3 Problems Marriage Won’t Fix

Proverbs 18:22

When you are single it is easy to assume that marriage will solve a lot of the issues you are experiencing. In some cases, marriage really can help you. Through a healthy Christian marriage, you will experience companionship, support, and a teammate in life that truly is a blessing. For as Proverbs 18:22, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”

However, there are some issues that Christians can experience in singleness that marriage will not solve. Here are three problems marriage will not fix.

A Relationship Issue (Fighting, Bad Communication, Disrespect, Etc.)

One big misconception about marriage is that it will automatically improve your relationship. However, in many cases this is simply not true. When there is a relationship issue between two people, getting married will not do anything to solve that issue. In some cases getting married might actually enhance the issues that are occurring in the relationship.

For example, if you are constantly fighting with your boyfriend or girlfriend, getting married will probably cause more fights because now you will be spending even more time together. You will be sharing all your possessions. If you don’t actually address the underlying issues in your heart that are causing the fights to occur, marriage will not solve this problem.

Bad communication, disrespect, or feeling like the other person doesn’t understand your needs are problems that are not connected to your marital status. Marriage doesn’t give you communication skills and Christian relationship knowledge. It joins to people before God. But those people will be the same two people in marriage.

Porn Addiction

Another big myth about Christian marriage is that it will solve your porn addiction. Many singles believe that if they could just have sex in marriage that they would then never look at pornography again. While sex is certainly meant for marriage, getting married will not automatically sanctify your sexuality.

If you did not find healing and maturity in your sexuality before marriage, you will simply bring those issues into your marriage as well. Marriage does not solve a porn addiction because a porn addiction is not about a lack of sex. Porn and lust are an idol in the heart. If you worship the god of sex, you will still worship the god of sex in marriage.

When you fight with your spouse, when your spouse needs to go away on a trip, or if things are getting stressful in life, that desire for porn will appear just like it did when you were single. Don’t think that a porn addiction will go away once you get married. Deal with it now and rely on Christ. He’s the only solution to this issue, not marriage.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

Unhappiness

There are many other problems that people often hope will be solved through marriage, but perhaps the best summary of this false belief is the lie that marriage will solve the issue of unhappiness. If you are an unhappy person before getting married, getting married will not be a long-term solution to your joylessness.

Marriage may make you happy at first, but as real life begins marriage will not be an everlasting beacon of unending joy. God has made us for himself, and our hearts will not be satisfied until they find their rest completely in him. Once you are happy in the Lord, marriage will bring you joy. But if you ask too much of marriage it will let you down and then become a source of sadness rather than joy.

Marriage is meant to be the joining of two healthy Christians who are enjoying the Lord together. When they turn from the Lord and towards each other, their joy will vanish.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:8)