Marriage Rebranded Read online

  PRAISE FOR MARRIAGE REBRANDED

  Marriage Rebranded marks the debut of a gifted writer, astute thinker, and earnest believer. Tyler Ward asks all the right questions about marriage and comes up with compelling answers. If you want to think more deeply about marriage, more biblically, and more thoughtfully, this is the book for you.

  Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage and A Lifelong Love

  I am not a fan of “marriage” books because they tend to be formulaic and boring. Marriage Rebranded is neither. Witty, entertaining, and thoughtfully authentic, Tyler has delivered an unusually artistic conversation starter and enhancer worthy of your time and attention.

  William Paul Young, author of The Shack and Crossroads

  In Marriage Rebranded, Tyler Ward approaches the fearsome subject of marriage with caution, humility, and a refreshing dose of humor. In a culture where the sacramental vision of marriage continues to erode, Ward asks the big questions and invites the reader to contemplate the mystery of love.

  Jonathan Jackson, actor, author, and musician

  Tyler Ward cleverly and clearly uncovers some of the most commonly held misconceptions of marriage. At a time when many singles and married couples have been confused by popular societal myths regarding relationship, Marriage Rebranded sets a solid foundation to build godly relationships. We highly recommend this book to singles and married couples alike.

  Barry and Lori Byrne, marriage and family therapists, authors of Love After Marriage

  I just finished reading Marriage Rebranded and I’m blown away! Tyler Ward isn’t just teaching us how to dream, expect, and get more out of our marriage—he has also raised the bar for what an advice book can and should be. Wrapped in refreshing vulnerability, compelling storytelling, and uncommon insight, Marriage Rebranded is a life-giving resource for any marriage and an absolute must-read for young couples.

  Chance Scoggins, Grammy-award winning producer and blogger

  Marriage Rebranded offers an all-too-necessary re-vision for the working power of matrimony in a couple’s life, while not shying away from the unanticipated realities that marriage brings out in each individual. Tyler gathers the best of the best in relevant marriage materials from a wide range of authors, teachers, and thinkers, to construct a beautifully renewed model of marriage, hand-painted from his own testimonies of trial and error.

  Jared Black, speaker, writer, and theologian

  The best artists often take the most common or familiar subjects and represent them in a way that unveils the divine essence within. In the following pages, Tyler Ward masterfully infuses the sacred colors back into the often tired, black and white world of holy matrimony. Whether single, newlywed, or seasoned in the art of marriage, the following pages are sure to enhance your view, grace your understanding, and strengthen your resolve to love more deeply.

  Brady Toops, singer, songwriter

  I’m honored to be one of the voices Tyler sought to speak into “rebranding” your marriage. But I think it’s Tyler’s wife, Analee’s voice who makes the strongest case for why you should read this book. She writes, “I am incredibly thankful he (Tyler) has been so committed to finding the greatness in marriage and leading us toward it.” That’s EXACTLY where you want your marriage to go! So if you’re ready to “rebrand” your marriage from good, ordinary, or even deeply disappointing, to simply “GREAT,” this helpful, hopeful, hands-on book is a must-read.

  John Trent, president of Strong Families and author of The Blessing

  What I love about this book is that it speaks to your heart and your mind, which is rare in a lot marriage books. It’s real, humorous, and insightful, which is also surprisingly refreshing. Love is a wild ride, as we know. It’s ever changing and extremely crazy at times, but I am happy to say that I will have this book on board with me as a companion during its adventure. Very thankful for the truth in these pages, very thankful indeed.

  Phillip Larue, Billboard Top 100 songwriter

  Marriage Rebranded shifted our paradigms. It built a more realistic perspective about marriage and how to do love well. This book is a must-read that will build determination and hope in your hearts no matter the season of marriage you’re in.

  Colin Benward and Caitlin Crosby-Benward, founders of The Giving Keys

  © 2014 by

  TYLER WARD

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

  Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

  Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

  Edited by Stephanie S. Smith of (In)dialogue Communications

  Interior Design: Design Corps

  Cover Design: Darren Lau

  Cover photo of sparkler copyright © 2013 by Eduard Bonnin/Stocksy. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ward, Tyler.

  Marriage rebranded : modern misconceptions & the unnatural art of loving another person / Tyler Ward.

  pages cm

  Summary: “Though statistics say marriage is a risky bet, many people still want to give it a try. While other books may dwell on the downsides of marriage, Marriage Rebranded will help you see the flipside of those ideas: Happily Ever After Isn’t the Point, Marriage Isn’t About Getting, Love Isn’t Something We Fall Into, and more. It’s time to rebrand marriage, to take something great that suffers from bad branding and give it the brand it actually deserves. If we let it, marriage can change the world”-- Provided by publisher.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-8024-1183-9 (paperback)

  1. Marriage. 2. Interpersonal relations. I. Title.

  HQ519.W37 2014

  306.81--dc23

  2014007220

  Websites and phone numbers listed herein are accurate at the time of publication, but may change in the future or cease to exist. The listing of website references and resources does not imply publisher endorsement of the site’s contents. Groups, corporations, and organizations are listed for informational purposes, and listing does not imply publisher endorsement of their activities.

