Top 10 marriage myths

Top 10 Marriage Myths
Even though these lessons address issues that are common in most relationships, of course, I'll be
speaking about the marriage relationship the most, since this is the most common form of male-female
relationship that people experience, or they look forward to experience it, or they have failed at it in
some way. But everybody has had some sort of relationship or experience rather with marriage
relationship. So when you read about marriage or you hear discussions about the subject, maybe at
work or with your friends, it’s amazing how much of this information is false and misguided.
In our day and age, marriage, especially the Christian concept of marriage, you know, what we call
sacred marriage is greatly misunderstood. So in this session, we're going to examine some of these
misunderstandings and lay some groundwork and establish the unique view of marriage contained in
the Bible. It seems that society today doesn't pay whole lot of attention to God's original design for
sacred marriage. And that negligence is reflected in surveys done that study the relationship between
religion and marriage. For example, one such survey by a Professor Bradley Wright, sociologist at the
University of Connecticut, found that nominal Christians who rarely attend church, you know who those

are, they'll fill out a hospital form and they'll say, what your religion, and they'll put Christian. But they
rarely go to church and they don't read their Bible, they don't have a lot of spiritual life. Anyways, this
researcher said those individuals, nominal Christians, who rarely attend church, have a 60% divorce
rates opposed to regular church attending believers who had a 38% divorce rate, among the group that
he studied.
The percentages continued to drops factors for regular Bible reading and prayer and involvement by
both partners in church were accounted for. So they start with the nominal Christian, and then he kind
of added things. So how about Christians who pray regularly? How about Christians who go to church
regularly? How about Christians who are involved and give at church? And he kept adding.
And as he added those factors to the portrait, the percentage of divorce among those people went
down, down, and down. So greater commitment to the faith and the church resulted in his study in
stronger marriages. Among other things, the survey showed that God's design for marriage and his
involvement in the partners' lives make a great difference in the potential success of the relationship.
I mean, God answers a prayer like, “Dear God, please help my marriage, “or "Please help me be a better
husband. “I mean, those are the kind of prayers that God will answer. And of course, this type of prayer
makes a great difference in the potential success of the relationship. Our society has come up with so
many strange ideas about marriage. In a book entitled, "Married People Staying Together “in the Age of
Divorce," author Francine Klagsbrun outlines10 of the worst myths that many people accept as true
about marriage. Of course her myths are found mostly among non-Christian couples, but these ideas,
nevertheless, influence a great majority of people in our society. So very quickly, the top 10 marriage
myths according to this author.
Myth Number Ten- living together before marriage helps the relationship
How many times have you heard that? Well, how do we know if we're set and good for one another if
we don't live together first? Now remember, Francine Klagsbrun is not a Christian writer.
And yet in her research, she sees this common, seemingly harmless argument as a myth, and ultimately
dangerous for the good health of a marriage. She comments that living together; the living-together
experience does not improve the chances of a successful relationship.
"Oh, some of these relationships," she says, “succeed to a point, “or they succeed in spite of this
arrangement, “but not because of it.”It's not success because we live together before we got married;
it's success despite the fact that this was the case.

