A Covenant Marriage vs A Contract Marriage which do you want?

I recently read an article about a celebrity marriage that ended after 2 years or so.  A quote by one of the partners in speaking about their split in an interview said, “Part of the reason it all went so well,… was because both (of us) are actors who are used to attaching and detaching from projects.”  When I read this comment from the husband, I was really sad for them, mostly because they don’t know what a covenant marriage feels like.  Theirs was a contract marriage that had run its course and now was over. The contract was mutually broken with no hard feelings, they could just “detach”.  No wonder their marriage didn’t last.

In a covenant marriage, each spouse takes the prime spot in the thoughts and emotions of their husband or wife.  The happiness of the spouse is more important than your immediate happiness. Sometimes one partner needs 75% more grace and patience than the other.  If in that moment, the other partner can give 100%, there is still a surplus of love and grace.  When they are both giving 100%, a surplus can be banked for future needs.  When each partner is only willing to give 50%, there is rarely if ever a surplus, and emotional emergencies do come up.  After all, we are human with frailties, anxieties and emotions.  Sometimes one or the other of us is unlovable.  In that moment, we hope our partner is willing to be 100% loving or at least willing to stick it out and work it out until the crisis is over.  

On Monday of this week, it was the 10 month anniversary of my sweet husband’s passing into heaven’s realm.  It was a very bittersweet day for me.   We had a very happy marriage, it was not perfect because two imperfect people have a difficult time making a perfect marriage but it was a covenant marriage.  When we were first married, my husband said, “Let’s make a deal that the word divorce will never be on the table, that just will not be in the possible solutions for our problems.”  I wondered occasionally in our younger years how this would all work out and I am sure he on occasion thought the same about me.  Being married is sometimes really hard.  I think however the alternative is worse.  Because we were committed to each other and our children, we worked on our relationship and ironed out all of those rough patches.  Now that he is gone from me for a while, I am immensely grateful for the blessings of having a covenant marriage that will last into the eternities.  The tender blessings of loving and being loved in a covenant marriage are the essence of joy.