Marriage under Fire

"A marriage will never last that begins with this vow: 'I will stay with you for as long as I shall love you.' "

— James Dobson

   Ed and Marguerite are two very special friends of mine. Happily retired and in the golden years of life, they are busy serving in their church. They are fun people to be around. But what I really enjoy about Ed and Marguerite is the beauty of their marriage. They just celebrated their 45th anniversary last week, yet they act like young lovebirds. I take my hat off to people like these two because I know how difficult it is to have a good, lifelong marriage.

   I have purposely waited until this chapter to take up the issue of marriage because the tremendous pressures on baby-boomer family life can best be understood against the backdrop of what we have discussed in the previous chapters.

   Many baby boomers have failed miserably in the area of marriage. But interestingly enough, as we will see in the next chapter, many baby boomers shine when it comes to raising their children. Our generation seems to be more

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committed to making children turn out right than making marriages work.

What Happened to the Nuclear Family?

In the early 1980s, futurist Alvin Toffler wrote about the death of the nuclear family — a typical family of four in which the father functions as the breadwinner and the mother as a homemaker. Many baby boomers grew up in this kind of family.

   According to Toffler, the nuclear family now exists in only 7 percent of U.S. homes. If we broaden our definition of the family to include those in which both spouses work, and those with one child or no more than two children, we are talking about only 25 percent of American households (1980:211).

   Recently I was waiting in line at a department store and overheard two women in front of me discussing the upcoming marriage of one of them. I noticed nothing unusual about their discussion until I realized that the woman about to be married had been living with her boyfriend for a couple of years and was just now planning a formal wedding. Although this situation shocked my ears, it is not an uncommon practice. A taboo in the '50s is now a widely accepted practice in the non-Christian world.

   An article entitled "Baby Boomers Come of Age" reports that the social stigma of living out of wedlock has become a thing of the past:

The census bureau reports that the number of unwed couples has risen from 523,000 in 1970 to 2,220,000 in 1986. Most of these couples are young (65% under 34) and have never been married (52%), but many have been divorced (34%). They tend to be more educated than the general population and put education and career before marriage and family. Some will later marry, but in the meantime, they all enjoy the emotional security the

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arrangement provides, without the legal or economical restrictions of marriage (Johnson 1988:791).

   Having lived in Europe for a number of years, I often see trends in the U.S. that follow the pace set by the more humanistic and secular societies of Western Europe, which have had a few more decades in what Francis Schaeffer called the "post-Christian era." For example, in Sweden, cohabitation is four times as popular as in the United States (Johnson 1988:791).

   One of the tragic breakdowns of the nuclear family is the growing number of single-parent households. In 1986, one in every six households was maintained by a woman with no husband present. (This figure applies to women who are: separated, divorced, widowed, or never married but raising children.) By contrast, in 1960 only one in ten households was maintained by a single mother.

   Another variation away from the traditional nuclear family in our society today is a new class of baby boomers who have chosen to be childless, giving them the newly coined label, Dinks (double-income-no-kids). These couples don't want to clutter their lives with the pressures of parenthood. They want freedom to pursue their careers, unencumbered by anyone or anything, much like many singles that we'll discuss in chapter 10.

   In our modern society of the late twentieth century, we are by no means seeing the total elimination or "death" of the nuclear family. But from now on the nuclear family will be only one of the many socially accepted means of establishing a household.

   That is cause for the church to stand up and take notice. The traditional ministry approach of speaking only to the needs of the nuclear family will meet less and less of the needs of the population. The church must learn to reach out in new ways to the millions of people living in these new arrangements.

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The Marriage Mess

The breakdown of the nuclear family clearly stems from the breakdown of marriage. The institution of marriage is a mess today, especially among the baby boomers.

   In my research I have found that we are definitely doing worse than any previous U.S. generation in the area of sticking with a marriage partner. In the 1960s, the failure rate of marriages in America was 25 percent. One out of every four marriages ended in divorce. But in the 1980s, the U.S. Census Department reports that the rate has shot up to 48 percent: today one of every two marriages ends in divorce (Johnson 1988:786). According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the divorce rate in America went through the roof when we came of age.

