Occasionally I meet with couples determined to work on their marriage. My first response is to tell them not to.
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I don’t say this because because their marriage is particularly strong. I say it because “work” is a terrible way to think about how we grow closer to the person we love.
I happen to love my “work,” but words matter, and the term “work” is, for better or worse, associated with a burden, with drudgery, with arduous effort. We work during the day so we can enjoy the evening. We work all week so we can savor the weekend. Who wants to add more “work?”
Less Work, More Play
To think of a marriage as needing work is to think about it as a burden. This view rooted in traditional imagery—just think of the ball and chains metaphor for marriage popularized in the nineteenth century. But it is not productive or helpful.
Instead of thinking of ways to “work” on our marriage, we should be thinking of ways to “play” with it. What do we like to do in our free time? Perhaps we read or exercise or go a concert or a movie?
Then we should see those acts as ways of playing with our marriage as well. A small shift in vocabulary can go a long way in changing our mindset.
Less Heaviness, More Adventure
We might also try to think of marriage as adventure. So often we use terms like “commitment” or “relationship.” These are absolutely wonderful and important ideas. But they also convey a heaviness that makes deepening our marriage feel like another burden.
Marriage is an adventure we get to share with the person we love most. Of course it is a commitment, just like parenting is a responsibility. But it expands so much farther than those words allow. It is an adventure, a journey, a roller-coaster with highs and lows. Embracing these metaphor helps us see marriage not as a project to fix, but as an experience to savor for the rest of our lives.
Thinking of marriage as an adventure and an opportunity for play will not fix all marriages or prevent all unhealthy relationships. It will not automatically make us more loving, empathic, generous and patient. But it can help us realize the purpose of our most sacred relationships.
Rethink Date Night
These relationships are not burdens. They are not “problems” we can solve by adding a few extra time blocks or date nights to our calendar. Mind you, I am not against “date night” but the phrase itself suggests the date night is a magical time apart from every-day marital duties.
Such a mindset may lead us to miss the underlying joy and extraordinary gift a sacred relationship brings. It answers our essential human longing for companionships. It unites “I” with “Thou.” It keeps us growing through giving.
In the Bible Abraham and Sarah marry, and then begin the adventure of journeying to the Promised Land and growing the Jewish people. They experienced ups and downs. Yet they were, as the Jewish sages later put it, “true partners in life and life’s adventures.” That is a perfect description of what marriage, at its best, aspires to be.
