Marriage: A Mesh or A Mess
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, noted British pastor and counselor, was approached one evening by a couple that came to him for advice. “Oh, us! We’ve never had an argument.” That caused Weatherhead to say to himself, “Either these people are lying or else one of them has crushed the other.” Many years ago, our daughter, Betsy, left her Alpha Romeo with us to sell while she was away. She loved it but, already old, and getting older she decided to sell it while it still ran. Her decision was just a wee bit late. A young man, whom we knew, took it out for 24 hours for a trial run. He called us early the next day to say that the night before, the car’s transmission suddenly seized just as he began to climb a hill. The car was still at the bottom of the hill where he was able to push it onto the roadside. So, what do these two stories have in common?
Gear Problems!
I have a mechanical engineering background, which helps me to think of marriage as the relationship between two gears (pretty romantic, eh?). As two gears engage one another, they have to be in sync or their relationship is headed for trouble. Getting in sync in marriage isn’t easy, and it takes time for the “teeth” to mesh. Unfortunately, an easy way to smooth over two noisy gears is to smash the teeth off one or the other. In the story above Dr. Weatherhead used the word “crush.” True, a toothless gear is quiet but there’s no power. The Alpha Romeo had the opposite problem: too much tooth work — the gears grinding to a screeching halt. The internet definition of grinding gears tells all: In simple terms, gears grinding stems from the speed of the wheels and the speed of the engine not being on the same page. Need I transpose that into marriage language? So it’s either mesh or mess. And mesh is the way to lots of pizzazz and power for machine and marriage — providing strength, direction, and force for good. But all this introduces…
A Marriage Dilemma
I have read articles by entomologists that tell us that, on paper, because of its parameters, a bumble-bee should not be able to fly. The same goes for marriage. On paper marriage has no hope of getting airborne. Consider: Two independent people with predominant personality differences and wired oppositely gender-wise are called upon to live harmoniously 24/7 with no time-outs. You’ve got be kidding! Ridiculous! Is this really possible? Back to mechanics: Two independent gears turning at a brisk RPM. Both have teeth evenly distributed along their circumference. In this dynamic state they are called upon to engage — to intermesh smoothly and quietly. Is this possible? It is. In the human realm is it possible to intermesh — for husband and wife to engage with one another while both are in the full expression of their persona? It is. it’s called “happy marriage.” But, again, it ain’t easy. In the Introduction to our book, Mimi and I wrote: We were deeply in love… It was [simple]. “Love God. Love spouse.” … our marriage mission statement in four words. Not so simple in that after 60 years we still struggle. We struggle less all the time but we still struggle.
Two Recommendations
First: Don’t lose heart. It’s normal to struggle. In our book, we quote happily married Dr. Charlie and Martha Shedd — also our major marriage mentors. They said their marriage was awesome 90 percent of the time, but the other 10 percent of the time it was awful. And don’t be tempted by the “noise” of the struggle to smash the “gear-teeth” off your mate or by self-martyrdom forfeiting your own “gear-teeth.” Psychologist, speaker, and author Dr. James Mallory says of his wife: One of the highest compliments [Becky] has paid me is that I have affirmed her as a person. She says I seem interested in her comments and thoughts, whatever the subject. More important she has felt loved, respected, and needed (The Kink & I pp.155-157). Don’t crush each other. Build each other up. Keep yours and your mate’s “gear teeth” in the best of shape.
Second: We are told the remarkable evolution in transmission gears is the synchronizing mechanism — that which enables independent gears to smoothly and noiselessly fully engage. God did a new thing too. His synchronizing mechanism is in the person of the Holy Spirit whereby husband and wife can mutually open themselves up to this supernatural power providing a mesh-enabling love: A love that never gives up, cares more for the other than for self, doesn’t want what it doesn’t have, doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on the other, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the [wrongs] of the other, doesn’t revel when the other is [down], takes pleasure in [the strength] of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end (I Corinthians 13 – The Message Translation). A husband and wife together on that same wave- length makes for a golden marriage. BTW Betsy and her husband, Kevin, have been happily working at it for over 30 years, and you will be happy to know that Betsy is now driving a brand-new Alfa Romeo!