Marriage Insight: Do You Cherish Your Spouse?

Marriage Insight: Do You Cherish Your Spouse?

Do you treat your spouse as if you cherish him or her? This is the question that was addressed on a Focus on the Family radio program with author Gary Thomas. Gary wrote the book titled, “CHERISH: The One Word That Changes Everything for Your Marriage.” And he’s right; it can change everything. It’s like what Gary says, "Most marriages survive by gritting teeth and holding on. But marriages can and will not only survive but thrive when husbands & wives learn to cherish one another." The question is, do you aim for your marriage to merely survive, or to thrive?

Now we know that you aren’t the only spouse in your marriage. You aren’t the only one who can do everything to make your marriage thrive. But what about doing what you promised? In the traditional wedding vow, most of us make the promise: "I take you to be my beloved ____ to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish, until death parts us." Do you see the word “CHERISH” in that vow? Most of us promise that, but do we actually do that after the shine of the wedding starts to fade? 

In this interview and in his book, Gary talks about marital love. He says: "I believe 'cherish' is taking our marriages to the next level. Just about all of us pledged to love & to cherish till death do us part. We always speak about love, & when we think about love, we think about commitment, sacrifice & hanging in there. Cherish raises the bar a bit higher."

He goes on to talk about infatuation compared to love. He says, “The problem with infatuation is what neurologists, those that study the brain, call 'idealization.' You're giving the person strengths they don't really have. You're missing the weakness that everybody else sees, but you don't. You've fallen in love with a person who actually doesn't exist. …[True love] is being fully known & fully accepted. You can't accept somebody that you don't really know. You're accepting a mirage.

“You can't maintain an infatuation. Infatuation happens whether you want it to or not. …It comes and goes. Cherishing can be built with a new mind-set, with a new heart-set. By doing actions that move us to cherish our spouse, we become more cherishing.

“Cherishing is more important than infatuation. That's the whole point behind cherish as a new model for marriage. Marriages should be better in 2017 than they were in 1917 or 1967, because in every other arena of social society & intellectual thought, we grow. So, why don't we try to take our marriages to the next level and say, it's not just about staying in there? It's about a wife who really feels cherished, a husband who really feels cherished, so that people can see, infatuation is wonderful. But there's something even better on the other side. If we stay with this, and we work through it, we can get something that pays off even more.”

I have to say that Steve has shown that he not only loves me, but he goes “the extra mile.” He shows that he cherishes me. I’ve told this to him & others for years and have the privilege of living it. And Steve says the same about him—that he feels cherished. But as he says, it’s more in the form of feeling respected and honored. That’s how he feels cherished. Sadly, it wasn’t always that way. We now (& we continue to) work through what it takes to be in this place in our relationship. We hope to inspire others (like you) to do the same, & to see that showing love and devotion to your spouse, is a way of showing love and devotion to God. Here’s one final point Gary makes:

"We talked about a lifelong love, seeing our marriage as worship, that recognizing that that's one of the best ways I could love my heavenly Father, was treating Him as my 'Father-in-law' & loving on His daughter." The same is true of a wife who is showing love to His son, her husband. When we view marital love in that way, we can't help but move to the level of cherishing our spouse, as God cherishes His children. He loves & cherishes, so we love & cherish—Him AND our spouse.

May it be so, we pray… Cindy and Steve Wright