Marriage: A People Growing Machine

What if the limits you keep meeting in your closest relationships are the very engine of your growth? A reflection on marriage, endurance, and human formation.

An early photo of Lisa and me, pregnant with our first child, Annalise—followed by a photo of us at Annalise’s wedding.

The Blog Article Follows this Invitation!

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February SMC Event: Whole-Hearted Relationships

Sunday, February 15 

Wine & hearty appetizers are included!

“Lynn’s music and voice was incredible –– truly.” – SMC Event Attendee

Come experience the foul-filled music of singer-songwriter Lynn O'Brien for what may be the last time as she prepares to move to the West Coast!

Get your ticket for SMC 2/15.

SMC events honor that what is deepest within us is most universal between us. Your gift helps create space for reflection, connection, and belonging — donate here. 100% of donations are dedicated to the cost associated with bringing SMC events to more people, more often.

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Marriage: A People Growing Machine

Just before dozing off for a three-hour and fifteen-minute nap, I caught the first fifteen minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). In that iconic scene, a band of apes (destined to evolve into our ancestors) discovered an alien obelisk (i.e., a gleaming, humming tower from outer space). The famous musical score kept me awake just long enough to see Stanley Kubrick’s depiction of that turning point when apes became hominids (i.e., human-ish). In Kubrick’s Universe, that shiny, mystical tower somehow managed to impart tool-making capabilities upon our simian ancestors. That provided an evolutionary boost that propelled our species toward our current Homo Sapiens status.    

A colleague of mine (David Schnarch) has maintained that the human race’s shift to monogamy has accounted for a good portion of positive innovation in the species of Homo Sapiens. Schnarch’s view goes something like this. Most theories of evolution have maintained that necessity is the mother of all genetic innovation in a species. Prior to monogamy, when the going got tough in a relationship, promiscuous hominids would simply scurry off for a different mating opportunity. In this way they could avoid the pesky need to develop complex emotional processes that are the foundation of families and societies. The practice of fidelity to one spouse necessitated brain developments that resulted in a cascade of positive changes to human relationships in general.  

According to an evolution-friendly reading of the book of Genesis, God dropped a version of an obelisk into the midst of our ancestors by introducing monogamy. From that point forward, when the going got tough in a relationship, our ancestors would have to apply real intelligence in order to stay successfully bonded with their mate. Pouring monogamy into the mix created a kind of leavening agent to the human condition. With the innovative ingredients of fidelity and intimacy blended in, every generation would be seeded with the necessity for ongoing development in order to survive as a husband, wife, family, community, and species.

The hospital room the night that Annalise was born. I made the room into a restaurant. Annalise is off camera, but in her bassinet.

Needless to say, I’m no evolutionary biologist. But when I look at the humble data from my own life, it occurs to me that marriage is, in fact, a people-growing machine. It’s in the crucible of my marriage where I bump into the limits of my own patience, love, and courage. It’s within the context of marriage and family living, where I fully encounter a personal poverty that causes me to notice the need to develop ever more differentiated versions of myself to meet the ever-changing new context for loving and striving alongside others. It’s in my marriage and family life, where I most thoroughly confront my ego that so urgently wants what it wants when it wants it. It’s within this context that I encounter my deepest need for a practical spirituality stripped of philosophical or pietistic fluff. For example, during the “Families with Young Children” phase of my life, I used to breathe a mantra in and out on the fly, “Just Enough,” which was short for, “God give me just enough grace to not yell at this kid.” Day after day, month after month, year after year, of receiving just enough of that grace has conditioned me into a fairly patient and gentle man (with plenty of room to grow in both departments, I might add).  

Here at the “Empty Nest Phase,” my role models, single or married, are those people who have said, “yes” to having the clay of their souls shaped and reshaped in this process that I’ve been describing. Time and again, they courageously own up to their limitations and submit themselves to another round of growth-promoting decisions. Male or female? It doesn’t matter. I’ve found a sure-fire way to spot these people. They tend to be easily moved to tears by Kindness, Beauty, Love, and Goodness.  Don’t be fooled. That softness is the core of a rock-solid resilience strong enough to support lifelong fidelity, intimacy, and every manner of commitment. 

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

Last week, I described my colleague William Doherty’s research. He coined the phrase, “the consumer marriage,” to describe spouses who imagine that there’s someone out there who may be a better soulmate than the one selected all of those years ago. Riffing off of this insight, Alain de Botton (author of the prescient, “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person”) has asserted that the perfect marriage is a pernicious myth that robs people of the chance to bloom where they’re planted. Having counseled many couples, I often tell them that, “There are some problems that you and your spouse are meant to solve. There are other problems that are meant to solve you.” In any good marriage, there are one or two issues that will never fully be resolved. Whatever the issue is, year after year, it will require more grace, more patience, more forbearance, and more humor to deal with them. Like the irritating sand that finds its way inside the oyster and is gradually transformed into a pearl, these unsolvable marital issues have a way of transforming people year after year into Love itself.

Annalise and her husband Matt on their wedding day.

A Note to Singles

Just a quick note for my readers who are not married, either by choice or by life circumstances. I’ve found that any relationship that puts you in over your head and introduces you to the need to strive toward a more developed self can provide the crucible that fires these kinds of growth processes. Diana Nyad described how her friendship with Bonnie Stoll functioned that way in her best-selling book and movie, Find a Way. Without Bonnie, she never could have achieved her goal of swimming from Havana to Key West at sixty-four years old (110 miles, 53 hours). Work can also provide the context for ongoing growth…provided that it’s meaningful work, requiring long-term rolling up of sleeves, and pulling on the same yoke with someone year after year. It seems to me that devoted caregiving, as well as religious life, can serve as an ongoing development booster over the days, years, and decades.  

Dialogue and Discussion Questions:

Longtime SMC readers know that “the Dialogue” section of this article is set aside for a good conversation over a cup of coffee—with a friend, with a group, or just with yourself! As always, feel free to share your reaction or reflection in the “Comments” section below.

Directions for Dialogue: If you are using these questions in a group discussion, take a reflective couple of minutes before sharing. Determine which of the questions is the most compelling for you and your colleagues. Start with the one that comes closest to a consensus of interest.  

• What struck you in this article? Did anything cause dissonance? Consider sharing your response at length with a friend worthy of your vulnerable, reflective self.

  
  

• Is there a signature issue in your marriage or family that causes you and your spouse to bump up against the limits of your own capacity to love time and again? Have you found a way (or ways) to use this issue as a vehicle for your own growth? What does your spouse do that makes that easier? What do they do that makes that harder?

  
  

• Whether you claim a religious tradition or not, what spiritual practices help you when the going gets rough in your marriage and family life?

  
  

• If you are single by choice, or by life circumstances, what are the crucibles or contexts that continually invite you to manage your ego, and develop more mature loving day-after-day, year after year?    

  
  

• Not every marriage and not every family functions as a “people growing machine.” In my family-of-origin, alcoholism and abuse stood in the way of my development. It caused an inflation of my dad’s false self, and a clinical depression in my mom that would rob her of her best parenting instincts, not to mention her self-esteem and joy. With the help of intensive therapy, Al-Anon, spiritual direction, retreat work, and eventually, a chosen family of friends, I was able to heal and to even transform that trauma into becoming a wounded healer. If your story is similar to mine, where have you gone to experience healing from a growing machine that blew a gasket? 

  
  

• My mom healed eventually. The first step in her healing was divorce. Do you know anyone whose divorce was a blessing? Have you ever thought of asking them about their wisdom regarding marriage and family life?

Please share with the SMC community your thoughts and/or reflections in the comments below.