The idea is that the easy attitude of temporary commitment is often transferred to the marriage itself.
The author claims that couple who live together before marriage are at a greater risk of divorce than
those who wait to be married before they live together. And we can show Scriptures that condemn this
practice, but it's a real eye-opener that even nonreligious counsellors don't see the great benefit of this
type of arrangement.
Myth Number Nine-have an affair in order to breathe new life into your marriage
How many times have you seen this as a theme in a movie or a book? You know, I'll cause my partner to
be jealous and hurt and this will make them love me more somehow. Of course, in marriage solutions to
problems never come from outside of the relationship, especially immoral and hurtful solutions. No one
is ever provoked to love by being hurt and humiliated. That's not the way to improve your marriage. Of
course, Christians wouldn't consider this for obvious reasons, but many do. And they suffer for it. Oh
yeah, I'll show them. I'm going to start flirting; I'm going to start doing things to make him jealous. Boy,
that'll really; he'll really love me then.
Myth Number Eight-be prepared for sex to get boring.
How come, you know, how come people think this is true, and yet they love to go bowling for 40 years?
You know, they go bowling for 40 years, but they think, oh, sex, that'll get boring. But bowling, oh man,
that's just so much fun year after year after year. This myth promotes fear of commitment among men
and discouragement among women. I mean, why get married if sex is going to get boring? Why do your
best if my sex life will not be fulfilling? This is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in couples' marriage.
The truth is that when you actually work at it, you can expect sex to become more exciting, more
completely fulfilling, and more creative. You know, sex remains a vital part of a couple's marriage, and if
they're determined to keep their romance and their sex life active and new and fresh and creative. We'll
get into this a little more deeply as we go into our series, but as far as the myth is concerned, people
believe this.
Myth Number Seven- keep your independence.
This idea is especially popular today among both men and women who don't want to lose their sense of
independence, even if they're married. But becoming dependent is an important component of a
successful marriage. Too much independence in a marriage leaves a person feeling unneeded,
unimportant. The goal is to become lovingly dependent without becoming co-dependent. That's a whole
other thing. Myth Number Six-if your spouse really loves you, he or she will know what you want and
need
Meaning, they'll know without asking you, they’ll just know it. Well, they'll know what you need and
what you want if they're mind readers, if they have that gift, if they can just read your mind. Too many
people see the test of true love as their partner's ability to discern what they want or need. But this is

unrealistic and it's not fair. In successful marriages, the partners usually take great care in patiently
explaining and reinforcing what they want and what they need to feel loved, to be happy. It's not being
over needy to share with your partner the things that you need to be fulfilled and satisfied as an
individual, as a marriage partner.
Myth Number Five- keep the peace at all costs
Some people spend most of their married lives avoiding an argument or a scene. They'd rather live
quietly than honestly. Such an approach is basically dishonest, and in the end it produces resentment. A
willingness to acknowledge conflict or failure or unhappiness is the first step to improving the
relationship. Look, I know you've been making apple pie every weekend to please me, because my mom
said I love apple pie. But after 14 years, I need to confess to you, I despise apple pie. I never told my
mother I didn't like her apple pie. And so she told you I liked apple pie. And now I'm sorry, I can't take it
anymore. I hate apple pie, please stop making apple pie for me. What a relief that will be! And then she
said, "Who, I'm so glad you told me, “Because I hate making apple pie. "You know, you know. The next
myth is the opposite of this myth.
Myth Number Four- always say what's on your mind
You know, it's good to be honest, but not when your frankness or openness is simply an excuse for
destructive criticism. In any relationship, tenderness and tact should always accompany openness and
honesty. I'm not saying that the apple pie you make is bad apple pie, I’m just saying, I don't like
anybody's apple pie, not just you’re apple pie. Even the best apple pie maker in the world, I wouldn't like
apple pie, ‘cause I don't like apples, you know.
Myth Number Three-You can change your partner
Well you can, if they want to change. When I'm doing a marriage prep course, I used to do this when I
worked at Oklahoma Christian. They had this big; you know, of course, in a college, in a university, a lot
of people get engaged. So there would be 40, 50, 60 couples every spring semester, a bunch of couples
that would be engaged, and the school would put on a marriage prep course, and different people
would give different classes to help these young engaged couple prepare for marriage. And I would do a
couple of these sessions. And when I would be doing one of these, I would at one point say, okay, I want
everybody to put your pencils down,blah, blah, blah, and I said, you may be arm in arm, or you may be
sitting next, I said, I want you to put your chairs and turn and just face each other. I'm not asking you to
do that here. But I would tell them, turn and face each other, and just look at each other. Look at each
other, you know, face to face. And of course, there'd be some giggling, and it would be a little
embarrassing. I said, go ahead, and look at each other. And while they would be looking at each other, I
would say the following. You better be happy and love what you are now looking at, because this is
pretty much what you're going to end up with. You better be satisfied with what you're looking at,

