Julie Ann Fidler - Adventures in Holy Matrimony

Fellow blogger and all around great gal, Julie Ann Fidler of Fidler on the Roof has just had her new book Adventures in Holy Matrimony, published.  In fact, I believe it was just released yesterday.  You can download a free chapter and order the book from Relevant Books, or order it from Amazon.

I read the free chapter online and I gotta say I am looking forward to reading the book.  The first chapter relates the comedy/tragedy of errors that was her engagement/wedding/honeymoon.  Here's a pretty good description of what it was like:

That’s the problem with most people, though, isn’t it? They equate a beautiful wedding with a beautiful marriage. Sure, you can have a beautiful marriage, but it’s not all wine and roses. I can’t tell you how many people tried to warn us that it wasn’t always going to be a dream come true. We just didn’t want to listen. Anyone who told us anything other than what we wanted to hear was promptly shut out and dismissed as trying to ruin the great thing we had together. (Which wasn’t giving our pals much credit, since none of them would ever purposely steer us wrong!)

We should have listened.

It turned out that married life was a trial by fire. We went from whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears at the reception to practically wringing each other’s necks in the bedroom.

And then she says:

And you know what? It was necessary. It still hurts sometimes. We have so much learning to do. But we’re fully committed to each other now—and in love with each other again—which is more than I can say about the state of our union a year ago. Duking it out and refusing to quit are exactly what saved us, and I believe that can save just about anyone who is willing to put up a good fight. Not a fight with each other, but a fight together against the many forces that conspired to divide us. And as you’ll see in the coming pages, there were many, many potential divisions. Perhaps even some of the same ones—whether quirky or devastating—that are stalking your union right now.

As you read through this sample chapter it is mixed with humor and horror but the thing that stands out to me the most is JAF's admission about the naivety with which she and her husband Scott went into marriage and the baggage they brought.  She says they had enough baggage to bring down a jet.

That's a pretty fair picture of most marriages - we all have baggage that we bring, I know I and my wife did.  The trouble is that, in the throes of newfound passion we tend to think that we are the one couple in the world for whom our baggage will not be a problem.  So, we don't listen to what others tell us, as JAF said.

This refusal to listen to what others tell us can have a positive aspect to it.  In some ways its good for a couple to have a "you and me against the world" attitude if it means they will fight with all their might against negative influences on their marriage.  This is where Julie Ann and Scott came to. 

A mature "you and me against the world" attitude is a great blessing, but a naive attitude is a great detriment.  Sounds like that's what Julie Ann and Scott had and that is what I see most often in counseling young couples.  Often, fighting attitude during engagement, when you don't want to listen to the counsel of your friends, is turned against each other after the wedding.  In other words, during engagement, the couple is convinced that their friends and family just don't understand them.  After the wedding, each spouse is convinced their spouse doesn't understand them.  So, "you and me against the world" becomes "you and me against each other."

My wife and I have never had any real big blowups with screaming and threats to walk out, but we have had periods of disappointment and disillusionment.  One of the seminal moments in our marriage happened during our first go around at seminary, when we spent a year and a half at Columbia Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions. I have heard that graduate school is a particularly hard time on marriages, this is a period when many problems crop up, and we had a few. 

The funny thing is that I was taking a counseling minor at the time and I would come home and practice my counseling skills on my wife.  It drove her up a wall.  She didn't want to be analyzed.  Which was proof positive to me that she was in denial about some of her deeper "issues."  So with that and a hundred other little foxes we had a few trying times.

One day we were sitting around, not sure if we had just had a fight and not sure what prompted this confession, but she let me know that if I were to die, she had already picked out the guy she wanted to marry next.  He was a young, good looking single guy there at the seminary. Oh, I said. Well, it just so happened that I had been thinking along the same lines.  So I told her that I too had my eye on a future mate if she should die.  I had picked out this cute little blonde from Alabama who had a southern accent that wouldn't quit. 

Of course you understand the position we were coming from.  As Christians we knew we could never divorce, so we had to hope for the death of our spouse.  You may have heard Ruth Bell Graham's famous words that she had never, ever considered divorcing Billy, but she had considered murder on a few occasions.  That's the perspective we were operating under.

Strange as it may seem, that was a kind of healing moment for us. Rather than lash out at each other we cracked up.  Here we were, the great man of God in training and his lovely and godly wife, secretly hoping the other would die.  How pathetic is that?  And as I said, it was strange, I think we actually grew closer through that because the blinders came off and we both realize that we were both sinners who were married to sinners - EGAD, oh the horror!   

I think at that time we began learning the fine art of cutting each other some slack.  We both realized that we could start demanding perfection from each other when we had reached perfection. I think one of the reasons we have such a good marriage is that slack is something we cut each other on a daily basis.

