This is a continuation of my scriptural marriage series, but I want to deviate from scripture stories and just focus on a single, relatively well-known scriptural verse, Genesis 2:24: "Therefor shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." I won't commentate for long, but this is no simple subject; I'll just be brushing it and hope that you get some thoughts out of it. I want to emphasize the value of the marital relationship, particularly in the context of a full, busy family.
I actually have some science to back up the claims I'm going to make; they're pretty crazy concepts, but the basic idea of keeping your marriage healthy while you have children is covered in depth in William Doherty's book Taking Back Your Marriage.
I'll cover the value of the marital relationship in the most extreme context I can think of--caring for a newborn baby. I've always cherished the idea of marriage, and when I discovered that I was pregnant, I was a little cynical about the whole idea. I didn't know if I had what it took to have a baby, much less raise a child to adulthood with no supervision of me. Therefore, my experience with a baby was different than most. From my studies, here are the major trends that people actually tend to live through.
When a loving couple (particularly if they just recently got married) have a child, they deviate from their newlywed habits, behaviors, and perceptions. A wife typically begins to prioritize the baby--after all, he/she screams if there's an unmet need, and he/she would literally not survive without attention and care, almost constantly. When a mother is up every two hours around the clock feeding a child that can't communicate what it wants without expressing distress, she tends to ignore everything else around her, driven by instinct, human nature, and love for her baby.
Increased stress on part of the mother typically ends up in decreased marital satisfaction for wife and husband--the wife usually wants the baby taken care of in a certain way, and maybe only trusts herself to do it. The father is often left out. When my husband and I were taking our baby Daron home from the hospital, the nurses urged my husband to get all of our belongings out to the car while they explained baby care to me, implying that Danny couldn't possibly be interested in knowing how to raise the baby.
Wives get overwhelmed and emotionally focused on the baby and only the baby; husbands get left out and emotionally dismissive. I don't think this happens intentionally, but it often causes marital antagonism to accompany the birth of a child.
Let me reference the scripture again; this scripture is in the context of Adam and Eve, our first parents, the first two people to raise a human baby with probably little to no guidance. There is no counterpart scripture to Genesis 2:24, when they raise Abel, that says, "Therefore shall a man step back while his wife raises the child, and he cleaves to himself while they cleave to each other." I don't wish to condemn anyone; likely all parents are guilty of some kind of imbalance. But typically instinct and human nature drive us to emotionally go our separate ways and begin bickering when he puts the baby to bed in a way that isn't right, or she gets frustrated because she's hormonal and exhausted.
I want to suggest a way that couples can continue to cleave to each other, even though they have responsibilities and children that they love and are responsible to care for: go on dates. Get cuddly with each other, just for a few minutes every day, and be intentional about it. It will either sound incredibly simple or just plain impossible, but put a little bit of effort into it, and watch miracles unfold. I promise that seeking after your spouse and your marriage will bring happiness and peace, even as your life makes dramatic shifts.
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