  We hope you enjoy this book from Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

  Moody Publishers

  820 N. LaSalle Boulevard

  Chicago, IL 60610

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.

  The superior teacher demonstrates.

  The great teacher inspires.”

  —William Arthur Ward

  To those who have

  explained,

  demonstrated,

  and inspired this book….

  JARED ETHAN BLACK

  WILLIAM PAUL YOUNG

  LORI and BARRY BYRNE

  RABBI SHALOM ARUSH
>
  GARY THOMAS

  JOHN MEDINA

  GARY CHAPMAN

  JONATHAN JACKSON

  PAUL E. RALPH

  DUANE and KATHY WARD

  Thank you for painting a picture of marriage worth fighting for.

  And to ANALEE,

  You’re my Super Bowl, a daily reminder that life is good, and my favorite choice. Thank you for putting up with my crazy experiments and my exceptionally slow learning curve as a husband.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  A PICTURE WORTH FIGHTING FOR

  My Story. A Modern Story.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CARVING TO THE SKIN

  Happily Ever After Isn’t the Point

  CHAPTER THREE

  REAL ROMANCE

  Consumers Don’t Make Good Lovers

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ONE + ONE = ONE

  Love Isn’t Something We Fall Into

  CHAPTER FIVE

  YOU, ME, AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

  What Happens at Home Doesn’t Stay at Home

  BONUS CHAPTER

  CAVE TALK

  Success, Porn, and Other Things Men Must Overcome to Win at Marriage

  NOTES

  Thank you for choosing this Moody Collective title. It is our prayer that this book will help you know Jesus Christ more and love Him more deeply.

  The proceeds from your purchase help pay the tuition of students attending Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. MBI offers excellent Biblical training and free tuition to undergraduate students, allowing students to graduate and pursue ministry work without being burdened by extra debt. These students come from around the globe and graduate better equipped to impact our world for Christ. Your purchase makes that possible.

  Other Moody Ministries that reach out to impact our world for Christ are Moody Radio and Moody Distance Learning. To learn more, visit moodyradio.org and moodydistancelearning.org

  Thanks again,

  The Moody Collective Team

  A part of Moody Publishers

  CHAPTER ONE

  A PICTURE WORTH FIGHTING FOR

  My Story. A Modern Story.

  I could feel the veins in my neck bulging.

  The veins in my neck never bulge. I’m the emotionally unhealthy guy who internalizes everything—no matter how much the circumstance warrants a reaction.

  The more she explains how my negligence of our relationship makes her feel, the more I want to jump in my truck and spend the weekend alone on the open road—neglecting our relationship.

  Instead, I apply the proven tactic of bringing up unrelated isues as a means to make her feel shame. And voilà—she backs down and the night ends right on queue.

  We then resort to our increasingly popular nightcap. I walk out slamming the door behind me for dramatic effect. She crawls under the covers in tears—but not before setting up her wall of pillows down the middle of the bed just to remind me, when I do come to sleep, that things are not okay.

  Needless to say, Analee and I didn’t come into marriage expecting, after only eighteen months, that screaming matches, excessive amounts of frustration, and pillow walls would become our norm. How did we get here? How does anyone get here?

  To answer that question, we should probably start from the beginning.

  IN THE BEGINNING.

  I used to think I was a decently articulate guy, reasonably comfortable in my own skin. Then Analee would walk in the room.

  Instantly, I had nothing but unintelligible things to say and a deep urge to be someone cooler and wiser and generally better than myself.

  She was everything I wanted—everything I dreamed of in a woman. Electric personality. Exotically gorgeous. Lit up a room. World-travelled. She had a faith that was real and seasoned. She did most of the talking so I didn’t have to. The list went on, and as it did, I became more and more convinced I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life waking up next to her.

  Of course, that meant she would have to feel the same way about me—a risky endeavor for any woman.

  It took me six months of running in the same social circles to work up the courage to talk to her. Fortunately, I found the grit to mumble words in her direction and after a handful of texts—which may or may not have involved a few helpful Justin Timberlake lyrics—we found ourselves dating. Nine months later, I convinced her to marry me.

  Saying “I do” to Analee is one of the better choices I’ve made in life. Anyone who knows us would concur and secretly wonder how I married so far up.

  Our first year and a half of marriage felt like a perpetual sleepover with my best friend. We lived in a tiny cottage, in a quaint city, and bought a cute dog—all the makings of an absolute dream.

  Then it happened.