‘because this is what you got. So if you have an angry, jealous boyfriend, he’s going to become an angry,
jealous husband. If you have a lazy and dishonest girlfriend, well, she's going to have the same faults
when she becomes your wife. Marriage challenges you to change and grow, but it does not
automatically make you a better person or turn your partner into the person you want them to be. Just
'cause they say, "I do," doesn't mean I do want to do everything you want me to do. That's not what
that means.
Myth Number Two- A baby will bring you together
Especially these young couples that are living together and she decides, "You know what, “I think I'm
just going to skip taking my pill because, “you know, if we have a baby that will probably bring “the boy
over the line, you know. "It'll finally get him to commit. Bad strategy. Here's the rule of thumb about
babies. Having children will magnify everything good or bad about your relationship. Babies create
stress, and they create stress on the happiest of marriages, and usually cause casual relationships to
disintegrate. You can't always plan for babies, but you can prepare for them by cultivating strong and
committed relationships. And then, of course, and I don't have it here, but in the course, the big course,
where there are a lot of people, I had a sound track that went on when this slide came up.
Myth Number One- Love is all you need
Love is important, but sexual, sensual, emotional loves only one of many ingredients in a successful
marriage. In order to create a sacred marriage, biblical marriage, you also need a strong dose of
commitment, maturity, and this thing called sacrifice. You see, being attracted is the easy part, staying
attracted and bonded is what requires effort. All right, now that we've dealt with the myths, let’s
examine God's original plan for marriages that really work. So when examining God's design for
marriage contained in the Bible, you're going to notice that there are two elements or two features of
his basic design.
One, element number one, the people that are involved. In Genesis 2:18, we read, and then the Lord
God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. “I’ll make him a helper suitable for him. "Out of the
ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the
man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called the living creature that was its name.
Verse 20, the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the
field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
So the first element about God's designate the people involved. Notice that after man was created, he
realized from his understanding of the creation around him, that he was different in nature to the
animals that shared the creation with him. It says he named the animals. And in the Hebrew, it wasn't

just, okay, you’re a horse and you're a cow, and you're a, it’s the idea that he knew; he knew essentially
what that animal was and where it fit into the scheme of things. And so the idea here is that he
witnesses God’s physical creation of sentient creatures, animals. And the realization he comes to is I'm
not like these guys.
These are all wonderful and they're marvellous, you know, and they show God's power and everything,
but there's nothing out there that's like me. I don't see anything like me. And so in verse 21 and 22, we
read, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. Then he took one of his
ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had
taken from the man, and brought her to the man. So then God creates another human being suitable for
partnership with Adam. And so we see here that God purposefully fashions another human being like
Adam in nature, but different in composition.
She's called woman. So the term used to describe her is helpmeet, which comes from two words. The
first word, help, or (speaks foreign language) in the Hebrew means to surround, to protect, to aid. And
the term meet means corresponding to, similar, similar as. So man is created in the image and the glory
of God, woman is created in the image and glory of man, First Corinthians chapter 11 verses seven. So in
the pre-sin world of Adam and Eve, there was no conflict. There was no problem of understanding of
God's order of creation. Both Adam and Eve were glorious in the eyes of each other. Okay! Now after
the advent of sin, however, God had to impose order in order to avoid sexual anarchy and destruction,
because of sinfulness, the unregenerate man and women see only weakness in one another, not glory.
In sinful man and women, there is the effort to exploit and dominate each other, rather than cleave and
unite. For this reason, we go back to God's original design for marriage, in order to establish the
framework that will support a lifetime of loving relationship.
And so when examining this design, we see that the number one element in this designs that we begin
with the basic unit of one man and one woman to constitute a marriage in God's eyes. Now there are
many marriage styles permitted and promoted in this world. There are group marriages, you know, one
man and many woman, we call it polygamy.
I insert a little modern history here, the next legal challenge, you wait and see. I remember, you know,
20 years ago, 25 years ago, when I was preaching, I said, wait and see, you’re going to see the leaders of
this country marching to defend the rights of homosexuals. Ah, get out of here, that'll never happen.
Yeah, watch. Now I'm telling you, here's the next challenge coming down the line, okay. Challenge to
traditional marriage.
The thinking goes like this. Well, wait a minute, if same sex marriage is legal, and it is, I mean if two men
can marry each other legally, and we ought to accept it and we're bigots if we don’t, we’re haters if we
don’t, or two women can marry each other, okay, well then why not two women and a man and another
man and two other woman? Why can't four people go together and create a married state? This newest
trend is called polyandry, many loves. Polyandry, it's a group relationship, and it's both gay and straight.
In other words, it's a mixture of gay and straight, females and males together in one marriage
relationship, they're married.

