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If Only We Had Known
Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.
-- Proverbs 4:23
A couple of summers ago, Erin and I were asked to take part in a wedding ceremony of a young couple we had counseled. I was to bring the message. Leading up to their wedding, I kept thinking about how people don't often remember the preacher's message, and I really wanted their day to be memorable. So, I thought long and hard about what to say -- and then a brilliant idea hit. The only piece of information I needed was the type of flower the bride was going to have in her bouquet. Erin, acting as my spy, secretly discovered she was using calla lilies.
During the ceremony I talked about the beauty of the calla lilies in the bride's bouquet, and then I held up a packet of seeds (although I know lilies grow from bulbs!). "Your marriage is like this packet of seeds," I explained to the couple and their many guests. "You need some very important elements in order to grow the seeds of your relationship into a beautiful marriage bouquet."
Everything was going perfectly until I came to the last point -- spending twenty minutes per day meeting your spouse's needs. Keep in mind that I was using a gardening metaphor, so to make my point, I confidently stated, "Much like fertilizer helps calla lilies grow strong and healthy, if you want a healthy marriage, you need to spend at least twenty minutes each day fertilizing each other."
The church roared with laughter. To make matters worse, I had no idea what was so funny. The metaphor had made so much sense in my head that I never looked at my words from any other perspective. I think the groom realized I was clueless, so he joked, "Can we get on with the 'I dos' so I can begin my twenty minutes of fertilizing my wife?"
I could have died.
At least I got my wish. No one will ever forget my message!
On the drive home from the reception, Erin and I talked about how much premarital training this young man and his bride-to-be had received in the months leading up to their wedding. You couldn't talk to them for more than a few minutes before it became obvious how well they knew themselves, each other, the basic building blocks of a great marriage, and where they wanted to take this new union of theirs. Erin and I were awed. We couldn't help but think, If only we had known, before we got married, what they already know! What a difference it would have made! Oh, to have been in their shoes at the beginning!
Now don't get us wrong; we have a great marriage today -- after fifteen years of trial and error, much of it very painful! So as we watched these two become husband and wife, we marveled at how much they had already been empowered to create a strong and vibrant marriage. They had clearly been given the knowledge and the skills and the personal awareness to begin their years together on a very high note.
As we talked about how happy and confident the bride and groom looked as they strolled out of the sanctuary together, I said, "You know, I'm kind of envious of them. I wish we would have had that!" Of course, Erin nodded in enthusiastic agreement.
Which leads us to this book.
One of our major hopes is that by the time you finish absorbing the material to follow, you will be ready to stand excitedly on a platform, about to say your vows, armed with a high level of knowledge and skills and self-awareness. You simply don't need to go through everything we did in order to build a terrific marriage.
In great measure, this book contains what Erin and I wish we knew back then and lays out what we would do differently if we could do it all over. Of course, we also did a lot of things right! We want to highlight those things, too. We also draw upon our years of counseling premarital couples, tap into the most recent available research, and, finally, make use of one other unique resource:
We surveyed approximately ten thousand people regarding the most critical premarital issues so that you would get to inherit the learning of thousands of happily married couples. The collective wisdom of these couples will impart to you crucial knowledge and skills that can be applied to your premarital process. It's like getting knowledge handed down by generations of scholars. Erin and I are going to give you advice from people who have been there, done that, and learned how to have great marriages. It's like getting tomorrow's newspaper today and being able to cash in on the stock market because you already know what's going to happen.
That's important, because research conclusively shows that couples who succeed gain the knowledge they need before they settle into destructive patterns that often lead to divorce. In fact, you're 31 percent less likely to get divorced if you get some sort of premarital training. Another study by marriage expert David Olson reports that 80 percent of the couples who did premarital training stayed together. Premarital education can also reduce the stress of the prewedding period. Finally, according to marriage experts Dr. Jason Carroll and Dr. William J. Doherty, couples who participate in premarital programs experience a 30 percent increase in marital success over those who do not participate.
Such couples report improved communication, better conflict-management skills, higher dedication to one's mate, greater emphasis on the positive aspects of a relationship, and improved overall relationship quality. These benefits appear to hold for six months to three years after the program is over, and they extend to couples who enter marriage with greater risks, such as those coming from homes where parents had divorced or had high levels of conflict.
On the other hand, if you just wing it and count on your luck and romantic attachment to make your marriage a success, your odds of succeeding are only one in four.
Such potent facts should help you to understand our vision: To help men and women obtain the knowledge and skills to build satisfying, lifelong marriages where both people become conformed to the image of the Lord.
Nowhere is this vision more realized than in the development of this book. We want to make a difference in your life as a couple before you fall into the hurtful relational patterns that too often lead to divorce.
Knowledge and Skills: Keys to Success
Erin will never forget the call she took one day at her parents' house in Phoenix, Arizona. I was on the other end of the line, euphoric with great news.
After I asked her to sit down and brace herself, I proudly announced that I had received something very exciting in the mail. I told her that she was preparing to marry a very rich man. I had received notification in the mail that I had won the big sweepstakes! I was in the running for a new car, a free luxury trip, or even a million bucks!
"I can imagine that you're doubting me," I said, "but before you go down that road, I should tell you that I've already called my dad and read him all the details -- and he also thinks I've won!"
I ended the celebration phone call with, "Aren't you excited? I am certain that it will be the money!"
Meanwhile, Erin stood stunned on the other end of the phone. Truly, this would be anyone's greatest dream come true -- entering marriage with no financial worries. Her joy, however, alternated with deep doubt.
She had actually laughed out loud when I went on and on about what we would do with the money and how we would spend it and what I was going to buy her. She had worked in a psychiatric hospital during nursing school, and this call seemed eerily similar to many of the conversations she had engaged in there.
She hung up the phone thinking, How cute and naive he is. She probably guessed I was already putting in orders, creating house plans, and booking our luxury honeymoon.
Over the next week, I called Erin several more times to talk about our new wealth. I continued to celebrate, plan, and even share the news with many of my graduate-school friends. Finally, one of my friends encouraged me to seek legal counsel to see if this was a scam or real. Deflated, I did just that.
I made a visit to a lawyer friend -- and in no time, he began giggling and laughing. He couldn't believe I would fall for this scam. "How are you going to spend all of your newly acquired wealth?" he snickered.
I left his office humiliated. Not only had I believed I was a millionaire, everyone knew I had believed the message of that letter, so craftily written.
That day I learned that without the proper knowledge and skills to read and understand the fine print, I could easily be led to look like a moron.
Fifteen years later, whenever Erin and I talk over this sorry incident, we still laugh at my naive thinking. In fact, however, it wasn't all that different from how we entered into marriage. We thought we understood the fine print -- but in reality, we had a completely different experience than what we planned for. Without the proper knowledge and skills, we were left helpless -- and, very often, humiliated.
Millions of couples have suffered a similar fate for a similar reason. And we're not talking about the death of a sweepstakes dream! What starts out as a promising adventure for many marriages often ends in the death of a relationship.
But you can avoid falling for that deceptive sweepstakes letter! You can succeed in your marriage and build a thriving relationship -- so long as you get the right knowledge and the right skills. But what kinds of knowledge and skills are necessary? Where do we start? For us, that's no longer a tough question.
Make It Safe!
We often tell premarital couples that if we had only one hour to spend with them, we would use the entire time to talk about safety. Why? The reality is that you are about to go through an enormous amount of change, both good and bad. That tends to mak...