But the point is that marriage has the potential to bring out the best in you and your spouse, but there's a pretty good chance it will bring out the worst before it brings out the best.  The subtitle of Julie Ann's book is "For better or for absolute worst."  That's a pretty profound subtitle and, as I said, I think the absolute worst often comes before the better.

This is why I always remember one of Tim Keller's sayings about vows. He says that you only take a vow for things that are extremely difficult.  I have never had to challenge or force my kids to take a vow to eat more ice cream.  But a marriage commitment is sealed with a vow because it is something that it is very difficult to keep.  We take a vow because a day will come when we want nothing more than to back out of our marriage promises, and the vow is what keeps us there. It's kind of like Cortez's burning of the ships.

One of the values at least of this sample chapter of the book is that it encourages newly married couples to listen to the counsel of their friends, particularly those who have been married awhile.  Sometimes newly married couples can't see the forest for the trees.  All they see is their problems, or trees, and they don't have the humility to ask for help from a guide to find their way out of the forest.

I suppose I should say that this applies to the not so newly married also.  Many who have been married ten, twenty, or thirty years abandon their marriages when all hope seems lost.  This is too bad because there are many marriages that have recovered from the most difficult things, including infidelity.  Mike McManus or one of his cohorts at Marriage Savers has said that the majority of marriages can be saved if the couple will just not get divorced.  I can't put my hands on it right now, but a study was done of couples who were on the brink of divorce who just stuck it out and found that within a few years, the problems had resolved themselves. The problem is that many folks jump out of the marriage during a time of great trial, not knowing that resolution of the problem is right around the bend.  It's kind of like being caught unawares in a class five rapid.  You may think that the only thing to do is jump out of the boat when you are in the rapid, but if you'll just hang on to the boat as tightly as you can, calm water is up ahead.

So anyway, let me extend my congrats to Julie Ann for getting this published and say that I will look forward to reading the rest of it.

Comments

[Sam Peterson]

This is a great post, especially the part about murder instead of divorce! lol. I got married 6 months ago, and I'm just finishing grad school now. Thanks for the encouragement; I especially echo your comments on giving grace, or cutting 'slack.' I realized at one point that if I demanded perfection from my wife, it would be a hopeless dream that would only derail our marriage. I know I need a lot of grace from her as well. Anyway, thanks for the good word.

[Miss O'Hara]

Good post, JB. Your divorce suspicion is correct - about those who ride it out finding that the problems have resolved themselves. As a matter of fact, the same study (I think, and I can't remember it right now, either!) found that such couples were *happier* than they thought they'd be, and happier than they had been before the trials.

That said, I can't imagine being married and my husband telling me he'd already picked out his next wife. I'd be hurt beyond belief. I'm not perfect (and not married, so perhaps have no clue), but that...that would be way too much to handle. I doubt I would crack up laughing.

[David Wayne]

Miss O'Hara - I probably didn't give enough context on this to get the point across, but I will point out that this wasn't an obsessive thing for either of us and neither one of us ever thought about it seriously. It was just in a few moments of frustration that both of us had such thoughts.

Paradoxically, I think that shows the level of security that we had with each other - i.e. we were both secure enough to share the ugliest parts of our hearts with each other. So yeah, we were experiencing frustration, but underneath we had an even deeper level of trust and love than we may have even been aware of at the time. And really, what we said to each other is no more serious than Ruth Bell Graham confessing her desire at times to murder Billy.

Think about it this way - there are times in every marriage where we all get disillusioned with our mates. I seriously doubt that there is any married couple out there where both mates haven't had some very ugly thoughts about one another. Our thoughts just happened to make it to our lips one day and God used it to humble us and drive us closer together.

[Wayne]

Wow, that post is so bad it is good! I think the approach that Julie takes is more realistic than a lot of other Christian marriage fix books.

[David Wayne]

Um thanks Wayne - so what was the bad part and what was the good part?

[pastorshaun]

[Sigh!] Isn't it true. We are such selfish, depraved, scoundrels the way we think and view marriage as something that is there simply to meet my needs rather than as an opportunity for ministering to our spouses. [Slaps self a couple times and puts on a hairshirt for the sake of reminder.] Thanks for your honesty and for pointing out this book. I'm going to pick up a copy and may be making it required reading for premarital counselees.

Your thoughts prompted my Mrs. and I to walk down memory lane together and praise God we are at this end of it.

We linked to you with our own recollections here: http://pastorshaun.blogspot.com/2005/06/marital-confessions.html

[Christian Cryder]

Great post! I wish it didn't strike so close to home, but the reality of the matter is - that's just what marriage is like. And recognizing that for what it is is the first step in learning to love each other for who we are (sinners in process). I've linked to you with some additional thoughts over at SLD: http://seelifedifferently.blogspot.com/2005/06/trial-by-marriage.html