Love is War and Marriage is Worth Fighting For.

"It has nothing to do with love." Have you ever heard anyone tell you that when explaining a recent break up? Somehow love is a main reason to be with someone but it never seems to be the reason people actually break up. Much more practical reasons seem to come to mind when people end a relationship and they seem much harder to fix then the idea of love. 

This year my parents are celebrating their 50th year of marriage. thats HUGE! I mean today, we are impressed when we hear someone makes it to 10 years and 20 years... well thats amazing. But 50 years of for better or worse, is it possible? And if so what’s the secret to marital success?

People often say, love is war and many of us are familiar with the lyrics by Pat Benatar, 

"We are strong, No one can tell us we're wrong, Searching our hearts for so long Both of us knowing, Love is a battlefield"

With divorce rates in the United States hovering between 40 and 50 percent, if love is war is marriage even worth it?

Well I want to tell you what I have seen of true love in my parents marriage and what has made it not only survive but thrive for 50 years. Their love isn't glossy or perfect but real and proves marriage is worth fighting for. 

My parents met in high school, My dad played football my mom was a cheerleader. She came from a loving family and was the youngest of five children. He came from a broken home and was the oldest of eight children. Life was "cushy" for my mom and my dad had to grow up quick and learn lessons that no child should have to learn.

But love for better or worse, brought them together. They were married right out of high school and not long after my dad, who wanted to escape his over bearing Mother-in-Law, joined the military and moved from the place they grew up Danbury, Connecticut to San Antonio, Texas. 

Soon after they moved, they brought their first baby into the world, my oldest sister Traci. Then not even two years later, My oldest brother, Bryan was born and military life was in high gear moving them around and it took a toll on their lives and of course on their marriage. During that time, God saved both my parents and they became Christians that loved God and everything changed. They slowly began learning what true love was and applying that important lesson to their marriage. 

Marriage is about love. Not love of self but love of others. that is a hard lesson to learn in a day and age where "self" love is so important. We are taught today, that if we want to be able to love others well, we must love ourselves first. Well thats hard to do when you are married to someone who is very different than you. 

You know how the saying goes, "Opposites attract." Well it's the truth and the very thing that can attract you to someone early on can drive you crazy later on. My parents are very different. My dad used to always joke that I was a "livewire" like him and not a "deadhead" like my mom. My mom, prefers a quiet life without many disruptions and loves routine. My dad likes excitement and is always ready for a new adventure. My mom's natural answer is No, my dad tends to like to say Yes.  

But love isn't about staying in our own comfort zone and finding what makes us happy but finding our happiness in the joy of others. See thats the beauty of marriage, it makes us seek and keep finding what it is that makes another person happy and loved. God never intended us to find love or happiness in ourselves but created us to seek it first in Him and then in others. God also created us to appreciate the strengths that our spouse may have and that we lack, so we can work together and not compete against each other. 

I think Paul Tripp says it best in a quote from his book, What Did You Expect:

“One way God establishes beauty is by putting things that are different next to each other. Isn’t this exactly what God does in marriage? He puts very different people next to each other. This is how he establishes the beauty of a marriage. The moon would not be so striking if it hung in a white sky; in the same way, the striking beauty of a marriage is when two very different people learn to celebrate and benefit from their differences and to be protected from their weaknesses by being sheltered by the other’s strength.”

My parents married because of love but stayed together because of true love, which is self sacrificing and not self serving. Because of their marriage they created a family of six children and seven grandchildren. I wish I could say we were the perfect family but we are not, and thank goodness! Because love shines most in imperfection. Love has the spot light when life gets messy and things fall a part. Because of my parents love and the marriage they have fought for, our whole family has seen what love is and even with our many differences it has always been a beacon of hope for us all. 

To celebrate my parents anniversary we are going on a Alaskan Cruise. My mom wanted to stay home, but my dad really wanted to go, so off we all go! My mom is really great at loving my dad by the way.

So if you are still wondering, yes love is war but I know two warriors who believe and have shown that love is worth fighting for. 

 "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

A Note From My Dad, Bryan Wheeler

 Marriage is Love and Warfare. 

On August 23^rd, 1968 my girlfriend and I began our grand excursion into the unknown world called marriage—though some might call it love and warfare. ‘We were just kids when we fell in love.’ - - -  Reen had just turned eighteen and I was only a year older. We didn’t know much about each other—though we thought we did. We certainly didn’t look ahead fifty years and strategize about how we were going to make our marriage go the distance…

Someone once cynically told me that the first fifty years of marriage are the hardest… The lyrics of one song puts it this way;

"I do" are the two most famous last words

The beginning of the end…

We're dancing in the minefields

We're sailing in the storms

This is harder than we dreamed…

Dancing In The Minefields – Andrew Peterson ¹

So, why is marriage so hard? - - There are lots of reasons why love often leads to warfare. But the biggest ‘minefield’ that newlyweds run into not long after saying “I do”—is the minefield of SELF-LOVE. 

Husbands and wives may really love one another when they say, “I do”—yet oftentimes that love in the marriage relationship is covertly “self-oriented.” Self-love focuses on what the other person(s) can do for me or give me! In the words of Shakespeare,

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye

And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart ²

 Self-love is a sinful, inward self-focused grasping for whatever we think will satisfy us. This inward self-vegetating love makes us critical, proud, impatient, discontented, and frustrated with the one we’re supposed to love! 

The opposite of love (at least in the beginning) is lust. Lust is all about SELF—getting and taking whatever we feel that we need for ourselves. On the other hand, true love, marital love, parental love, and even friendship love is always about self-giving… Giving ourselves to the one(s) we love. 

The root cause of a lot, if not most marital tension, conflict, and “war” after the first year… or the seventh year… or the fiftieth year of marriage—is that we love ourselves more than the person we’re married to. Real love, true love, God’s love—is a GIVING LOVE!

More fuller lyrics to Dancing in the Minefield are;

"I do" are the two most famous last words

The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another, I've heard
Is a good place to begin

'Cause the only way to find your life

Is to lay your own life down
And I believe it's an easy price
For the life that we have found

And we're dancing in the minefields

We're sailing in the storms
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for