   The bottom line is that baby boomers are the ones getting all these divorces. The median age at which people divorce is 34 for men and 30 for women. Many of us have friends or family members who have gone through the hurtful process of divorce. It is a sad trait of the times that litters the landscape of our generation.

   As boomers came of age in the 1980s, a whole set of factors began to put pressure on their marriages. Boomer marriages began to fail at an unprecedented rate. In some ways we could say that every change our generation has faced, described throughout the pages of this book, has put destructive pressure on baby-boomer marriages. We now turn to one of the biggest culprits.

Why Two Incomes?

No change within our generation has had more of an effect on marriages than the rise of the two-income family. Perhaps many people in the older generations don't really understand why so many mothers work today. The unfair simplistic answer is to say that baby boomers are selfish and want too much. It is much more complicated than that.

   Why is it that so many baby-boomer husbands and wives

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both work? Is it really a matter of greed or a matter of necessity?

   It is actually an economic necessity if boomers want to live anywhere close to the standard of living their parents enjoyed. Consider these facts: according to the Population Reference Bureau, medium family income, which totaled about $14,000 in 1947, rose by more than $5,000 during the 1950s and by more than $6,000 in the 1960s, reaching a peak of $28,433 in 1973, measured in constant dollars. But by 1984, the medium family income actually dropped to $26,167 (Ingrassia 1986:9).

   Many older people outside of the boomer generation have misunderstood the problems facing young, two-income boomer couples today. They think someone failed and that we are all too greedy, when actually, the entire economy has shifted so much that one person can't earn enough to meet the needs of a family. Of all living costs, no expense has risen more than housing costs, driving many single-income, young couples right out of the market. Things are particularly hard for younger baby boomers.

Working Women

Before we had children, my wife, Donna, had a very successful career, first as an executive secretary and then as an administrative assistant to a manager in the oil industry. She loved her seven years of work and received a great deal of praise and affirmation from her career. Now she works inside the home. The work is harder and the hours are longer.

   Donna has chosen to be a homemaker but would sometimes enjoy the pace of the office environment. She could rest if she went back into the oil business! Work at home for a woman who is a wife and also the mother of four children is some of the hardest work around. Unlike most jobs outside the home, "results" in the lives of young children are not usually obvious, nor are they immediate. If it were

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going to be easy to raise kids, it never would have started with something called "labor."

   In recent years both of us have felt the subtle psychological pressure, even from Christians, for Donna to work outside the home. I can recall on a number of occasions that other women (working mothers mostly) have treated Donna as somewhat backward, ignorant, and less than complete because she chooses to stay at home.

Consider these statistics:

   Granted, many mothers are working because of economic necessity, but others are working to build a career and to find worth. An article in Chatelaine magazine entitled "Baby Boom Women: High Hopes, Uncertain Prospects" speaks about women's new attitudes toward work, marriage, children, and self-fulfillment. Gray explains that the income of working women gives them the power to influence consumer trends. In fact, women now have more impact on their generation than women have ever had. But Gray goes on to explain:

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Now, in their late 20s or early 30s, many are experiencing an emotional barrenness in serial relationships and career commitment, and a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with their lives (Gray 1983:68).

   Carol Orsborn, a 39-year-old public relations executive explained the dilemma this way: "I don't care what I have to give up. I want to make my life authentic." She and her husband had the "model" baby-boomer marriage: co-ownership of a successful public relations firm, a dream house on San Francisco Bay, and two children. Although they seemed to have it all, she admitted, "I just didn't feel I had anything. "

   Fed up with the frantic pace and lack of fulfillment, Orsborn cut her work week from 70 hours to 30, much to the horror of her husband. She began to take time for herself and her children. She finally admitted, "I just couldn't believe I was trapped by my own liberation." Orsborn went on to found Superwomen's Anonymous and write a book: Enough Is Enough: Exploding the Myth of Having It All (Anderson 1987:VII:18).

