God intends for marriage to be the most intimate of all human relationships. In a previous Marriage Homework article (“3-D Intimacy”) we discussed the three dimensions of marital intimacy: spiritual, emotional, and physical. If we are to feel secure and significant within our marriage all three dimensions must be healthy.

Considering the forgoing, three questions present themselves. (1) What can we as a husband or wife do to help our mate feel secure and significant? (2) What can we legitimately expect our mates to do to help us feel secure and significant? (3) What role must we play in achieving our own sense of security and significance?

What can we as a husband or wife do to help our mate feel secure and significant?

Feeling secure comes from predictability, demonstrated responsibility, faithfulness and truthfulness. Trust grows when our mate sees these qualities in our life. With trust comes a willingness to be vulnerable. When our mate’s vulnerability is handled sensitively and responsibly by us, our mate feels the warm glow of unconditional acceptance and love.

Our mates feel significant when we value their opinions, respect their judgment, include them in decisions, share our hopes and fears and the deep things of our hearts. In short, when we include our mate in our life, rather than shutting them out, they feel that they are valuable (significant) to us.

What can we legitimately expect our mates to do to help us feel secure and significant?

What role must we play in achieving our own sense of security and significance?

To the extent that our relationship with our parents or others has not made us feel it, we may enter marriage with a deep yearning to feel secure and significant. This longing, like an itch that cannot be scratched, may lead to unrealistic expectations or demands from a mate - demands which in some cases are abusive and bizarre.

In order to discern the dividing line between what we should expect from our mate and what we must be responsible for ourselves, we must first understand the differences between goals and desires.

Each of us has objectives which we seek to accomplish. Mostly, those objectives are related to our quest for security and/or significance. According to Dr. Larry Crabb¹, an objective that can be reached through your efforts alone is a goal; one that can only be met with the cooperation or action of others is a desire. To illustrate, he explains that we may have as our objective that it rain this afternoon. Since whether or not it rains is totally outside our control, any efforts to accomplish this desire will only lead to frustration. The proper response to a desire, he says, is prayer, and for goals it is a set of responsible actions.

In our marriages, when we mistake desires for goals the result is not only frustration, but often it leads to manipulation. For example, suppose a husband’s objective is more frequent lovemaking. Since the accomplishment of his objective requires the cooperation of his wife, this objective is a desire, rather than a goal. Mistaking it for a goal, he begins sweet-talking and caressing her – actions which are uncharacteristic for him at any other time than when he is wanting sex. In other words, he is attempting to manipulate her into satisfying his own desire – an attempt that is painfully apparent to, and resented by, his wife. Her response is, of course, something other than amorous, which begins a vicious circle of manipulative attempts and rebuffs.

What are your goals and desires? Can you identify desires that you have mistaken for goals? How might they have hurt your relationship with your mate?

Evaluate each objective in your relationship. Pray about those that are desires. Resolve to act responsibly in the pursuit of your goals. Let there be no hidden agendas.

God wants to use you as His minister to your mate. Through you, your mate can come to feel the security of Christ’s love and understand their great worth and significance. The wonderful result will be an intimate relationship that comes as close to heaven as can be experienced here on earth.

¹Crabb, Larry. (1992). The Marriage Builder. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Paul White - (325) 677-5446 email: paul@pwhitemail.com

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Last modified: May 17, 2007