There is a Third Person in my Marriage

“And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Mark 10:8-9

On Sunday, I will be celebrating my 41st wedding anniversary. Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday, and other times it seems like a lifetime ago. I had just turned 18 when I met my future husband. I was having a party, and he literally crashed it. One year later, we were “going steady,” as we used to call it back then. On my 20th birthday, he gave me the engagement ring. We considered getting married within the year, but we were both still in college, and we didn’t have enough money saved up. Therefore, we got married two years later.

My wedding ring was a simple band that we ordered to match the engagement ring, but I recall how excited I was on my wedding day with my two rings. What I didn’t anticipate was that on that day, I would also receive a third ring… the suffer-ring.

In 41 years, I have experienced many crosses in my marriage… sickness, issues with our children, trials, and tribulations. The suffer-ring has been heavy to bear, and I have wanted to toss it out many times, but my marriage is Christ-centered. When we walked out of the church on our wedding day, we were three persons instead of two. Jesus Christ walked out with us, and He has remained in the middle of our relationship ever since. He is the third person in my marriage, and without Him, our marriage would not have survived. We have gone through many difficult moments, but the word “divorce” has never even crossed our minds.

When our three children got married, we gave them a letter sharing our marriage wisdom. We knew they had to walk their own marriage journey, but we figured we could impart some of what we have learned during all these years. This is what we told them:

1. Choose your battles. It’s best not to fight over the little things.
2. Say “I love you” to each other at least once a day. And never stop saying it.
3. When you have children, always remember that the two of you are the roots of the tree, and the children are just the branches. The tree cannot survive without the roots.
4. Keep the word “divorce” out of your marriage. Every argument, every disagreement, has a solution, but when you bring “divorce” into the argument as an option, it will become the solution.
5. Honesty is the best policy. If you start keeping things from each other, soon you will lose trust, which is one of the main ingredients for a successful marriage.
6. Put money aside for a rainy day. You never know when life can throw you a curveball, and you may be without a job.
7. Do not allow your jobs or your material possessions to become the god in your lives. Work is important because it opens doors to many things, but you cannot live to work; you have to work to live.
8. Communication is one of the main ingredients to a happy marriage. If something bothers you, don’t wait until the kettle boils over. It’s best to vent over little things than wait until they become a major storm.
9. Do not live your marriage in isolation. We humans were created to live in community. Build friendships and cherish them.
10. Make room for God in your lives. Your journey will be a lot easier if you allow Him to walk with you. Let Him be the third person in your marriage.

I’m so glad my husband crashed my party 45 years ago. God led him to me, and even though the suffer-ring has weighed heavily at times, the third person in our marriage has helped us carry the weight. And in all honesty, the joy-ring has outweighed the suffer-ring more than a thousand times.

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