   There is no estimating the social, psychological, economic, or spiritual impact of women — especially mothers — who go into the work force. It has far-reaching impact on our whole society, and it affects the family unit directly, the basic building block of our society.

Saving the Endangered Species of Marriage and Family

The major changes in society make the family feel like a punching bag with each new external force taking a blow at the already weakened and fragile family core. As society in general values the family less and less, Christians must fight to maintain a strong home. Probably the biggest challenge facing Christian baby boomers with growing families is to maintain a healthy marriage and strong commitment to

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wholesome family life. Many forces are working against our best intentions.

   In a day when we have more light on the subject than ever before, why are marriages failing at a worse rate than ever before?

   Sometimes I think we're victims of double jeopardy. On the one hand, we are bombarded by the secular media picture of an outwardly appealing and romantic marriage which is, in reality, impractical, unrealistic, and unobtainable. On the other side of the coin, we are bombarded with books, sermons, and radio shows that tell us the standards for a "Christian" marriage. Add all the books and sermons together, and they equal frustration. The standards are so high that a great deal of frustration sets in when unrealistically high hopes are not met. It is simply communication overkill.

   On the one side marriage is painted by the media as too romantic, but on the other it is built up as too spiritual. Finding a survivable middle road is increasingly difficult for young Christian families.

   Am I going to offer my perfect solution? Hardly. The last thing I want to do is add to the guilt trip of struggling Christians, trying to make a go of a marriage dedicated to survival, enjoyment, and the glory of God. I offer here a few guidelines that my wife and I have found to be effective in building a marriage that works and gives glory to God. It is not a perfect list, for there are no perfect marriages.

   1. View marriage from a biblical point of view. There are two ways of viewing marriage that seem to me to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. One is the view from the media and Hollywood, where couples fall romantically in love and walk blissfully off into an emotional sunset hand in hand. Deep down we know this is just make-believe. The other viewpoint is from the reality of the Bible, where we find principles for a love that really does last a lifetime

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Hollywood romances are fictitious and fickle; the Creator gives us the real story on love and marriage.

   Good marriages are based on principles found in the Word of God. Our problem is that we usually feed our minds more with the world's input than with God's. Garbage in, garbage out. If we spend more time filling our minds with the unrealistic secular versions of marriage, then we set ourselves up for failure through unrealistic expectation. If we continually remind ourselves of God's principles — let them dominate our thinking on marriage — we are on the road to making it work.

   Marriage works when both the husband and wife make it work. Paul begins his instructions to husbands and wives with the mutual admonition: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:21). Mutual submission, respect, selfless love, honor, purity, faithfulness, and servitude to one another are biblical qualities that make a marriage last. We must build our relationships and families on God's design, not Hollywood's dream. Unfortunately, what He has to say about it is heard less and less these days, as the divorce rate climbs.

   2. Buck the statistics: decide to make marriage last. When my wife and I were married in 1975, we determined then and there that divorce would not be in our vocabulary. Fortunately, we both come from strong families with stable marriages, so we had good role models.

   Dr. James Dobson surveyed 600 couples that had been married successfully for a number of years and discovered three fundamental principles that made these marriages last. Here are the three tried-and-tested recommendations:

   Too many people are simply throwing their marriages on the junk heap because they don't know how to get the major repairs and overhauls they need to keep their relationships running. And boomers are guiltiest of all in this, not having the patience to work things out. If we want to make an impact (be salty) on the peers around us, there is probably no more crying need than for new hope in this arena of marriage. I appreciate Dobson's remark that the Christian marriage is not a place "where perfection reigns." People are not looking for perfect marriages, but marriages that keep working. Make your marriage last. If it is in trouble, get help. If it is not, keep growing so it doesn't get into trouble.

   3. Learn about role negotiations. An important lesson Donna and I have learned is that our roles in marriage change during different periods of our lives. When we both worked outside the home, we had a certain way of splitting up household responsibilities that changed when she quit her job. Every time there is a major change in life, there has to be a fresh look at roles. For example, as each child comes along and as they change from infants to toddlers to teenagers, the needs in the family change, and husband and wife have to adjust.

