most of the time, when you hear people talk about marriage they talk about how selfless one has to be in order to make one’s marriage work.  these people talk about all one has to give up in order to make the other person happy and how one has to consistently forfeit their personal needs in exchange for meeting the needs of the other person.  but these people are wrong.  marriage is not about ignoring one’s personal needs; it is, in fact, quite the opposite.  marriage is all about understanding your needs and making sure those needs are met by any means necessary. marriage is an incredibly selfish act.  understanding this idea, calls for redefining “your needs” based on what happens when one gets married.

in it’s most basic form, marriage is the act of two people becoming one.  the bible has countless scriptures that speak to this truth, such as:

• …therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (genesis 2:24).
• …husbands should love their wives as their own bodies (ephesians 5:22)

consequently, when it comes to husbands and wives, there is no separation.  s/he is you and you are s/he.  when s/he is not happy, you (the unit) are not happy.  when s/he doesn’t feel loved and respected, you (the unit) do not feel love and respected.  when s/he is not satisfied with his or her career, you (the unit) are not satisfied with your career.  recognizing this truth, that in marriage there is no separation, helps us understand that when you respond to the needs and desires of your spouse, you are really responding to your own needs and desires because the two of you are one and the same; thus making everything you do for your partner and/or the unit, selfish.  and those who will have the most successful marriages are those who will adopt the most selfish behaviors, passionately devoting themselves to caring for their partners needs (and thus the needs of the unit) regardless of what’s going on around them.

so the next time your girls ask you why you are staying home to please your husband, tell them you are being selfish.  or when your boys ask you why you can’t go out with them tonight, tell them your wife needs attention, so it’s time for you to be selfish.  don’t get caught up thinking about what you’re giving up, every thing you do, you are doing selfishly for the team.

note: although i use christian scriptures as the basis for two becoming one, if you accept the idea that in marriage two people unite as a unit, regardless of whether you are christian or not, the idea of marriage being a selfish act still stands.

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