Why the Hell Are You Even Married? (Hint: It's Not What You Think)
Why the Hell Are You Even Married? (Hint: It's Not What You Think)
Welcome back to 2023, and let's kick off the year with a question that might make you squirm: Why the hell are you even married?
No, seriously. At some point, every married couple asks this. You start off excited, in love, convinced nothing will ever go bad. Then, three days into living together for real, you're hit with the reality: "Whoa, what is the point of all this commitment?"
We're not talking about the institution of marriage today. Marriage is a powerful commitment, a legal and spiritual bond. That's cool. But we're talking about *the purpose of your specific marriage. Because each of us has to decide that for ourselves.
You get bogged down with kids, with work, with the endless to-do list of life, and you forget why you even entered this union in the first place. And if you haven't explicitly defined it, you're likely operating on assumptions that will eventually lead to frustration.
What Your Marriage's Purpose Is NOT
Before we dive into what it is, let's get clear on what it's not. These are often wonderful parts of marriage, but they won't suffice as its core purpose:
Your Kids: We've said it before, and we'll say it again: your kids are not the purpose of your marriage. We have five, and two are already out of the house, with a third leaving this year. When they're all gone, we still want us. It's unfair to burden your children with the expectation that their lives are the completion of your partnership. They are their own unique individuals, and you have the privilege of raising them, not owning them. If your whole life is your daughter, that's sad. You have a life, and your daughter has a life.
Love or Happiness (Emotions): This is a big one. The purpose of your marriage cannot be an emotion. Emotions are fleeting. They're a byproduct, a chemical manifestation of your mindset. If the purpose of your marriage is happiness, what happens when you get sad? Does your marriage fall apart? Of course not. Whitney and I have lost parents; we've faced hard times. If our purpose was solely happiness, our marriage would have crumbled. If you think of "love" as a verb – an action of connecting and devotion – then it can be part of your purpose. But chasing emotions as the end goal is a fool's errand. (And for the guys: the purpose of your marriage is also not just sex. There are far less expensive and onerous ways to get that.)
The Power of a Shared Purpose
For years, Whitney and I coached couples on this very topic. And for the first year we taught it, we couldn't even agree on the purpose of our own marriage! It was frustrating. Most couples, when asked, will give a stunned silence, or a vague answer like "love" or "kids." And if you ask their spouse, the answer is almost always different.
But when you sit down, do the work, and explicitly define your shared purpose, it unifies you as a couple. It becomes your North Star.
Our Marriage's Purpose:
"To create adventure in love and connection and to share that with the world by being unapologetically and authentically ourselves."
Think about what that does.
I get a wild idea on Christmas Day: "Let's drive nine and a half hours to Big Bend, Texas, to sleep under the Milky Way for New Year's Eve!" Whitney's initial reaction: "That's crazy! 18 hours of driving for two days?"
But then we measure it against our purpose: "To create adventure in love and connection..." Does it fit? Hell yes. What would it take to make it happen? We broke up the driving, and we created an incredible adventure, building confidence in our youngest son, Liam, who hiked to the peak of a mountain. We're still talking about it weeks, and I imagine years, later.
If something doesn't fit our purpose, we can easily say no. It's a filter for every decision, every invitation, every potential conflict.
Your Individual Purpose Matters Too
It's crucial that your marriage's purpose allows you to live your individual purpose. My purpose – "I wake the sleeping giants" – is in alignment with our marriage's purpose. It's not absorbed by it. Whitney has her own purpose: "I give women a voice and a choice to choose themselves."
We don't complete each other in a broken sense. We are two whole, powerful individuals who choose to do great things together. Did we have broken parts? Absolutely. Did rolling together help us fix those in a more loving, safe, secure way? Sure. But she didn't heal me, and I didn't heal her. We created an environment where we could each heal ourselves.
If Whitney left tomorrow, I wouldn't like my life as much, and the purpose of our marriage would be over. But I would still be alive, and I would still have my individual purpose.
Don't Get Stagnant: Work on Your Marriage's Purpose
It's easy to get stagnant in marriage, to get overly involved in kids or business. Having this base layer of purpose allows you to bounce back, to remind yourselves of who you are. It's a way to actively work on your marriage, to ask: "What am I doing individually to have that adventure, that connection, that love, and then to bring it back into our marriage?"
So, what is the purpose of your* marriage? And if I asked your spouse, would they give me the same answer, word for word?
It took us a good year to land on our purpose. It's not a five-minute conversation. You'll have to live with it, figure it out, and commit to it. But when you truly land on it, it encompasses everything. You can grow within that purpose, and it will make your life exponentially more enjoyable, more powerful, and more able to endure hard things and savor the great ones.
Your marriage is worth creating this together. It's worth taking the time to discover what your purpose is, outside of all the other things that drag us down.
