One Flesh: A Letter to My Engaged Friends
Marriage is beautiful. Marriage is a journey of love. Marriage is God’s gift to mankind. Marriage is everything you’ve dreamed of as a child—only after you’ve put in a lot of work, sacrifices, and prayers. Hollywood would have us believe that a lasting marriage is endless sex. But the truth is, the key to a lasting and fulfilling marriage is not endless sex but believing hearts. It is with a believing heart in God that enables the one flesh unity between husband and wife to radiate His Edenic purpose.
In two words, “One Flesh” is the biblical definition of marriage from Genesis 2:24. As author Ray Ortlund stated, “This expression names marriage as one mortal life fully shared.” What marriage does is remove the boundaries of a man and woman to create a radical oneness between the two. Ortlund coherently wrote:
So in the one-flesh union of marriage, all the boundaries between man and a woman fall away, and the married couple comes together completely, as long as they both shall live. In real terms, two selfish me’s start learning to think like one unified us, building a new life together with on total everything: one story, one purpose, one reputation, one bed, one suffering, one budget, one family, and so forth.
All the work, sacrifices, and prayers (not to mention tears) will be the breaking down of boundaries you’ve created for yourself over the years. I didn’t realize how many boundaries I’ve built around myself until I got married. I thought I gave my husband, Jay, my all but I was mistaken. Unbeknownst to me, there were still some parts of me that I wanted to keep to myself because it made me feel as if I was still one person—likewise with Jay. In a sense, we still wanted to be individual people. Over the past two years, the Lord did major work in Jay and my relationship to function like one flesh. One by one, boundaries were removed by the gracious counsel of God.
Boundary I: One Story
It is difficult to become one flesh with another human especially since we all have our own different personalities and characteristics that tell the story of who we are. The story that painted the personhood of my spouse suddenly became the very thing that aggravated me. I thought it would be easy when Jay and I were dating/courting; but when you get married and share everything with them, your perspective tilts. It wasn’t because Jay changed after marriage, but because our differences became more prominent. Our differences in our spiritual convictions, living style, closeted habits, spending, etc. came to the forefront of the battlefield.
Differences are not bad—it is what sanctifies us to mold us into becoming “One Flesh”. Let’s be honest here, we love our personal story. Our story is how we became who we are. Our story is us and what sets us apart from everyone. The story of who we were was a tough boundary for Jay and I to let go because we wanted so badly to remain an individualist. Through many months of wrestling on this issue, we finally laid out the story that made us who we were to pinpoint our differences.
Talking through these differences and understanding the story behind it helped Jay and I understand the things we could compromise, sacrifice, and remediate. This is a two-way streak. You cannot and must not expect for your spouse to let go of all of who he/she is just so you can feel comfortable in your own story. It is a selfish act to expect our significant other to conform to us. We must give up ourselves to one another, only then can we magnify God’s glorious remnant of the Edenic Marriage in light of the Gospel message (Ephesians 5:22-23).
Boundary II: One Suffering
The act of suffering together is easy as one flesh because your significant other is, for the most part, present in your life. But what I have found to be the most difficult, was confiding in Jay the depths of my suffering heart. When I was going through my season of suffering with mental illness, Jay was with me until the end. But he did not know the heart of my suffering because I did not want him to know. There was a part of me that sought to have certain secrets shared between God and I. There will also be a part of us that will want to suffer alone for the sake of our spouse’s emotional well-being.
In the middle of my suffering, I finally opened up to Jay...and it was the best feeling ever. It is no wonder Scriptures urges us to confide in one another (Galatians 6:2). Though Jay did not fully understand; though I could not put all of my suffering into words, he was able to pray for me more powerfully than he did before. He knew the kind of words I needed for encouragement and how to adapt his responses to my mental state. The act of suffering together became more intentional because there were no more secrets. As crazy as it sounds, it turns out that Jay was also more emotionally distraught not suffering with me because he felt useless.
As one flesh, we not only need to suffer together in our acts, but also in our hearts. Pour every piece of your heart out no matter the pain. God will bless your marriage when you suffer together (Romans 5:3, 2 Corinthians 4:17).
Boundary III: One Budget
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from faith and pierced themselves with many pangs/sorrows. (1 Timothy 6:10).” Money is the no. 1 reason why married couples argue and the primary reason why divorces occur. Of course I knew this before Jay and I got married. I told myself money would never be at the center of our marital issues—I spoke too soon.
Low and behold, the no. 1 reason why we argue (still) is due to financial disagreements. Not only did Jay and I have to share the same house, bed, and fridge, but also the same money. The first year of marriage was the hardest because we began to learn about one another’s spending habits and the debt we individually incurred over the years. Over the past 2 years, God’s worked heavily on our marriage to bring us to a place of peace with our finances. He taught us to operate faithfully as two people with one budget. With that said, I would like to share some advice with you:
The money you and your spouse earns does not belong to only the earnee. It belongs to the both of you. There should be no kind of possessiveness regardless of who earned how much. This means you must act as one flesh in what you’re going to do with the money God’s blessed you with. From big purchases to perhaps even small purchases.
Give/Tithe to God what is His first—whether that is 10 percent or how ever much you are able to joyfully give.
You and your spouse should give yourselves a reasonable allowance every paycheck. For example, Jay and I have given ourselves an allowance of $150 to use for 2 weeks. This does not include food or other home necessities. Having an allowance provides an awareness to practice self-control.
Identify who will be in charge of the following roles: budget/bookkeeper, primary cashflow handler, bill payer (if not automatic), and tithe giver.
Avoid collecting debt from loans, credit cards, etc. if it is not an absolute necessity. A puppy is not a necessity by the way.
Save, save, save! You must have at least 3 months worth of emergency funds in case of the following: one spouse loses their job, home/vehicle breaks down, or simply an unexpected event occurs. The emergency fund should not be used for vacation or big items you both want to purchase. That should come out from another savings fund.
Lastly, if you both have a large amount of federal student loans, always file “married filing separately” on your taxes if you plan to do an income-based payment plan (the best payment plan provided). This will decrease your monthly federal student loan payment which will help you save financially. To give you an idea, before I changed my filing status I owed over $700 a month, but after changing my filing status, I now pay less than $300 a month.
These are just a few simple financial wisdoms Jay and I have learned over the past years to ease our financial stress. It’s definitely helped us have a more unified mindset on our budget, wherein we handle financial disagreements more faithfully. If I’m being honest, we wrestled between two masters—money and God. We worked hard to step away from our individual spending habits that we were used to, to compromise on what would be the most faithful to God. It was difficult to leave behind the many cravings we had; however, we knew that if we held onto those cravings, our finances would “pierce us with many sorrows”. If you haven’t already, it is never too soon to discuss how having one budget will look like in your marriage. Be open and faithful.
All in all, marriage is not easy—it wasn’t meant to be easy. From the very beginning, marriage was meant for work between a man and a woman. In parallel, God desires an Edenic and good marriage for us. Thankfully, He did not leave us to our own devices to figure out the complex institution of marriage. No matter the unknown boundaries and upcoming hardships, He gave us the Holy Scriptures to instruct us, bless us, and redeem us. Take heart that becoming one flesh does not occur after the “I Dos”. It is a long process that will require two believing hearts and a lot of Scripture. As your marriage journey begins, my hope is that you, my friend(s), will taste the sweetness of God's gift to mankind—One Flesh.
CY