The Key Ingredient for a Happy Marriage
Filed under {!-- ra:000000006af9110a0000000019529944 --}{if 'The Key Ingredient for a Happy Marriage' == '52home' && category_name == '52home'} Marriage {if:else} Marriage {/if}Recently I was watching a cooking show where the celebrity chef and her husband were celebrating a milestone anniversary. The cook shared her “recipe” (ha!) for a long-lasting, happy marriage: “I try to make him happy and he tries to make me happy and it works!”
As far as I know, this woman is not a Christian, but her advice reflects a biblical principle for marriage: husbands and wives are to love one another. They are to put each other’s interests above their own (Phil. 2:4). A husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church (Eph. 5:25). A wife is to love her husband with a tender, affectionate love (Titus 2:4). In the chef’s words, I am to try to make him happy.
So often, in marriage, we get it the wrong way around, don’t we? We think more about all the ways our husbands can make us happy, or we dwell on how unhappy we are with our husbands.
“If only he would be more like ______________ I would be happy.”
“If only he would stop doing ______________I would be happy”
“If only he would notice ______________I would be happy”
“If only he would ask ______________ I would be happy”
“If only he would do ______________ I would be happy”
Our egalitarian culture gives us a sympathetic pat on the back. After all, the modern recipe for a happy marriage calls for self-interest as a main ingredient. But this is not the biblical way. Nor does it turn out very well. The more we try to put our own happiness first in our marriages, the more unhappy we become.
Or, to put it another way: If we really want our own happiness, and if we really want a happy marriage, we will put our husband’s happiness first. John Piper:
“Husbands and wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh. If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your joy. But if you devote yourself with all your heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and making a marriage after the image of Christ and His church.”
My husband is a wonderful example of putting my happiness first. He calls it “studying his wife” and he has spent our entire marriage seeking to discover what makes me happy. He often encourages husbands not to assume that their wives will like what every other wife likes, but to study their own wives and learn what makes them happy.
I don’t have to think back far for an example of my husband trying to make me happy. While we were on a getaway two weekends ago, my husband noticed a sign for an afternoon tea. Now, I’m not even sure CJ has ever had a cup of tea in his life, much less attended an afternoon tea. But he knows afternoon tea is a favorite of mine, a long-standing tradition with my daughters, and now my granddaughters.
And so, because he wants to make me happy, he made a reservation. I wish you could have seen my husband, in a room of mostly women, trying to make a tea selection and handle a teacup. We ended up laughing our way through the afternoon. But he was happy because I was happy.
Are you unhappy in your marriage? Are you dissatisfied or disappointed with your husband? Instead of focusing on your unhappiness, or trying to make yourself happy first, try to make your husband happy. A happy husband makes for a happy wife, and a happy marriage brings glory to God. The chef, and more importantly, God’s Word is right: this recipe for a happy marriage works.
~from the archives