What Generosity Gives Back to Your Marriage
Have you heard this one?
A woman said to her husband, "You never tell me you love me." The husband responds, "I told you I love you when we got married. If anything changes, I'll let you know."
Comedian Bonnie McFarlane said, “I once gave my husband the silent treatment for an entire week, at the end of which he declared, ‘Hey, we’re getting along pretty great lately!’”
"My wife says I never buy her flowers," the husband told their marriage counselor. "To be honest, I didn't even know she sold flowers."
There are thousands of jokes like this, jokes about marital complacency. A husband treats his wedding-day declaration as a lifetime subscription that never needs renewing. Another mistakes a week of silence for marital harmony. A third misses the request for affection altogether. None imagines that a marriage might require something more than leaving things as they are.
In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus tells us of three servants entrusted with wealth by their master. Two invest the wealth, and return it to their master with interest. The third servant buries it, keeps it safe, and returns it unchanged. He doesn't squander what his master entrusts to him. His failure is not that he loses the gift, but that he does nothing fruitful with it. The master expected growth.
Marriage is a gift entrusted by our master to our care. We are not allowed to bury beneath routines and good intentions. Our vows are not a substitute for the daily work of loving; they are our promise to undertake it. At the end of our lives--whenever that day comes--we are expected to return a bigger, better, more loving marriage than the one we started with.
Marriage is one of the places where God’s kingdom takes root on earth, and it grows only when we invest in it.
Investing in Marriage
Investing in your marriage requires two things: risk and generosity. And weirdly, the two go hand-in-hand.
Putting your marriage and family at the center of your life requires generosity. Offering words of affection, attentive listening, small gestures of tenderness, support during emotional lows: these are ways we invest the gift we have received. The question is not simply whether we have stayed married, but whether we are helping our love grow.
For many, it feels risky take chance with your job when there's an economic pinch and the boss is calling for overtime. But is the extra money you make for your family really worth the loss of your presence in the home?
For some, it feels risky to reach out with affection during busy times, because you may get rejected. Setting up a safe, routine date night with expectations clearly spelled out is far safer than reaching out, again and again, every day of your marriage.
For others, it feels like a huge risk to take time out to be fully present and listening to their spouse every day. Getting the oil changed on the car, repainting the fence, mowing the lawn, paying bills, buying groceries... these all seem like more tangible and practical ways to serve the marriage than listening to your spouse's feelings about the way their coworker dissed them at work, or their parents decision to sell the house they grew up in and buy an RV.
Fear of taking a risk. It's what compels us to play it safe. It's what led the the third servant to bury his talent until the master returned.
Loops of Grace
What's the alternative? Generosity. The hope when we give of ourselves, we get back more than we gave, and that return makes the next gift easier.
Bishop Robert Barron calls this pattern a loop of grace. God's life comes to us as a gift, and it grows in us only as we give it away. When we cling to it, we lose it. The fearful servant broke the loop. He held on, and he ended with nothing.
Our marriages run on the same principle. Each of us brings gifts into the marriage: time, attention, patience, affection, forgiveness. We can invest them in our spouse, or we can bury them out of fear of being hurt, taken for granted, or giving more than we get back.
Small Investments, Big Returns
Research on everyday gratitude shows the loop at work. In one study, psychologists asked 67nromantic partners to complete daily reports for two weeks. On days when people felt their partner had done something thoughtful for them, they felt more connected to that partner and more satisfied with the relationship. The effect carried into the following day. Both partners gained, the one who gave thanks and the one who received it. Small, specific acts of appreciation fed the next day’s closeness, which made the next act of appreciation more likely.
Many of us hold back because giving feels risky. We wonder whether our spouse will notice, whether the thanks will land, whether we will look foolish. Fear tells us to keep the talent buried. The data suggest the risk is small and the return is real.
In another study, sociologists described their research on the generosity of 1,365 married American couples. They defined marital generosity as
small acts of kindness,
expressions of respect and affection, and
a willingness to forgive your spouse's faults and failings.
Couples who reported more generosity reported higher marital satisfaction, less conflict, and a lower sense that they might divorce.
The most surprising finding is that spouses who acted generously toward their partners report better marriages themselves, even after the researchers accounted for how generous their partners were in return. In other words, being generous is more beneficial to your own happiness in the marriage than receiving generosity
The authors note that their data cannot settle cause and effect. Generosity may build a happier marriage, and a happier marriage may make generosity easier. Both probably happen at once, and that is a loop of grace.
A Week of Small Gifts
Here's an exercise to get you started. Small gifts, small risks, but with a possibility of building toward larger and larger loops of grace.
Sit down together for ten minutes. Each of you writes three small things your spouse could do that would make you feel cared for. Keep them concrete and free: bring me coffee in the morning, put your phone away at dinner, ask me about my meeting.
Swap lists. Each day for the next seven days, do at least one item on your spouse's list. Don't announce it. Don't keep score.
Each evening, name one thing your spouse did for you that day and thank them for it.
At the end of the week, sit down again. Talk about what it felt like to give and to receive.
Revise your lists. Keep the items that mattered the most, but also add new ones.
If your marriage is in a hard season, start anyway. Don't wait for your spouse to go first. The fearful servant waited too.
Building the kingdom at home
The master in the parable asks his servants to take a risk with what they have received. Our marriages ask the same of us. Each time you give your spouse your attention, your patience, or your forgiveness, you build the kingdom Christ came to establish, in the small territory of your own home. Each time you hold back out of fear, you bury a talent.
God gave you time, talent, and treasure to spend on the person you promised to love. Spend these gifts on them, and trust that the loop of grace will carry love back to you.
Comments