SUPPRESSION: ODD BEHAVIORS IN MARRIAGE

Let's face it. Some of the most admirable marriages we have sought to emulate have ended in divorce, temporary separation, or worst, estrangement within the marriage. While even the best marriages experience periods of tension and stretches of extended strain, the ones that prove to be wholly dysfunctional, inescapably irreparable, or ignominiously transient experience disproportionate bouts of combative silence or resentful compliance in most or all areas of the marriage. They are just good at pretending.

Or good at suppressing the deleterious effects of a sucky marriage. But as with all things suppressed, that which is under pressure is sure to ooze, to leak, to explode. Aside from those marriages that amiably end in divorce and temporary separation or that result in mutual estrangement within the marriage, it is for certain that a heightened measure of spousal suppression preceded the defining moment when something snapped, when a line was crossed, when things changed.

Suppression has a way of tattling on itself. Maybe for years you are going along with a signature cycle of patterns, and then "it" comes out of nowhere like a blown head gasket (my damned suburban blew one this past week). Initially you are in shock. I mean, what has always happened didn't happen this time. Someone went too far and the cycle morphed.

I have always taken note of odd occurrences in failed marriages, signs that some sort of force was being silently but severely applied. Here are a few things I have noticed. (Granted, I did not necessarily think that these things would lead to divorce. It is just that in retrospect I recall thinking the behavior to have been strange.)

1. Separate vacations. Surely a marriage is on its way out when spouses routinely take vacations for pleasure apart from each other. It seems that among the most reasonable reasons for marrying, enjoyment ought to be at or near the top. I knew a couple who never vacationed together (and if they did they never spoke of it). No, they took week-long vacations apart from each other, and they actually enjoyed them, only reluctantly returning. Pardon my French way of thinking, but it seems to me that vacation for pleasure is a time for lots of romance, lots of sex, lots of "free time", and lots of nonsense. I am not sure how that can be achieved apart from physical proximity to one's spouse.

2. No touching. You don't have to make out in public with your spouse to have a great marriage. However, if you have absolutely no contact with your spouse in public apart from some odd compulsion like religious conviction, then something must be seriously wrong. I mean, you must be making a special note not to touch your spouse which is a conscious thought. I knew a couple who did not touch in public. The one wouldn't even touch the other to get the other's attention. The one would just sit there calling out the other one's name until after about five times the other one would finally respond. Actually, each spouse received more physical affection from the people around them than they ever gave each other in public. I always wondered how they ever had children. They divorced.

3. Vocal tone. I don't like hearing a spouse chew the other one out. I don't. I hate it when one chastises or interrogates the other in public in order to make a point to his audience that he has a dumb or wholly incompetent spouse. I have also learned through eleven years of running my own school that a spouse who dares to reprimand the other in public more than likely "turns it up a notch or two" in private. I once had a couple in my house who argued the entire time they were with us, using my wife and me as barricades to hide behind and trying to subtly bring us into the argument. They divorced. And I'm glad they did for her sake, because he was a butthole.

4. Incompatible networks. It is hard to have a good marriage when your friends do not like your spouse. It is also hard to have a good marriage when your spouse has no interest in who your friends are or in developing relationships with them. I knew a woman who was married to a good but ignorant man. He didn't cheat on her, but he didn't make love to her. He didn't hit her, but he also didn't touch her. He didn't raise his voice at her, but he also didn't speak to her. It was an awkward marriage where he was involved with a not-for-profit to which he gave his undivided attention. In return, the not-for-profit took his services but didn't pay him in return for the many hours he worked. His wife on the other hand threw herself into her own network of friends, incessantly volunteering time out of her normal job. They divorced. Quite honestly, it seemed to make sense.

5. Religious language. Exclusively. It is hard to talk to someone who is intent to be allegorical, poetic, or talking in parables all of the time. It is as if that person intends not to give a straight answer. Not to be easily understood. When one spouse talks this way, it might be style. When both spouses speak this way, it has proven time and time again to be a collaborative cover up. 

"How are you guys doing?" 

"God is faithful."

"That's nice, but I'm asking how you both are doing."

"Jesus never fails." 

"Mmm, yeah, but are things going well?"

"Hallelujah."

Surely they don't speak that way to their creditors when asked to pay their bills. Surely, they don't speak that way to their employers else they might not have a job. Surely they don't talk to their children this way when their children ask for dinner or come to them with a bloody knee. They divorced.

You know what I think was going on behind the scenes with every one of these marriages?

That's what.

DIVORCE, THE SAME KIND OF RAIN

I am intrigued by the church marquis. When I travel, I find myself rubbernecking to definite statements like “If you are looking for a good sign from God, you've just found it” or “The best vitamin for a Christian is B1” or “Come in. Our church is prayer conditioned” or “Get an afterlife” or “Don't put a question mark where God put a period.” I am sure psychology determines the content of what goes on a church sign. What I am not sure about is why people put much stock in them. They are, after all, witticisms. What if science labs had marquis with messages like "If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out" or "Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything" or "The farther the experiment is from theory, the closer it is to the Nobel Prize" or "Don’t think. Experiment." I wonder then how seriously science would be taken.