  It only took me eighteen months and a few blunted expectations to feel sincerely disappointed with marriage. There was nothing “wrong” with Analee. In fact, she was as lovely as she had ever been. This disappointment had little to do with her, and everything to do with my own misinformed ideas about marriage and their inability to support the very unnatural art of loving another person.

  I had brought suitcases of misconceptions to the altar. And as these misconceptions were tested in the face of a very real relationship, we slowly but surely waved goodbye to our best friend slumber party and Norman Rockwell picturesque life.

  Unresolved conflict soon became a staple of our relationship.

  Failed expectations, yelling matches, and sleeping with a pillow fortress between us was not entirely new to this season. Yet these episodes seemed to be more frequent and less forgiving than in our first year of marriage.

  We weren’t supposed to be the ones in a perpetual fight. After all, we had all the tools to have a successful relationship. We knew each other’s love languages. We had navigated conflict in the past. All throughout year one of newlywed life, we spent two hours every other week in counseling so we could avoid meltdowns like the ones we were now consistently experiencing. We were the couple who underlined and dog-eared their marriage books. Yet despite having all the tools at our fingertips, we often found ourselves too angry, exhausted, and generally uninterested in using them.

  Something was missing. We both felt it. We both wondered why.

  We exhausted those books early on, subtly believing that if we could expose ourselves to all of the best three-step formulas and tab them for easy reference, we could somehow avoid all of the ugly, uncomfortable realities of life with another human being.

  But we couldn’t. And as it turns out, we were never meant to.

  As I took inventory of our relationship, the one thing I couldn’t seem to find was a vision for our marriage worth fighting for. Don’t get me wrong, I thought I knew what we were—by default—trying to build together: a happy life. A loving relationship. Two successful careers with a cushy joint bank account. A someday-family we could spend the rest of our lives driving to soccer practices, sending to college, and pushing out of the nest so we could retire into wild motor home adventures. But in the midst of a relationship that internally demanded so much, something told me a dream lifestyle wasn’t the kind of vision that our marriage needed.

  What we needed was a better picture of what marriage could be…one that didn’t stop at a well-insulated life with a good partner and kids who don’t do drugs. We needed a picture that answered in the deepest part of us why marriage is

  important,

  and valuable,

  and worth investing into as much as it asks of us.

  The interesting thing is that most of us today have a vision for marriage—whether or not we recognize it or can put it into words. We all bring to the table some construct of what we hope it will be. It’s not a lack of vision that threatens many marriages today. What threatens our marriages is that many of our visions for matrimony have been crafted by modern and misguided ideas about love.

  The next one hundred or so pages are about exposing these misguided ideas and exploring
a vision of marriage worth fighting for.

  MODERN MATRIMONY IS A STALE BRAND.

  My general disillusionment with marriage is a popular place to land these days.

  Sociologists say marriage is fundamentally broken.

  Historians say it’s outdated.

  Progressives say it’s not even necessary.

  And tragically, statistics seem to say it’s not worth it.

  In America, one marriage ends every ten to thirteen seconds.1 Almost half of the weddings you go to this year will celebrate the union of a couple who won’t stay together. And if they do stay together for more than ten years, one out of every four of them will say they are unfulfilled in their relationship—but too comfortable to leave.2

  The number of Americans saying “I do” has dropped each decade since the 1950s and cohabiting-but-unmarried partnerships have risen 1,000 percent over the last forty years.3 “The question has become,” as social scientist Andrew Cherlin says, “not why fewer people are getting married, but why so many are still getting married?”4

  The disheartening statistics go on. Yet the statistics are also incredibly understandable.

  Our parents’ generation was handed a vision of marriage that apparently wasn’t worth more than a 50 percent success rate.5 They added their own dysfunctional patterns, as did any generation before them, and passed on this mediocre brand of what is supposed to be the height of human relationship.

  As the infamous Newsweek article “The Case Against Marriage” put it, “Many grew up shepherded between bedrooms, minivans, and dinner tables, with stepparents, half-siblings, and highly complicated holiday schedules. You can imagine, then—amid incessant high-profile adultery scandals—that we’d be somewhat cynical about the institution [of marriage].”6

  Then again, your parents may be about to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary of being happily married. Or maybe you’ve been fortunate enough to grow up with very functional and loving divorced parents. Or maybe you’re just now entering marriage with nothing but the very best hopes and dreams. Regardless of the good, bad, or ugly exposure we’ve had personally to the institution of marriage, it’s hard to deny that the path to marital disappointment is all around us. It’s put on display every day—in the news, in celebrity relationships, in our friends’ and coworkers’ lives—and the truth is that even in the healthiest relationships, we will inevitably have moments with our spouse that cause us to entertain this exceedingly popular misunderstanding—the key word here—that marriage, as an ideal, is simply broken and disappointing.