Sadly, it seems like too many people married the wrong spouse. They act like they wish they had picked someone else or they make a mistake with someone they aren’t married to and they have to live with those painful consequences for the rest of their lives. Why are there so many unhappy married couples? It’s because, in a small sense, some married people tend to forget that healthy relationships are nurtured much like tending livestock.
My folks raised cattle on their small farm, deep down in the Ozarks. They mostly had black Angus, usually no more than 25 at a time, and while I can’t remember a single one of them, my dad had one animal I’ll never forget — he was a beautiful beast, a massive red Limousin bull. The only problem with this bull was, when he wanted to visit another herd, he just reared up in the air on his hind legs, placed his front hooves on the gate, pushed his 2,500 pounds forward, and off he went.
Typically, after the bull spent a few days in some other field, a local farmer (with his own herd of cows) would then call my dad and say, “Come and get your bull, he’s done making his rounds here ...” You see, once that Limousin bull realized he could leave whenever he pleased, no fence could ever hold him after that.
American farmers and ranchers have always struggled with corralling their livestock. It’s hard to keep your livestock on your property without a good stockade, unless you skip the fences like they do in other parts of the world. In other regions, they have found out what works better than building strong fences that eventually fail — they simply dig better wells.
It’s a simple solution to an age-old problem: Provide your livestock with their needs in an arid and desolate land, and they stick around the farm — cattle, horses or sheep won’t wander far from their feed and water in the wilderness. The same principle applies to our most intimate relationships.
What Paul says about maintaining a healthy sex life in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 has broader applications as well, “3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” In other words, provide each other’s mutual needs at home so your spouse won’t feel the need to stray from your farm.
If you aren’t providing for your spouse’s relationship needs, they will find their needs met elsewhere, and that’s when people experience hell on earth. All of the great marriages that you see share this common truth — spouses who strive to meet each other’s needs enjoy marriages that thrive. Whenever any marriage feels like it’s withering on the vine, someone in the relationship isn’t meeting their significant other’s needs.
You can’t keep your spouse cooped up, so make it so they don’t feel neglected and want to leave to have their needs met elsewhere. Or as my cousin, a Vietnam vet with a few Purple Hearts, likes to say about his marital relationship, “This dog don’t stray, because she (pointing to his wife) keeps him well-fed.”
Originally published here: Timesnews faith column
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