The Balswicks decribe Marriage as a covenant relationship consisting of four pillars: commitment, grace, empowerment, and intimacy. All of these are inter-related, starting with commitment. When two people are commited to each other in covenant, they both must develop deeper spirits of grace toward one another as imperfect beings. This grace provides greater freedom/empowerment knowing that you will not be kicked to the curb when you stumble, even fall. Grace also allows for deeper intimacy as couples share their struggles with one another. This deeper knowledge and emotional connection fosters more grace and empowerment and strengthens the commitment of the couple as one.
There are obstacles that keep us from building these strong pillars in our relationships. When we set aside our commitment to another person and instead seek instant gratification, when we suppress grace and maintain unyielding expectancy, when we substitute empowerment for mutual codependency, or when we react defensively or dishonestly avoiding intimacy, the foundation of our relationships will crumble.
My challenge for you today is this: Give a specific example of how couples can either strengthen or weaken each of the four pillars of oneness.
18 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 14, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Mallory Kaptain
A married couple must be able to share things with each other. They must be able to trust one another with important information. If one, or both of the spouses in a marriage refuse to disclose information to the other there is a weakening of intimacy. Communication is vital to intimacy. The weakening of intimacy could even be caused by a lack of commitment, once again tying commitment to all of the other pillars.
September 14, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Samantha Carrington
I believe that the commitment must be mutual between both marraige partners if any and or all of thesepillars are to be increasing. If the wife has all the will power in the world to love her husband unconditionally, forgive him in every circumstance, empower him to become his best and seek intimate fellowship with him, it will never increase if he is unwilling. He can cheat on her time and time again, and she can forgive him every time he comes back and says he will never do it again, but their relationship will only suffer. I know someone who experienced this very problem and it drained her of all her energy. After 6 years of putting up with his cheating and lies, she was eventually forced into ending the marraige. She put her whole life into the relationship and would NEVER have intended on it ending in divorce, but the continual grace she showed him, with a lack of it from him, only destroyed their relationship. You could even say that he abused the grace she gave to him. So all in all, both partners must be committed to growing in all these areas if there is ever going to be any progress inthe relationship.
September 14, 2010 at 9:39 pm
purposebeyondpain
Great point, Samantha. I do believe there is a difference between showing someone grace and letting them walk all over you. Sometimes love requires taking a firm stand and saying that there will be consequences for repeated abuses. Those who cannot establish those boundaries are not really showing true Grace but probably Fear and enmeshment/codependency.
September 16, 2010 at 2:10 am
Samantha Carrington
I agree, the woman is my mom, and she told me that her first marraige was the “I cant live without you” mindset and she learned from it that that is not the way marraige is supposed to be.
September 14, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Gordon Eggleston
I remember getting in trouble when I forgot, say, to wash the dishes or take out the trash. I remember being hit with all kinds of guilt trips and even punishment-not being able to go anywhere, no tv, and even staying in my room. The accusation would be that “I shouldn’t have to be told to do this everytime! You’re 8,9,12,13,15 and 18 years old now!” I would be told. What happend was that I just plum forgot that day. It wasn’t like I wanted to diliberately disobey. I didn’t. I just forgot. But there was no room for “I forgot;” no grace. You would get into even more trouble if you said that. In the end chores were slavery. Instead of doing them out of love they were done out of fear. And because there was no grace and mercy, I felt resentment and anger toward parents and chores. I felt that chores were done out of guilt and doing them under the pressure of trying to be perfect and fear. I believe that the lack of grace was weakend all the pillars.
September 15, 2010 at 3:31 pm
purposebeyondpain
Gordon, this is a powerful example of both a lack of grace and a lack of empowerment. A spirit of empowerment would have helped motivate you to do these things not because you had to but because you were taught their importance. Instead, the control was always in the hands of someone else. Sadly, this happens very often in families. Your insight into this is awesome!!
September 15, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Justin Groth
With regards to empowerment, I think we tend to neglect or skirt its importance. If the relationship dissolves into mutual codependency, there is a strangling of the other person that goes on which breeds an atmosphere of jealousy. A friend of mine recently broke off a year engagement with his fiance because they frankly could no longer stand to be in the same room together anymore. This all stemmed from, I think, the relationship being built on codependency. It became so bad that they “needed” one another to be with them all of time, and when one of them would be away for a while and not send notification of where they were, the other would immediately assume infidelity. Needless to say, this destroyed any intimacy, and there was little grace to be given in such a cold relationship.
September 16, 2010 at 4:39 pm
purposebeyondpain
I like your word picture of “strangling.” That really is what happens in a codependent relationship. It is suffocating. Overwhelming for both involved. The only way around it I see is to cling tighter to the most important relationship you have: your relationship with God. That allows you to release the “death grip” you have on all your other relationships and they will be free to grow stronger as a result.
September 15, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Charlie Griffin
My mother personally never gave grace to anyone when I was little. Whether or not I ever did my homework never mattered to me because she would find some reason to yell at me no matter what. As a result I stopped doing anything for school. Now that I’m in college God has me starting from the begining learning how to learn because I never really did study indept the first 18 years of my life.
I think this is an example of how a lack of grace leads to a lack of empowerment. Even if my grades were good there was no different reaction than if they were bad and if they were bad (and they were) there was no grace whatsoever to help me do better. So I was never really empowered to be a good learner. My mother would find some reason to yell at me so I gave up trying. But I thank God that by His grace I am being empowered to study and learn in college.
