire an unsustainable “me-first” focus. A “me” focus takes out of a marriage more than it puts in. It takes more time, more love, more security and more of the resources of the marriage than it is willing to “in-put.” Like a community of people who deplete the earth of natural resources on hand, an unsustainable marriage leaves the foundation of the marriage dry and eroded, lacking strength for hard times, and unable to produce love and affection day to day.
Sustainable marriage is only possible when both parties involved believe that their greatest chance for happiness is “in-putting” those things that their partner needs, regardless of what they stand to gain on an individual basis. Like a verdant landscape that thrives on the gift of rain and sunshine, a marriage will grow strong and thrive through giving and receiving what it needs (and more!) from those invested in its long-term health.
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