"It is not a lack of love,
but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." (Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche)
Let
the Games Begin!
This
phrase is usually used to announce the beginning of a sporting
competition. I mean, I could as easily
have said “play ball,” but that phase is not as poetic. When many of us said “I DO” it meant the same thing: “Let the competition begin.” Early in our marriages partners begin vying and
competing for superiority in even the very smallest things. We congratulate ourselves and criticize our
spouses about personality traits and cultural differences that are part of what
attracted us to them in the first place.
I
often catch myself pressing to be “right” or “better” in relation to my husband
in a circumstance where it hardly matters at all who “wins”. Sometimes when I counsel a couple I suspect
that each partner thinks I will award gold stars at the end of the
session. (I once had a wife smugly
display her well-written homework to me each week knowing full well that her
husband had scrawled his on a scrap of paper stuffed in his back pocket.) Whether this trait is rooted in sibling
rivalry, some childhood pressure for performance, or just plain ole pride, it
is unbecoming to watch in public and destructive to the peace of the union when
practiced in private.
This
practice of sparring between spouses demonstrates, I think, a breach of the
rules of friendship. A good friend must
overcome the twinges of envy and urges to compare and compete, in order to
support and encourage the victories of the other. A good friend seeks the success of the other,
even at her own expense.
“Lord:
teach us to be “friends” to our Husbands.”
