Fight FOR Your Spouse, not WITH Your Spouse

by David Rollert

Imagine for a moment a basketball team in which each member was trying to gain all the glory for themselves and saw the other players on their team as competitors. No matter how skilled those individual players were, the team would lose. For a basketball team to succeed, the individual players must work together, coordinate, and pass the ball. When they work as a team, they can overcome anything.

The same is true in marriage. If the husband and wife view each other as opponents, then the marriage will crumble. But, if they work together as a team - communicating, being honest, putting the other’s needs first - then the marriage can thrive. To see this play out, let’s examine two common situations.

Careers: When a couple competes against one another, each puts their own career above their marriage. They are threatened by their spouse’s job success, and secretly satisfied if their spouse fails at work. They are unwilling to even consider being a one-income-family, even if it benefits the children, because that means one of them will not be pursuing their professional goals. This leads to bitterness, rivalry and an unwillingness to spend time together.

Consider what Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says. “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. 10 For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.” When a couple works as a team, each puts the needs of the family above their personal career. They celebrate the other’s successes and commiserate about their failures. They coordinate with their spouse about which sacrifices are worth the money and which are not. If being a one-income-family is best for their children, they work together to make it feasible. This cooperation leads to unity, synergy, and more time together.

Leisure: When a couple competes against one another, each puts their own leisure time above the needs of their spouse. Each ignores family needs in favor of leisure activities and/or becomes resentful when their spouse takes leisure time. There will be a constant tug-of-war over who gets to take leisure time and who will take care of the kids and do chores. Again, this leads to bitterness, rivalry and an unwillingness to spend time together.

In his description of love, Paul states that love “does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,” (1 Corinthians 13:5). When a couple works as a team, each sees the value in their spouse taking healthy leisure time and encourages that leisure time. They work together and coordinate to make sure that both spouses get leisure time and the chores are shared. They seek leisure activities that they both can do together, further fostering their closeness and teamwork.

In every area of life, strive to foster teamwork with your spouse rather than competition against them.