Losing Yourself to Find a Better Marriage

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. . . . Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. . . . In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church. . . . Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:21-25, 28-29, 33)

As a marriage counselor, I often read this passage aloud to couples. Almost every time, I get the same response.

Husbands love the part about their wives submitting to them, and can often quote that section by heart. The quoting usually stops around the time Paul outlines how men should act toward their wives—loving them and caring for them selflessly, as Jesus loves the church.

That’s when husbands grow quiet. Very few men are ready to be held to such a high standard.

Women, on the other hand, have a different response. They love what Paul has to say about husbands being sacrificial and sensitive and nourishing, but they cringe at the thought of being submissive.

Neither reaction—that of the husbands or of the wives—surprises me, given the countercultural nature of this passage.

Everything about our society tells us to celebrate our independence. We prize the individual, and most of our advertising revolves around us being ourselves, meeting our own needs, getting what we want, and not letting anyone stand in our way.

But God tells us the exact opposite: Marriage is a relationship of sacrifice.

Society says marriage is about finding the right person. God tells us marriage is about being the right kind of person.

Culture tells us marriage is about meeting our own needs—for companionship, for sex, for support—while maintaining our own identity. God tells us marriage is about giving up our own needs in order to meet the needs of our husband or wife.

The world tells us marriage is about happiness. God tells us marriage is about holiness.

God’s economy is upside-down, where the last shall be first and the first will be last. If you want to find yourself, He says, you do it by losing yourself in service to others. In losing yourself—in submitting “to one another out of reverence for Christ”—you find true contentment and joy.

That is the secret to success within the covenant of marriage.