Since the trial of Derek Chauvin has begun,  multiple witnesses testified of what they saw and heard involving the death of George Floyd. He was handcuffed and placed on the ground while police officers sought to restrain him. Officers continued to control him after he stopped resisting, with Chauvin kneeling on his neck. There are interesting parallels in our marriage relationships.

Conflict in marriage often begins with an accusation, true or false. Often the charge is about money, as it was for George, or something else usually, in reality, of little significance. Marriages flourish or die not with the significant issues or even blunders in life, but rather with the more minor, day-to-day interactions between a couple. Insecure individuals often require or demand that their partner live their lives in a way that makes the insecure feel safe.  When they discover that the other is unwilling to be controlled, the insecure person gets anxious because life feels unsafe for them. Controlling another is most often about one’s fear of not being safe. To gain control, the insecure person often makes accusations such as “You’re not giving me what I need!” “You are spending too much!” “What you are giving me feels like a fake twenty-dollar bill!”

We then try to arrest the other person and handcuff them so that we can manage them. Handcuffing in marriage can take the form of demeaning or shaming the other, negatively interpreting their communication attempts, refusing to speak with them, or cutting off physical intimacy. These are angry forms of anxiety exchange in the relationship, which say, “If you don’t voluntarily agree to do what I want you to do, I will try to force you to comply with my demands.” The use of force can be subtle such as attempts at manipulation or verbally pressure the other through complaints. There are also more direct or overt attempts to coerce, such as controlling access to finances or physical abuse. The pressure of these attempts is like having the other kneeling on your back. There is always some pressure that never wanes.

Attempts to get the other off your back may be unsuccessful. You may fight back for a while but quickly learn that doesn’t work, especially if other family members gang up on you as well. You might try counseling, appeasing the other’s wrath, or retreating even more to get them off your back, but ultimately you receive a knee on the neck that cuts off blood supply to your marriage. You seem helpless. Nothing you can do seems to help. You call out, “I can’t breathe! Please get off my neck!” You plead for the life of your marriage, but to no avail. The knee on the neck of your marriage is a lethal use of force resulting in death: total cut off or divorce.

This picture may seem very bleak, and often it is. However, when a couple puts Jesus at the center of their marriage, positive growth and change are possible. When each member of the couple focuses on their own development rather than on changing the other, real growth can occur. The marriage does not have to die. How to revive your marriage will be the focus of an upcoming blog.