In the other post about why most marriage advice fails, we learned that meaning matters in a marriage.
Many of the practices that can strengthen a marriage don't, on their own, create meaning.
For example, while knowing the right roles for each person helps reduce conflict and improve decision-making, it doesn't necessarily create meaning for the marriage.
Improving how you communicate and resolve disputes will bring more harmony, but alone doesn't help craft a story of why you have been brought together as a couple.
Yet, isn't meaning often what we crave in life?
We want our individual lives to stand for something that we value.
We want the work we do to hold some kind of meaning.
We want to make sense of our place in the world.
Why wouldn't we want our marriage to have meaning?
We often make the mistake that our marriage should impart a specific feeling. But do you see how dependency on a feeling is like being tossed by the waves?
Our feelings our fleeting.
They don't give us a sense of surety.
Meaning, on the other hand, gives us assurance of the things unseen. It allows us to look at the stark reality and say, “But there's more. There is a purpose. There is a reason.”
Now, for a marriage to work, both people have to share a desire for meaning, if not at least the same meaning of the marriage. If one has a different reality from the other, you will get conflicts, perhaps even craziness.
Meaning matters.
Meaning is the white space that can actually bind two different lives together.
What gives meaning to a relationship between two people? It's the story they share about themselves with each other.
So tell me right in the comments below: do you think meaning actually matters?
If you do think it matters, what then are the reasons one does not have meaning in a relationship?
Write it down below, now.
If you don’t feel like writing anything, but want to see all three videos about how a marriage story could be the secret to a great marriage, click below.