This is the next challenge that's coming down the line that we will begin seeing and reading about and
dealing with in the courtroom. Because (scoffs) you know, we've already broken, we’ve already broken
the sacred base, which is one man and one woman. Well so now if two men could be married, why not
some other thing? They’ve always been trying to lower the age of consent from 18 to 16 to 14, why not
a 30-year-old man and a 13-year-old woman, why not? Girl, actually, okay. So we have open marriages,
you know, swingers, we have, of course, nowadays gay marriages.
Common law marriages where there's no legal bond. So all of these styles may be permitted in one
society or another, but they don't conform to God's original design for marriage described in the Bible,
what I call a sacred marriage. So you're living together and you're committed to one another, you never
kind of legalized it, but you love each other, you may even have children together, you know. And
people will say, "Well how dare you “not call that a marriage! “I think, I’m not, I'm not suggesting that
those two people don’t love each other, I'm not even suggesting that they're not committed to each
other, I’m not saying that at all. What I'm saying is what that thing is, it’s not a sacred marriage, and it’s
a common law marriage. It's a marriage of sorts, and if works for you, fine.
But please don't call it a sacred marriage, because a sacred marriage is the highest form of commitment,
where we commit ourselves legally before God to be husband and wife, that's the highest form of
commitment that exists in our society. And that as Christians, that's what we promote. We say nothing
less than that is acceptable in God's eyes. And so the first element or feature in God's design for
marriage is one man, one woman, who is committed before God and man, meaning a legal commitment
to live as husband and wife. The second element, so that's the first element, one man, one woman. The
second element is the covenant. This is the feature in God's design for marriage. It always contains a
covenant.
Now, verse 23 and 24 in Genesis, these verses express the details contained in the original marriage
covenant between Adam and Eve. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones “and flesh of my flesh.
"She shall be called Woman because she's taken out of Man. "So the first element of the covenant is
respect and honour. A woman is equal in nature and value to a man. She may have a different role in the
marriage, but she's equal. Verse 24a, for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother.
And so a change in priorities and responsibility is agreed upon by both partners, which means there's a
new commitment. Before I was committed to my parents, my home family, as a son, as a daughter. But
now that I'm married, I have a new commitment that precedes my other commitment. And then in
verse 24b, it says, and they be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. The marriage union is
exclusive. In this way, Adam and Eve expressed their marriage vows to the only legal authority possible
at that time that was God himself. Interestingly, God and the angels were also the witnesses of this
contract or covenant between Adam and Eve. And so what constitutes a marriage between a man and a
woman is the covenant, the contract, the promise, that they have made to one another. That's what
makes them married.
Therefore what makes a man and a woman married is not sexist’s the covenant. Otherwise, you'd be
married to everyone you've ever had sex with. That's doesn't make any sense. For Adam and Eve, it was

