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Preface To A Great Book For Marriages
Taken from the “Preface” of “Connecting: 52 Guidelines For Making Marriage Work” by Dr. Harold J. Sala. Copyrighted material and used by permission.
An acquaintance of mine tells about the time he was on a plane and noticed that the fellow sitting next to him wore his wedding ring on his middle finger. While that is the accepted practice in some cultures, most people – at least in the West – wear their wedding rings on the fourth finger of their left hand, a practice which stems from an old belief going back to Roman days that a vein went from this finger directly to the heart.
“You know,” said the friend, “it's really none of my business, but I noticed that your wedding ring is on the wrong finger!”
“Yep,” said the stranger, “as a matter of fact, I married the wrong girl too!”
More than a few people have thought that about their spouse. After the initial romance of the marriage wears off (which is usually within the first two years) and hard, cold reality sets in, a person may wake up and say, “I've made a big mistake! This is not the person that I thought I was marrying!” Right then a fork in the road looms up with far-reaching consequences. The person asks, “Do I stay in this marriage and try to make the best of a not-so-great situation, or do I do what so many do – bail out and try again?” This dilemma can be intensified by the realization that God doesn't approve of divorce, so the frustration of unhappiness is compounded and can be downright depressing.
So it would seem that one of two things is true. Either God has a rather warped sense of humor, expecting His children to stay in not-so-good marriages knowing that we would be miserable and unhappy, or else He has a way for us to confront issues, learn how to communicate, resolve conflict and cope.
It is possible for two people – even if they are about as different as daylight and dark – to make sunshine together because we have the quiet, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.
My wife and I stood at the confluence of the Danube and Ems Rivers in Austria and noticed that as the two great rivers came together there was a vast amount of turbulence, yet downstream a few kilometers the waters flowed smoothly. I couldn't help thinking that when two people come together in marriage, they are much like two great rivers that merge: it is to be expected that there should be turbulence. Marriage is a blending of habits, personalities, backgrounds, idiosyncrasies of temperament and DNA – a powerful mixture. Along with that there may also be conflict of two cultures or the challenge of a blended family (his kids and her kids).
Darlene and I understand that because our two families were about as different as two families could be. I'm from a long line of extroverts. Suffering in silence was not done in the household in which I grew up. If something was on our minds, we said so – often in quite loud and expressive terms.
My wife, however, was the only child born to a mother whose background was Canadian and a wonderful dad whose polite reserve made it extremely difficult for him to assert himself even when people took advantage of him. If someone were standing on Pop's foot in a crowded bus, it would have been difficult, if not downright impossible for him to tell the guy to “move it!”
They were a physical contrast as well. Pop was six-feet-two-inches tall and weighed about 250 pounds while Momma was about four-feet-eight-inches tall and weighed less than eighty pounds, dripping wet. But never forget that dynamite comes in small packages.
In my wife's family nonverbal communication was an art form. If Olympic medals were given in nonverbal communication, my mother-in-law would have been a strong contended for the gold. When she sniffed, Pop knew the cue and immediately jumped to the task. When we began to date and our relationship deepened, Darlene would sniff (much as her mother had done) and I would hand her a handkerchief! I didn't get it. I didn't have the foggiest notion of what was going on, and she wouldn't tell me either.
After almost three years of what I thought was a blissful courtship, I drove to California where she was vacationing with her parents, prepared to give her a diamond and ask her to marry me and live happily ever after.
After dinner at a Laguna Beach restaurant, I happened to find a scenic spot where the moonlight filtered through the clouds over the beautiful Pacific, and – you guessed it – asked her to marry me.
About all she could do was cry and try to tell me why she couldn't marry me. It was the lowest moment of my life. Later that night I opened my Bible to Hebrews 12 and read where God disciplines those whom He loves. We later compared notes, and I found out that that same night, Darlene had opened her Bible to Proverbs 3, which says the same thing. (Note: Hebrews 12 quotes the passage found in Proverbs.)
The problem in our relationship was a server lack of communication. Thankfully, Darlene had the wisdom to know that if we didn't communicate before marriage, putting wedding rings on our fingers wouldn't cause the light to come on!
Yes, I loved her and she loved me, but knowing that it takes more than love to make a marriage work, she felt that the problems we would have faced would have been too great to provide much happiness. At that point it seemed we had no future. We stopped seeing each other and I took the engagement right back to Cory's Jewelry Store and asked for a refund. I was wounded but didn't know what to do to fix the situation.
Then my twenty-seven-year old sister died from lupus erythematosus, a degenerative blood disease of the connective tissues which can now be managed with steroids and new drugs. I was completely devastated. I cried. I hurt, and learning of my loss, Darlene sent her sympathies. I wanted to talk about it with her, and as Darlene and I talked, she saw the real me. Through sharing the loss of my sister we learned to let down the barriers and be vulnerable with each other. Darlene learned she could be totally honest and completely open with me and I would not only really listen but value her input as well.
The next time I asked her to be my wife, the situation was different. We knew each other. We could communicate. We could cry together, talk together and face life together. I went back to Cory's Jewelry Store and to my great elation repurchased the same ring. That ring has been on the fourth finger of my wife's left hand now for more than four decades.
The longer a couple waits to learn how to communicate, to be vulnerable and to have a gut-level honesty with each other, the more painful and difficult it is to learn, but it is never too late.
For most of our married lives Darlene and I have been working with couples, many of whom found themselves in difficult marriages. We are convinced that with God's help anyone can make their marriage work. Walking out of a marriage when things get tough is not a solution and divorce is not a problem-solving technique.
The selections in this book (taken from “Connecting: 52 Guidelines For Making Marriage Work”) were originally written for my radio program, “Guidelines For Living”, and are intended to generate discussion, thought and to serve as positive reinforcement for what you probably know you should do but don't.
My special thinks goes to my daughter, Nancy Daushane, along with Luisa Ampil, who spent many hours making corrections to this manuscript. Thanks also to Ed and Angie Wright who provided a quiet hideaway in the desert so I could work on this book.
May you connect with your spouse in a deeper and more meaningful relationship as the result of working through the selections in this book (taken from “Connecting: 52 Guidelines For Making Marriage Work”).
-- Harold J. Sala
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