3 – Why Did I Get Married?

What was your reason for getting married? If you’re like many others, you may have had mostly selfish reasons for getting married and later discovered that you need to be unselfish to be successfully married. In fact, you need to be unselfish to enjoy life at all.
When you stood in front of family and friends and promised to love and cherish your spouse, you may not have realized it, but you were committing to an unselfish life. You can’t keep your promise to love and cherish another person while only being concerned about your own happiness. Furthermore, if you are only concerned with your own happiness, you will never be happy.
Men are commanded to love their wives in a Christ-like, sacrificial way.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)
Women also need to love their husbands in an unselfish way.
This unselfishness begins by thinking about what it important to your spouse, how they view things, and what makes them happy.
Two people living selfish lives may find some fulfillment in each other for a while. They may enjoy each other’s company and marry with great hopes and dreams. But if they continue to live selfishly while married, their wishes will collide and they will find hundreds of reasons for conflict. They will each be unfulfilled and they will never meet each other’s selfish expectations. Many couples encounter this conflict and start to drift apart. They develop more independence in their marriage as a way of reducing the conflict, but this falls short of what God meant when He said that the two would become one.
A selfish person will always be insecure because they are trying to base their life on a lie; that they are the most important person on earth. Selfish people may put unattainable expectations on themselves to try to justify the pedestal they have placed themselves on. The selfish person will never feel like they measure up, even to their own expectations.
The person who always thinks of themselves as better than others has a lot in common with the person who always thinks of themselves as inferior. They are both focusing on themselves and comparing themselves with others. We should, instead, view ourselves and every other person as unique and all worthy of love.
If you accept the truth that everyone has value, you realize that you are valuable and that your spouse is valuable. You realize that you don’t have to earn genuine love and you aren’t waiting for your spouse to earn it. Married life gets much simpler and more enjoyable when you accept and value each other unconditionally and you make your spouse’s happiness as important as your own.
We are all commanded to live unselfish lives:
Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4)
As a married couple, you will have many daily opportunities to practice this command.
George Washington and the Continental Army spent six months camped at Valley Forge. There was no battle fought there, but historians regard those six months as the turning point of the war. An army of about 12,000 arrived poorly fed, ill-equipped, and weary from long marches. They built their own shelters and endured the winter together. The army included young teens and men in their 50s. They were white, black, and Native American. Maybe some of these soldiers had self centered dreams of glory when they joined General Washington’s army. But these men either became unselfish or they went home.
For a while, it looked as if they would all disband. They were poorly supplied and sometimes chanted, “No Meat!” or “No bread, no soldier!” While many soldiers at Valley Forge died of sickness and others deserted, the ones who endured the encampment were transformed into a disciplined, united army ready to do whatever it took to win the war. The winter at Valley Forge was a triumph of will. Washington’s army determined that they were soldiers, fighting for a cause greater than their own personal comfort. They were committed to the cause until the war was over.
Hopefully, your marriage will never be as challenging as the winter at Valley Forge, but we can guarantee that you will face challenges. Those challenges will force you to realize that you can’t succeed at marriage while being selfish. If you recognize that the success of your marriage means much more than your personal happiness, you will find the will to succeed.
Talk About It – What were your motives for getting married? What is the best example of your spouse showing you unselfish love?