COLLABORATION: A vital key to a great marriage …

A great marriage isn’t something of magic, but there is a supernatural element to it!

“This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one,” Genesis 2:24.

Even though spiritually a husband and wife are united as one flesh, there still remains two people. Both have their own thoughts, emotions, and desires. Meshing those together for a richly rewarding, deeply satisfying communion with one another requires a commitment to collaboration from a position of love and care for one another. It is possible to not get along and stay together productively as partners, but it’s a joyless pairing as demonstrated in this story about the great collaboration between W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan …

From 1871 to 1896, famed musical geniuses Gilbert & Sullivan produced 14 musicals together that led to a string of theatrical hits and award winning songs that are still familiar to most music lovers today. Yet for all that success, the two men couldn’t stand each other. They begrudgingly tolerated each other for years, until one day when Sullivan ordered carpet for a theater they had purchased and Gilbert raged over the cost. From that day on they couldn’t even work together in the same room. Sullivan would write music for a new production, then mail it to Gilbert who would write the lyrics, then mail it all back.

The book jacket of one of the many biographies written about their famous collaboration reads:

“Beneath the two men’s enormously popular collaborations were two hearts that beat as two. They simply did not get along. The trigger-tempered Gilbert, with his razor tongue and steady work habits, couldn’t understand Sullivan’s amiable procrastinations and easy social successes. Sullivan was convinced that his real genius was expressed by his prestigious music. Yet success after success forced the team to stay together for fifteen glorious years … Then the whole thing blew up in a tragicomic quarrel about a carpet.”

A business partnership may have great success between people who work together but don’t like one another. But a marriage isn’t a business partnership, although couples conduct a great deal of business together. A marriage is a partnership in loving God, one another, and others, and living that out as one because they have been united together by God.

The living out of such a life is done by means of collaboration. The Apostle Paul helps us explore what a collaborative Christian marriage looks like. He begins with this statement:

“And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,” Ephesians 5:21.

A satisfying marriage isn’t “all bout her,” or “all about him.” It is, instead, a collaboration among the two of them as they submit themselves to Christ out of reverence for Him. Paul goes on to speak directly to the wife, followed by comments for the husband, and then he concludes with this …

“So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband,” Ephesians 5:33.

We tend to have a knee-jerk reaction of, “Of course my marriage is a collaborative one!” But often it’s a husband who knows what he wants, and/or a wife who knows what she wants, and then an effort to get as much of what the individual wants from the other. Sometimes marriages are opposite of that — one spouse who knows what they want and pushes for it, and the other spouse who always yields to the other without any attempt to share their own interests.

A collaborative marriage is not a negotiated marriage, it’s something much more, as described in this statement from the workbook, “Collaborative Marriage Skills” (Miller, Miller, Nunnally, Wackman):

“Drawing on one another’s talents and experiences, a couple chooses a purposeful journey with each other that neither of them could have created alone — the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. They employ a ‘collaborative operating system’ in their relationship that gives them the ability to handle the challenges they face on the road before them. Over time, this way of being together also builds a reservoir of respect and appreciation for each other.”

Does that sound familiar?

“So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband,” Ephesians 5:33.

When you love and care for your spouse, you collaborate to build something that couldn’t be without the other. It’s leaving the “self” life for the “shared” life, and it’s a “shared” life that’s submitted in reverence to Jesus Christ.

Does that sound like your marriage?

Scotty