MARRIAGE, ADJUSTMENT TO
A cynic once observed: “All marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.”836
Marriage has been described as the relationship of “two reasonable human beings who have agreed to abide by each other’s intolerabilities.”837
Marriage is like taking an airplane to Florida for a relaxing vacation in January, and when you get off the plane you find you’re in the Swiss Alps. There’s cold and snow instead of swimming and sunshine.
Well, after you buy winter clothes and learn how to ski, and learn how to talk in a new foreign language, I guess you can have just as good a vacation in the Swiss Alps as you can in Florida. But it is a surprise when you get off that honeymoon airplane and find that everything is far different from what you expected.838
Unhappy spouse to marriage counselor:
When I got married
I was looking for an ideal.
Then it became an ordeal.
Now I want a new deal.839
Someone has likened adjustment to marriage to two porcupines who lived in Alaska. When the deep and heavy snows came, they felt the cold and began to draw close together. However, when they drew close they began to stick one another with their quills. But when they drew apart they felt the cold once again. To keep warm they had to learn how to adjust to one another—very carefully.840
“For best results, follow instructions of maker.” So advised a brochure accompanying a bottle of a common cold remedy. If such advice is good for the relief of a simple physical ailment, how much more it is needed for the relief of sick marriage relationships! God, the Author of marriage, has given us clear instructions in the Bible.841
All of us have seen two rivers flowing smoothly and quietly along until they meet and join to form one new river. When this happens they clash and hurl themselves at one another. However, as the newly formed river flows downstream, it gradually quiets down and flows smoothly again. And now it is broader and more majestic and has more power. So it is in a marriage: the forming of a new union may be tumultuous—but, when achieved, the result is far greater than either alone.842
Some time ago, the Saturday Evening Post ran a humorous article that traced the tendency for marriage partners to drift from a height of bliss into the humdrum of routine attitudes. Called “The Seven Ages of the Married Cold,” the article likens the state of the marriage to the reaction of a husband to his wife’s colds during seven years of marriage.
The first year: “Sugar dumpling, I’m worried about my baby girl. You’ve got a bad sniffle and there’s no telling about these things with all this strep around. I’m putting you in the hospital this afternoon for a general checkup and a good rest. I know the food’s lousy, but I’ll bring your meals in from Rossini’s. I’ve already got it arranged with the floor superintendent.”
The second year: “Listen darling, I don’t like the sound of that cough and I’ve called Doc Miller to rush over here. Now you go to bed like a good girl, please? Just for Papa.”
The third year: “Maybe you’d better lie down, honey; nothing like a little rest when you feel punk. I’ll bring you something to eat. Have we got any soup?”
The fourth year: “Look, dear, be sensible. After you feed the kids and get the dishes washed, you’d better hit the sack.”
The fifth year: “Why don’t you get yourself a couple of aspirin?”
The sixth year: “If you’d just gargle or something, instead of sitting around barking like a seal!”
The seventh year: “For Pete’s sake, stop sneezing! Whatcha trying to do, gimme pneumonia?”843
People in our nation spend more time preparing to get their driver’s license than they do preparing for marriage or parenting.844