Why do marriages break up? (Part III)

Over the course of writing the other parts of this article, I got into a few private conversations around a marriage built on purpose, and also got some interesting feedback. In this concluding portion, I will try to answer several of the questions raised, while attempting to provide a fairly satisfactory ‘conclusion’. If you have been patient enough to read thus far, a key question that may come to mind is ‘How do we find and/or align with a compelling purpose within the context of marriage?’ or some may ask, ‘what should the purpose of my marriage be?’ 

First, let me start by saying, there is no blanket answer, just like it is impossible to provide specific answers to the question, ‘What’s the world’s best food?’ – but a few guidelines may help you get closer to aligning your marriage with an objective that helps the marriage stand the test of time. Personally, I also feel it will help in the choosing a partner because one goes beyond looking for a mate that is attractive to looking for a mate they can WORK with to BUILD something.

Now, here is the challenging bit: A purpose-focused marriage is driven by the man, who should be focused (or come to a place of focus) on fulfilling certain objectives. It becomes really hard for a marriage to have or fulfill its objectives if the husband does not have a degree of clarity about his purpose in life.

Now, finding purpose becomes unnecessarily complex when one factors in the pressures of society which has a tendency to paint trivial goal posts as important objectives. So the modern man may want to be the CEO of a company, or the ‘pastor’ of a large parish, or be successful and rich, but the critical question to answer HONESTLY and with MATURITY (which are two critical elements) is “WHY?”.  Like I said in the previous part of this article, a marriage has a greater tendency to stand the test of time if it is a union of two individual dedicated to a clear long-term purpose that is bigger than their INDIVIDUAL dreams and desires. 

A good marriage is a partial loss of the individual and the strengthening of the TEAM – and the result will be a strengthening of each individual. This sounds a bit strange, but that is how it works out. So when the man decides to focus on a particular ‘Purpose’ (which will be something that ALREADY aligns with his aptitude), you can judge that objective is GOOD and big enough when the beneficiary is not just the man, but the woman, the children that they have (or may not have) – and in addition, others outside the family circle. It is also critical to highlight that the chosen objective STILL make sense in a totally new generation when parents pass on the family objective(s) to their children. 

To summarise, a strong purpose is:

1. Clearly bigger than each of the individuals in a marriage 

2. Benefits others outside the marriage 

3. Can be clearly articulated by members of the family team, and 

4. Retains its relevance from generation to generation.   

Essentially, a good measure of purpose is Impact, and a good way to measure impact is a comparison of the available resource the family has to the level of impact their unified purpose achieves. So a family with 10 resources that impact 100 people isn’t yet doing as well as a family with 5 resources that also impacts 100 people…We can go into more detail but the point is to give a hazy idea of what can be categorized as Purpose that is ‘good’ and how to measure its efficacy.

Let me give a practical example. You can have an individual who desires to be a renowned preacher, going round the world doing ‘crusades’ and preaching. This is a good desire, but one that is more suited to a single man or single person narrative. Same goes for someone who wants to be a successful musician, going on tour and gigging round the globe. The dynamics immediately change when the individual decides to get into marriage and here’s where people start having problems because the singer still wants to be a ‘Star’ and the preacher still wants to be ‘renown’ when what should happen is taking time to redefine new roles within the context of marriage.

So the singer can say to his wife that he feels drawn to a cause of changing society using art as a vehicle. At first glance, this is a noble cause, but then, the impact to society and how that impact can be measured must be defined. For example, would a measure of impact be that the average listeners of the brand of music pushed by the Singer’s family end up being higher income earners, or pro-environment or generally big on integrity? In extending this to multi-generational relevance, will the family create a trust that is focussed on training individuals for the perpetuation of specific core value? As you would notice, the dynamics change from simply wanting to be a ‘Star’ musician to something bigger, requiring more resource than only one individual can provide and being able to impact more people.  

When both parties buy into that vision, several questions will follow including who will be the best person to do the singing and who will play a supporting role – because the woman, not the man, may be the better person for this function. Other considerations like finance, family time, dealing with pressures of the opposite sex (which comes with the terrain), balancing out other critical objectives and even periods when music may be put on hold will have to be thoroughly looked into. The bottom line is the individual transits from his individual musical dream to a larger focus that takes into consideration the family AND a bigger vision.

It is for this reason that in many spheres of the world as we know it, families, and not just individuals are the ‘powers’ behind the scenes. From the popular Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Tatas, to the lesser known Ferragamo, Al-Saud, Nehru-Gandhi and Capetian Families, you can see threads of purpose that focus on specific areas like politics, business, social impact, etc, and though some of these families have very dark sides, like the tower of Babel, nothing is impossible when individuals put their minds together in the pursuit of a long-term, unifying purpose, whether it is good or bad.  

Let me take this one step further. You see, when a family has found a powerful, long-term, unifying purpose that it is working towards, certain things lose their relevance or sting. For example, I often hear couples say that if they ever find their spouse is cheating on them, the only option is to divorce and start afresh. Now, it sounds very justifiable and even the Bible says that adultery can be a reason for divorce, BUT this is after God had told an OLD TESTAMENT prophet to go and look for his wife who was prostituting herself, bring her back home and to love her as a husband should. Pretty strange, since many would expect that God would have asked for her to be stoned to death, right? But we see that God’s heart was concerned with restoring the family, NOT embarrassing the woman.  

Hey, don’t shoot me just yet.

The story of Hosea is a tough pill for many MEN to swallow, but again it is a model and a guide to the heart of God on certain matters. It is critical to take the WHOLE context and not just a part. God used the example of Hosea to show his heart for his people; He would remain a husband who would continue to chase and woo his wife even when she was cheating on him. BUT, that is not the whole picture. The chasing and wooing was a critical element because the woman had a ROLE to play in the marriage, a marriage that had to fulfil certain objectives – and her role and function, in the light of the larger purpose, were more important than her weaknesses.

Again, we see the elevation of purpose over emotion.

From that woman, there would be kids who would be trained to carry on a multi-generation purpose. With that woman, there would be times of intimacy that would help to absorb the challenges of fulfilling purpose in a broken and dysfunctional world. With that woman, there would be fights and arguments and quarrels that would chip away at both parties, wearing out their rough edges till there was less ‘friction’, and over time, levels of love, depth and understanding that only members of that team would understand and find fulfilment in.

Now, I am not downplaying the pain of a partner cheating on you; it can be crushing, especially when it’s a pattern. I am also not saying that you are obligated to stay with your partner or take no precautions if they are constantly unfaithful. However, what I am saying is that when the purpose of a marriage is unclear, or when it is weak, short-term or not bought into by all parties, then minor things become major and the tolerance threshold becomes really low because each party is approaching the union with GETTING from the other party as opposed to each party WORKING with the other to BUILD something that they can see, which other people cannot see – and which creates a bond that stands the test of time.

And with that, I come to the end of this article, while thinking, ‘What better purpose exists than one which keys into extending the boundaries of The Kingdom?’

And then again, the obvious question is “What is The Kingdom?”

                                                                                

                                                                       THE END