Being on the Same Page

When you get married, you have this belief that the person you are marrying is on your side. They are in your corner. If the whole world turns against you, this person will stand by your side. They will defend you. They are for you. They believe in you. You are on the same team.

Over the course of time, most marriages drift. What was once unconditional trust in a relationship turns to suspicion. What was once belief in one another has become doubt. It doesn’t feel like your spouse is for you anymore. You don’t feel like you are on the same page in your marriage, much less teammates.

We. Have. Been. There. We still visit there once in a while. The first ten years of our marriage we lived in the same house, but we weren’t on the same team. It felt like we were on opposing sides in our finances; in our parenting; in how we spent our free time; in the movies we went to; in almost every area of our marriage. There was this silent but deadly belief in both of our hearts that “At the end of the day, they are not for me.” That belief will kill a marriage. It might not end in divorce, but it will always end in co-existing.

Today, I want to give you three things that derail Trisha and I being on the same team. These are three things that I struggle with that puts us on opposite pages.

1. Trying to control my wife rather than being led by God.

We are in the middle of a reorganization of our budget. Trisha has been amazing with our finances over the past 18 months. We have paid off most of our credit card debt, and haven’t used a credit card in over 2 years. But there is the reality that she doesn’t do the budget like I would do it. (Which is good because I got us into this mess.) When I try to control her and manipulate her to spend money like I think we should spend it, rather than being led by God in our finances, it always puts us on two different teams. She tries to communicate, I shut her down. She asks me questions about expenditures, I give shallow answers. She begins to believe “He is not for me.” When I allow God to lead me in this area, my desire is to honor Him with our resources, not control our finances…and we are on the same team again.

2. Assume the worst of intentions or actions.

Why is it that we assume the best of co-workers, friends, neighbors and people we barely know, but we assume the worst of our spouse? There isn’t a quicker way for me to put Trisha and I on opposite sides that to assume the worst and respond out of that assumption. One of the things we’ve tried to do over the past several years is live with an awareness of our ability to do this and call it out. If Trisha thinks that I am assuming the worst of me, she will say it. If I feel like she is giving me a level 9 response to a level 2 situation, I’ll ask her, “Are you assuming the worst of me right now?” It usually leads to great conversation (heated at times, but great). Being on the same team means assuming the best and being proven wrong.

3. Living with a sense of entitlement.

Nothing puts a marriage on opposite pages like entitlement. When one spouse has an attitude of “You owe me”, someone is going to pay. This has played out in our marriage in several ways. I’ve had a sense of entitlement when it comes to the house being cleaned; sexual intimacy; parenting the kids….the list goes on and one. One of the things that’s helped me in this area is recognizing how much I owe God. His grace is a gift I can never repay. When I see myself in light of all that Christ has done for me, my sense of entitlement goes away. When you and your spouse live out of the grace you have been given, the path has been paved for intimacy and oneness. Being on the same team is an overflow of grace.

What would you add or take away?