a spoken covenant before God. In our society, it's the exchange of vows and a written contract before a
representative of the government, a clergyman, a judge, something, justice of the peace. And every
society has some form of this covenant-making that seals a marriage commitment between a man and a
woman. Every society, even primitive societies, you know, a dowry has to be paid, and you know,
whatever.
So if there's a house and there's sextant there are joint bank accounts, but no covenant, then there's no
sacred marriage before God. You know, buying a house together isn’t what makes you married. And
God's design for marriage set forth in the Bible, there are two main elements. One man, one woman
who freely choose to enter into a marriage with each other, along with a legal covenant and contract
laying out the terms of their agreement to marry. So, one question here, we're almost done, one
question here, why this design? Well, aside from the fact that it is God's design, the plan is fairly simple
to understand, but in its simplicity it manages to serve, this, this design right here, one man, one woman
with the covenant,
It serves us as human beings very well. For example, it serves us emotionally. In Proverbs it says, he who
finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains a favour from the Lord. You know, man needs
companionship. And I don't mean males, I mean man, mankind. Men and women were not created to
be alone. This was not God's purpose. The Bible says that those who live the single life and they do so
without problems are able to do so because God has given them a special gift. And they don't even need
to believe in God.
I know people who don't believe in God, but who have the ability to just be single. We had a friend of
ours, he's passed away now, Mike Tobey, remember, Mike Tobey, he was an opera singer, and he was
also a preacher. And he earned his living by preaching for this small church in Ontario. And he would do
regional theater, and he had a beautiful voice. He was a tenor and he sang, and so on and so forth. And
he wasn't married, never had a girlfriend, wasn’t interested, you know. And we talked once privately, he
says, “You know, people think I'm gay, but I'm not. “He said, "You know," he says, "I just, “I don't have
the desire to have a relationship “with a woman, I have no desire “to have a family or anything like that.
"He says, "I have many friends, I have nephews, “he says, "I have a full life. “I have the Lord, I have my
work, and I have my ministry. "He says, "I'm quite a content person.”Yeah, that's a gift, you know, well
for you. It's not the way I would want to live, but I mean, he was able to live in that way, and he would
say, "I don't have to struggle “with sexual desires and unfulfilled sexual desires. "I don't struggle with
those things. "Well, well. And how good is God? How old was he? 52, something like that. He died in his
sleep when he was 52.
His heart stopped and he died in his sleep. You know, how good God is, he didn't even live to be old, you
know, by himself. And so even though the single life is possible, many people live and honour God with
the single life. Married life is the one that we are designed for, and we are encouraged to pursue
whenever possible. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains a favour from the Lord.
Absolutely, but that works both ways. She who finds a husband obtains a favour from the Lord. Why is
this design or why this design? It serves us emotionally; it also serves us physically and sexually.

In Genesis 2:24 it says, for this reason man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife
and they shall become one flesh. So within marriage, our powerful sex drives translated into a
wonderful and meaningful experience. Within marriage, we share love given, love received in the most
dynamic, mysteriously wonderful way possible. We're comforted without words. We enjoy pleasure
without guilt. While the sex drive is within us alone, it's unfulfilled. All it is a powerful force. When
expressed within marriage, it has the ability to build our relationship and create something healthy and
something meaningful. Sex within marriage creates family which serves not only us, but it serves society
as well.
Family fulfills our need to belong, our need to not be alone. And all of these things are provided within
marriage without guilt or shame, because the covenant that created the commitment for life came
before the sexual intimacy. People's sex drives with marriage are troubled because they violate this
principle. You know, not only preachers, but many counsellors tell us that the biggest problems with sex
inside of marriage is that there's too much sex outside of marriage. And then marriage serves us
spiritually by helping us to serve God.
In Genesis 1:28, the writer says, God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth “and subdue it and rule over the fish of the seas “and over the birds of the sky, “and over
every living thing that moves on the earth. "Adam and Eve served God by managing the garden. The true
objective of marriage, believe it or not, is not paying off the mortgage; it’s not even educating the kids
or retiring in security financially. God created marriage so that men and women within marriage could
render honour and service to God as partners. So this brings us back to our original survey and what it
proves. Marriages that didn't recognize and serve God had terribly high risk of failure. However, the
more people recognized and served God, the greater happiness they had in their marriage. Remember
those, (clears throat) remember those divorce statistics; keep those divorce statistics in mind.
So what's the point of all of this? Just, you know, stuff to pack up and take home. If you're not married,
you're an unmarried person, make sure you use God's plan, because if you do, you'll have much greater
chance of success. And if you are married, if you have trouble, then review the plan to make sure it is
still operating in your relationship. All right, well obviously, can’t cover everything about marriage in 10,
30 minutes here. But some of the myths anyways, you still hear it to this day, people spouting these
marriage myths. Next week we're going to talk about now that we're together, what actually changes
when we get married? What actually changes? We’re going to talk about that next week.
More articles: https://vocal.media/filthy/sexual-health-and-marriage

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