Marriage is a relationship of decision-making.
Decide means, literally, to cut away. It comes from the Latin word decider, which is two word parts. De is a prefix meaning away; cidere means to cut. (Making an incision is cutting into; concise means the lengthy part has been cut off.)
To decide means to eliminate the unwanted part (to cut it away); it’s exactly the process of elimination, and the imagery is a sculptor chiseling away parts of the marble stone until what remains is the beautiful three-dimensional image they desire.
A married couple makes decisions from day one and even before. Their old girlfriends and boyfriends are cut away, then the parents, and eventually the children. Cutting away – at least in the case of parents and children – doesn’t mean they’re cut out of their lives altogether; it just means they’re cut out of the marriage; nothing and no one can come between husband and wife.
We’ve probably all seen couples with one set of parents inserted between the husband wife in some way, and children are experts at squeezing between their parents. Both situations can spell major trouble for the marriage; I’ve seen marriages end because the decision was never agreed upon by husband and wife to cut out the intruder.
And then there’s the inanimate presence that must be chiseled away, things like hobbies, expenses and preoccupations that wreak havoc on the marriage.
The list of potential unwanted intruders is too long to include; more important is the strategy for deciding (literally) in marriage.
The key is to remember that, for the married couple, spouse and marriage are number one; number two may be uber important, like children and parents, but they cannot be number one. They aren’t even part of number one. Allow nothing to compete with spouse or marriage, and address any threats – especially the people ones – together as a unified couple. Stick together and don’t allow any force to separate you.
To repeat my very first sentence, marriage is a relationship of decision-making. Spend your entire marriage deciding in favor of spouse and marriage, and you’ll have a long and fruitful marriage…..decidedly so!