   It is natural for me to want to act the role in my home that my father played in our home when I was growing up. Tension comes when my wife naturally expects me to act like her father acted in their home. Maybe in her home Mom balanced the checkbook, but in my home Dad did it.

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We must carefully discuss and negotiate who does what in our marriage, not only once but often throughout married life as circumstances change. The biggest mistake a husband or wife can make is to burden a spouse with unrealistic role expectations that have not been carefully and forthrightly discussed.

   4. Schedule regular meetings of the board of directors. A time for communication must be planned. A successful marriage is like an elegant ship sailing through the waters and storms of life. The problem with all ships is that they get barnacles — ugly little unseen monsters that attach themselves to the bottom of the boat. Soon the vessel is stuck dead in the water — like the marriage that is going nowhere as the partners peacefully coexist. Little things, like the irritations of misunderstanding that come with wrong expectations, build up.

   My marriage to Donna is a partnership, with the two of us responsible as the board of directors for the life of our family. Occasionally, we have to get away alone, to regroup and discuss the little irritations and expectations that have not been met. We get away to perform delicate loving surgery on one another, removing those ugly barnacles so our marriage is back up to speed. This is not always easy, and it doesn't always work smoothly, but it must happen.

   5. Women: if you can stay home, stay home! Although I tread lightly on the issue, my personal conviction is that a woman's first priority is in the home when the children are young and not in school. If family members can make sacrifices and manage without her income, they should do it. More than anyone else, it is up to the husband to make that happen. If a wife and mother feels, before God, that her place is at home with her children, then that is where she belongs. I also hasten to add that she needs encouragement and support in this most vital work of preparing the next generation.

   I highly recommend that all mothers who want to stay

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home, or have already done so, read the excellent book What's a Smart Woman Like You Doing at Home? written by three aggressive homemakers, Linda Burton, Janet Dittmer, and Cheri Loveless (1986: Acropolis Books, Washington, D.C.). These three creative women have founded a fascinating new organization to support stay-at-home mothers: Welcome Home. A monthly newsletter they produce gives advice to the millions of women across America who are choosing to stay home. They contend that a new babyboom mother is emerging in the '80s and '90s — not the housewife of the '50s or the working mother of the '70s — but a woman who puts her family first without putting herself last.

   One alternative for many families today is homespun businesses. One of the creative ways that women are coping with the need to work but the desire to stay home is to run their own businesses out of their homes. There are 350,000 home-operated businesses in the United States owned and operated by women today. By 1990, there will be an estimated 500,000. These home-operated businesses are no light matter but are creating serious income for baby-boomer families. They run the gamut from services like nurseries and caterers to home-product sales, makeup, computer programming, real estate, architectural design, and even manufacturing consulting.

   There is, of course, the problem of the millions of singleparent homes where the woman must work to care for her children, and we will look at meeting some of those challenges in chapter 10, "Living as a Single Baby Boomer."

   Without a doubt, marriages are under fire today. Sadly, many married baby boomers, used to 30-minute TV solutions to all life's problems, would rather switch partners than work out problems in an existing marriage. This attitude toward the institution of marriage fosters all sorts of spin-off problems in American society today.

   Here is a clear arena in which we can be salt. Christians

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have a tremendous opportunity to glorify God through a marriage that shines amid the gloom of the modern-day marriage mess.

Thinking It Through

1. In what ways does today's world quietly battle against boomer couples as they attempt to maintain healthy relationships with each other and their children?

2. Think back to how your family divided the various household duties, how conflict was resolved, the role of finances, etc. In light of how things were in your family when you were growing up, what expectations do you bring into your marriage?

3. Describe what you have done or are now doing to cultivate the commitment to marriage and the relationship with your spouse. What else might you do to see your marriage grow in intimacy?

Chapter 9  ||  Table of Contents