The theological reality of married life

Recently, I was talking to a someone who was having issue with his own married life. This is something that most married couples can identified with. The couple married but ended up struggling with their differences in family background. For some couples, this means that they fight over the issues of in-laws. For others, they fight over life habits and creature comforts and other definitions. These discussions made me ponder about the root issue and I think this is the theological reality of married life. 

Two becoming one is the theological reality of married life

In order to understand marriage, we can turn back to the Bible and look at the beginning. The Bible says in Genesis 2:24:

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

If we slice this passage open, there is a process of the couple leaving their parents and forming into one. In this world of sin, this is informative on the difficulties we experience in marriage. There are difficulties in us leaving our parents and the way we used to do things. We expect even more difficulties even as we try to live as a new household. This is the process of leaving and cleaving. 

Take for example, for myself and Angelina, we came from totally different family backgrounds. Angelina came from a family where everyone is intimately involved with each other’s life. I came from a family where the approach is pretty much hands-off. This means that at the beginning, Angelina could not adapt to the way I operate in my family. And I will feel that her family might be too intrusive into my life. 

And I am comfortable in an environment where people are loud towards one another. Angelina, on the other hand, grows up in a soft-spoken family and even my normal volume can be too loud for her. I just thank God that we do not have much differences in how we live our daily lives.

But this is indeed the theological reality of married life. When two comes together to become one, we are essentially two separate entities trying to live one life. Our individual histories make the process difficult. There are couples who indeed faced more difficulties. Some may find that their parents continue to be overly controlling over their lives. Others may find certain habits or attitudes completely unacceptable. In this age of social media, some may vent it out on Facebook or Twitter in a passive-aggressive fashion. 

This is a short post on my reflection regarding married life. Let me know if you want to share your experience in the comments below. I will love to read your comments.