September 16, 2010 at 4:36 pm
purposebeyondpain
Perfect example, Chuck. In the psychology world, we describe this as learned helplessness. When a child is never able to succeed because the bar is always to high, he/she often gives up and does the complete opposite of what is expected. Yet I am encouraged by your testimony of how God, your Heavenly Father, has provided you that Grace and Empowerment where is was lacking within your own family.
September 15, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Jeremy Hobbs
Give a specific example of how couples can either strengthen or weaken each of the four pillars of oneness.commitment, grace, empowerment, and intimacy
In regards to empowerment, my wife and I have found that our proper way of living this out for our spouses was the idea of love and respect. We actually read the book Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs while we were engaged, and it completely changed the way we dealt with each other. The basic idea is that a woman must be loved uncondtionally, which I think is fairly obvious, and there is a baseline, so to speak, of love that must be given by the husband, and cannot be taken away. The part i think is mostly not understood today is that for the wife, she must unconditionally respect her husband, again with a baseline of respect that cannot ever be taken away from him. Once we started applying this to our relationship, we found that it is almost self sustaining, if practiced enough. When a wife respects her husband, and he knows it, it spurs him on to love his wife. When the wife feels loved, she, in turn, finds it easier to respect her husband. Using these principles empowers the couple to be more graceful, to have better communication, to have greater intimacy, and will strengthen their commitment to one another, as well.
September 16, 2010 at 4:47 pm
purposebeyondpain
Thanks, Jeremy. A greatt positive example of empowerment. Good book recommendation too. I might incorporate that book into our reading for future classes somehow.
September 17, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Jerad White
I think one of the pillars that can be overlooked or mistreated/mis-used could be the pillar of intimacy. I know that the line of intimacy and sex could be a thin line and a hazy one. I think husbands can fail at intimacy when they desire sex without any intimacy. An intimate relationship is a relationship you HAVE to work at and work for. We, as men, could get lazy and desire sex without any intimacy. I think thats where couples could start to go wrong. It seems to me that marriage is all about intimacy. You know this person like no one else does, you know their quirks, you know the things you love and the things that bother you. You can even tell when she wants someone to listen to her and not say a word. Women are wired much different than men. I believe that women desire intimacy more than men do. Men tend to want to be macho and I think we tend to feel like we have to be showing our masculine, “I am a man” attitude all the time. This could be becuase of homosexuality or our culture. I know that men tend to pick on the other men who are sensitive and maybe not so masculine. Women are the opposite, they seemed to be wired for companionship and and intimadcy with someone else. That may be why they love stuffed animals so much as young girls. They want something to cuddle with, something to be intimate with. I think intimacy is an absolute necessity to a successful, well-rounded, truly-happy marriage.
September 22, 2010 at 2:39 am
steve lee
Currently I have a member in the family who is in my opinion struggling with empowerment. It is rough because the way people empower changes over time. The way we empower a 5 year old is completely different than the way we empower a 30 year old. In this regard no matter how much scripture you may know… I believe that a relationship can be ruined by the lack of encouragement.
I believe if you do not encourage… by simple neglect you are discouraging and no one wants to commit, give grace and have any sort of intimacy with a person that does not give grace.
September 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Jake Boger
1. Commitment: Negative. Recently the rising popularity of internet pornography has devasted marriages. I would say that there are few things that tell a wife how uncommited her husband is as his ability to view pixalated pleasure when she is in the next room.
Positive. I think that precence speaks volume to a woman. The fact that her husband will show that he would rather be there than away golfing with the guys means a lot. However, I would say that it only conveys commitment when he chooses to stay because he wants to do so.
2. Grace. Positive and negative. Similarly to the positive of my last post, I would say that grace is not shown when a man acts as if he must do things for his wife simply due to obligation. Too many men hold things over their wives as if they are earning “me” time. “Well, I watched the kids yesterday!” Imagine if more men would change their schedules for their spouses. That’s gracious.
3. Empowering: Negative. I look to the husband who acts like a CEO for this one. The man who micromanages his wife’s every move is a burden.
Positive. When I was younger my dad would always come to my football games. He had no knowledge on the sport, and would have preferred that I had been more involved in band or something musically oriented. Being supported for the things in which you excell causes you to excell more.
4. Intimacy. Positive and Negative. I think we can chalk up another one for communication. The closests couples I have seen were those who communicated the best; however, the contrary is also very true.
September 27, 2010 at 6:52 pm
purposebeyondpain
Great points, Jake!! The exampes you give are right on!!
September 27, 2010 at 1:26 am
Mary Shuford
Looking back on what Samantha said about grace and the difference between showing grace and letting people walk all over you, I think that grace is so important in loving one another. I know that I have a really hard time sometimes living with other peoples pasts. I find myself obsessing about my boyfriends past, and I get upset sometimes about who he was before he recognized Christ as his Lord and Savior. And something that I have been working on and praying for is the ability to love him like Christ loves us. I have a shady past, just like he does, and Christ loves us both regardless, and has already forgiven us! That concept still blows my mind. I think it is so important to learn to give one another some grace when it comes to who we were before we knew the Lord.
when I am lacking grace, I have a really hard time being empowering toward him, and keeping commitments we both have. For example it is easy for me to let up on spiritual standards for our relationship when I don’t show him the grace the Lord gave us. I don’t know if what I am saying is making sense…
September 27, 2010 at 6:45 pm
purposebeyondpain
Makes perfect sense. I commend you on your striving to to demonstrate those qualities that Christ has toward us in your relationship with your boyfriend and with others!!