No, there is a sobriety and, forgive the pun, gravity to Newton’s Law Every body remains in a state of constant velocity unless acted upon by an external, unbalanced force. There is hardly anything funny about that at all except, say, when someone accidentally runs into a large, plate glass window. While I am not begrudging places of worship the poetic licensure to lure visitors through clever means, I am intrigued at how cynicism so easily morphs into belief and how very certain people are that marquis-sized bits of faith will change their lives.

Someone might object, but give me a minute to apply this kind of faith to some actual thing. Let’s apply the applicability of the marquis sign “Soul food served here”, no, no, let’s do “Prevent truth decay. Brush up on your Bible.” Let’s extract the essential meaning of the witticism to be “Read your Bible and you will stay on course.” Ok. How are we to validate the truthfulness of that statement? First, we would have to determine what “staying on course” means. Second, we would need to survey people who do and who do not read their Bibles. Thirdly, we would have to evaluate the quality of life each group displays in areas of “staying on course.” That means something. That is an evaluation.

George Barna, founder of the Barna Research Group, says of his polls “We rarely find substantial differences between the moral behavior of Christians and non-Christians.” His project director echoes the same by saying "We would love to be able to report that Christians are living very distinct lives and impacting the community, but ... in the area of divorce rates they continue to be the same." 

Now here is a conundrum. It is widely assumed amongst the Christian community that Christians are better off when it comes to marriage. After all, they have Christ. The same goes for Christian athletes. They have Christ. And Christian musicians and Christian entertainers and Christian waitresses and Christian lovers of chocolate all have Christ. So we would extrapolate that, Christ, being common to all of them, would make them better off in their particular ventures. If I am wrong, then stop reading.

David Popenoe who co-directs the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University says that Barna’s survey does not make sense. Because Christians naturally follow “Biblical models of the family”, the survey has to be wrong. In addition, Christians have a bond “the secular world doesn’t have.” I have not spoken to Mr. Popenoe, but I assume that he might hesitate to say that a salami sandwich eaten by a Christian is more nutritious than a salami sandwich eaten by a non-Christian. And do you know why? He would either see salami as a neutral item with no secular or sacred claim or he would see salami as a secular item with no sacred claim. If he took the third option and believed salami to have a sacred claim, then the salami would have to be made by a Christian, cut by a Christian, from the store of Christian or somehow substantially connected to a Christian. His argument about Barna’s findings, however, says nothing substantial or helpful about marriage or divorce because he is merely saying “I don’t believe that to be true, therefore, it is not true."


Tom Ellis, spokesman on this topic for the Southern Baptist Convention, believes the Barna poll to be inaccurate because he takes issue with whether or not the people polled were actually Christian. They might consider themselves to be Christian without jumping through the real hoop of actually becoming "saved." He says "We believe that there is something more to being a Christian...Just saying you are [a born-again] Christian is not going to guarantee that your marriage is going to stay together.” This argument is actually more reasonable than Popenoe’s, because Ellis asks for further evidence of the faith of those polled. I will paraphrase the antithesis of his statement to be “If you do more than say you are a Christian, it will guarantee that your marriage is going to stay together.” Now, all we need to do is to find out what more is. We know it is not merely saying because Mr. Ellis already told us that. If he could qualify more, then we might actually have a chance at re-polling the people who qualify to be in the survey. On the other hand, why should we poll them? We already know what Mr. Ellis’ findings will be: he will find all the real Christians polled to be married and not divorced.

Barna’s statistics show that Atheists and Agnostics have a lower divorce rate. Wow. Certain pollsters think that religion does not factor into divorce statistics at all. Of course, what they mean by “religion” is “an intellectual position.” I would like to suggest that they would not mind my definition of their definition of religion: “a set of beliefs with no bearing upon anything in this world largely because it is otherworldly- centered which means absolutely nothing at all to this world or the next, even to the people who hold such beliefs in this way.” 


What the researchers seem to be saying is that the things that cause the ruin of a marriage are real things that create weight that if stronger than the marriage will crush it. Similarly, the things that contribute to the survival of marriage are things which actually convert to strength within the marriage so that the marriage is able to withstand those real things that would otherwise crush it.

But that goes for all marriages. There is no special force-field for just Christians or any other sect or group. I am surprised at the kinds of blanket statements I receive from people who are quick to disavow the authenticity of someone's faith because they now fall on the "other" side of their special category. As time goes on, the "special" group gets smaller and smaller.


The same kind of rain falls on just and unjust alike. Real things like finances and education and habits and relatives and work. We are not talking about whether or not you are preterist or an Arminian or a fundamentalist in a theological position you hold only in your head to pull out for leisurely jousts when you have nothing better to do. 

I am surprised at how many of my religious friends who wrestle with marriage problems will tell me things are better just because they are reading the Bible together or just because they are going to church more frequently or just because they are listening to Christian worship music. I really am. I don’t know how to react to these sorts of people. They stand there waiting for me to say something affirmative and all I can come up with is “God answers kneemail.”