Devotion for Marriages – 30) “Small Foxes” that kill intimacy
A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They shared everything and kept no secrets -- except for one shoe box on top of the woman's closet. For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. When sorting out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.
When he opened it, he found two knitted dolls and a stack of money totalling US$100.00. He was totally stunned by the cash. The old woman explained:
Right before we got married, my grandmother told me the secret to a happy marriage was to never argue. She said if I ever got angry with you, I should keep quiet and knit a doll.
The old man was touched and had to fight back tears. There were only two dolls in the shoebox – she had only been angry with him two times over the course of their marriage. He scooped his wife up and gave her a kiss. "Honey," he said, "that explains the doll, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?"
“Oh, that?” She said with a smile, “that’s the money I made from selling the dolls.”
What is the moral of the story?
We can be hurting and causing pain to each other and yet be ignorant of it. In marriage, we can be our spouse’s greatest source of pleasure, but we can also be our spouse’s greatest source of pain. Everything we do affect the feeling of love we have for each other and our attitudes & habits either build or destroy (deposit or withdraw love units) the feeling we have for each other. They will either grow or regress, they never stand still.
When our love account for our spouse falls into the red, we lose the feeling of love and it can even turn into resentment or hatred. There is where we begin to do things that hurt each other and bring greater debts into each other’s love account.
Marital conflict is caused basically by two reasons:
Couples fail to make each other Happy – Failure to meet each other’s emotional needs
Normally this is due to ignorance. We do love our spouse, but do not know how to make our spouse feel loved. It is not a matter of sincerity but lack of knowledge to communicate love effectively on an emotional level. We must learn to speak our spouse’s love language. If our spouse doesn’t feel loved, it’s as good as they aren’t loved.
Couples make each other Unhappy – Failure to protect the withdrawal of emotional needs
We develop habits that hurt and cause pain to each other emotionally. This breeds bitterness and resentment and kills the feeling of love and romance in a marriage. Most of the time, we need to relearn constructive habits.
S.O.S 2:15 – “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines” (vineyard of love)
“Foxes” symbolize the small problems that threaten the foundation of our marriages. Let’s try to find the small foxes
Dishonesty
Friendship is built on the willingness of people to disclose their innermost thoughts and feelings with each other. For marriage to work, the husband & wife should be the best of friends. Trust is a very important element in friendship & marriage. When one partner lies to the other, the condition upon which trust is built crumbles. And in a desperate attempt to find out the truth and not be lied to again, one can become very obsessed to ‘find out everything’ and that can lead to battles over control. Deep intimacy can never happen unless there is complete trust between two parties.
1Jn.1:7 – But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another…”
Four compartments of our Heart:
- Open areas – Things we openly share with others.
- Hidden areas - Areas of darkness & things we are ashamed of, which we tend to hide from others due to fear of rejection.
- Blind areas – Things we not aware of or cannot see ourselves, but which others who are close to us can see clearly.
- Unknown areas – Things that are unknown to everyone except God. There are deep issues of the heart which are rooted in childhood and which often hold the key to character & relationship struggles - our sub-conscious.
The more open areas we have with each other, the deeper the relationship. Similarly, the more we walk in the light with each other, the deeper the fellowship and intimacy. The depth of our openness with each other determine the depth of our relationship. On the contrary, the more hidden areas we have with each other, the more superficial the relationship. A relationship without honesty is a relationship that is bound to fail.
Extramarital affairs always start with the ‘sin’ of dishonesty!
Points to Ponder:
Are there any areas of your life that you are not truthful, or which you are intentionally hiding from your spouse? These ‘little foxes’ can kill intimacy in relationships. If we betray trust, it is very difficult to rebuild.