What Marriage Asks of Us

How well do you treat your spouse?

Do you treat them as they deserve? Do you find yourself in tit-for-tat interactions? Are many, maybe even most of your actions responses to their words and deeds?

Or do you treat your spouse as God would have you treat them, regardless of whether you feel they deserve it?

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that the Son of Man will repay each according to his conduct, and that whoever loses his life for his sake will find it.

It's a reminder to what we are called to in a sacramental marriage. It's not our job to reward or punish our spouse's behavior toward us--that's God's job. We are called to treat our spouse as we would have them treat us, not as they actually treat us.

Your marriage vow was not a deal struck with your spouse. It was a covenant made before God, and God is the one who will judge how well you kept it.

There are a lot of things that can go awry in how we treat one another. In her counseling work, Dawna often encountered husbands who read their "headship" (as described by Paul in Ephesians) as a license to direct, correct, and control.

But a husband who runs his marriage like a manager running employees has confused leadership with domination. He does not owe his wife deference because she earned it through good behavior. He owes her love because he owes it to God, the same way she owes him love for the same reason. Neither spouse is settling a debt to the other. Both are settling a debt to God.

Another failure to act with love involves wives made uncomfortable by husbands who express their vulnerability. In her TED Talk "Listening to Shame," Brené Brown describes a man who told her that his wife and daughters would rather watch him die on his white horse than see him fall off it.

Dawna, like other marriage counselors, has seen the same pattern: a wife says she wants her husband to open up, then goes quiet the moment he actually shows fear or grief. She wants a hero, not a man. That reaction teaches him his vulnerability costs him her respect, so he hides it, and she loses the closeness she asked for. Wanting him strong at the cost of knowing him is its own self-preservation, and Jesus has something direct to say about self-preservation: whoever tries to save his life will lose it.

Paul's description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is worth rereading with this in mind. Every item on his list is an action. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not insist on its own way. Paul is not describing a feeling. He is describing conduct, the same word Matthew uses in this Sunday's gospel. Love is something spouses do for each other, not because the other has earned it, but because God asks it of them.

Research backs this in a secular register. Psychologist Emily Impett and her colleagues tracked couples over time and found that people who sacrificed daily to benefit their partner's happiness reported more well-being and stronger relationships, while people who sacrificed to avoid conflict or guilt reported less satisfaction and more strain. The motive behind the sacrifice mattered as much as the sacrifice itself.

What Can I Do For You?

Try this with your spouse. Once a week, ask one question: "What would make this week easier for you?" Then do the thing they name, without keeping a tally.

The following week, discuss how it went, and ask again. The exercise turns love into conduct, one concrete action at a time, aimed at your spouse's good rather than your own.

Losing Your Life

Jesus does not ask spouses to earn each other's love. He asks each of them to lose their life for his sake, inside a marriage, through daily acts of patience, kindness, and service

He is the one keeping the account, and he has promised to repay in full.