Leave
& Cleave (adapted from “The Art of Marriage”
video series)
Most
married couples have heard that we must “leave our fathers and mothers and
cling to our spouse.” While it’s not easy, it is necessary. Psychologist Dan
Allender says in the book, Intimate
Allies, that “the failure to shift loyalty from parents to spouse is a
central issue in almost all marital conflict.” Some of the ways we fail to
leave our parents include:
- Relying
on our parents for emotional support instead of turning to our spouse
- Remaining
financially dependent upon our parents
- Speaking
negatively about our spouse to our parents
- Turning to a parent to resolve an argument between us
For us, personally, this was a real challenge, especially in
the early years of our marriage. Leaving my parents
wasn’t the problem, but clinging to
Paul - making him and our relationship a priority was. My bond with my parents was
loving and strong. We shared a condo with them at the coast for our “family”
vacation every summer. Over the years I sensed Paul’s resentment and
frustration over this arrangement was building and that he wanted our own space
as a family. I ignored him by pretending it wasn’t an issue. I judged it would
hurt my parents if I uninvited them to go with us and I wanted to avoid that at
all costs – even the cost of unity with Paul. It took a 3 month separation 12
years into our marriage for me to finally recognize that I had failed to leave
and cleave. One of our biggest issues was me failing to put Paul’s wishes ahead
of my desire to please my parents. We finally tackled the issue of changing our
vacation plans and I made the decision to talk to my parents. I not only
demonstrated to Paul that he comes first, but I gave my parents the chance to
be supportive of our marriage.
When
Stephanie finally spoke to her parents, I felt tremendous relief and
appreciation. Regardless of how my in-laws responded, I saw Stephanie choose me
over her parents and that was something new and wonderful. It became the
foundation upon which we built greater trust, security, and reliance on one
another. I was no longer an additional member of Stephanie’s existing family. We
were finally becoming our own family.
We’ve shared
with our adult children that when they get married they are forming a new
family apart from us. We’ve given them
the freedom to rely on their beloved first and that we are secondary support,
not life support. We learned the hard way that leaving and cleaving is the
difficult first step of having a joy filled marriage.
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