One fundamental reason why people get married is because they want to be better off in marriage than being single. I doubt there is any man or woman who nurses the ambition of going into the marital union and become worse off than they were before they got married. Marriage usually is meant to bring out the best in you, and not the worse in you.

 

The reason is because there are certain things you may never be able to accomplish on your own being single, until you enter into the marriage institution. For example, if you desire to have children God’s way (and not becoming a “baby mama” like they do in the world today), it means you cannot do it until you are married legitimately and legally.

 

There are certain things you may not be able to adequately execute while single until you are duly married. God looked at Adam and felt like, “this man would be more effective in this garden if he has a help meet.” So, Eve came into the picture.

 

Furthermore, if you examine that Scripture again in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, it explains some form of support systems that the man and the woman would be to each other in the marriage relationship. So, as the wife, your husband is your number one support system as far as the marriage is concerned, and as the husband, your wife is your number one support system as well. The Bible says:

 

Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
¹⁰ For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
¹¹ Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

 

Based on the above passage, it then means that marriage should make you better off than remaining in a single state. But in a situation where you are in the marriage, and your experiences is worse off than when you were single, what that implies is that disequilibrium has set in and that is exactly what we want to talk about in this message. Marriage equilibrium occurs when the man and the woman are better off in the marriage. It is not a situation where it is the man who is doing well and the wife is struggling or the wife doing well and the husband is the one struggling to do well. Genesis 2:25 says “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” This verse describes a perfect state of equilibrium in the marriage.

 

What then is marriage disequilibrium? Marriage disequilibrium is a situation where a man or woman becomes worse off in marriage, rather than becoming better off for it. Marriage is supposed to make your life better off and not worse off. If the latter has been your experience in marriage, that means something is fundamentally wrong somewhere.

 

Types of Marriage Disequilibrium

There are two types of marriage disequilibrium. There is vertical disequilibrium and there is horizontal disequilibrium. VERTICAL DISEQUILIBRIUM occurs when the husband lords his position on the wife as the head of the marriage and therefore does not give the wife a breathing space. She feels she does not have a say and there is nothing she could suggest to her husband that the husband would accept. Let us see 1 Samuel 25:2-3, 14-17, 23-25 to buttress this point.

 

“Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel, and the man was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ The name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance; but the man was harsh and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Caleb.”

“Now one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master; and he reviled them. ¹⁵ But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, nor did we miss anything as long as we accompanied them, when we were in the fields. ¹⁶ They were a wall to us both by night and day, all the time we were with them keeping the sheep. ¹⁷ Now therefore, know and consider what you will do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his household. For he is such a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him.”

“Now when Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the donkey, fell on her face before David, and bowed down to the ground. ²⁴ So she fell at his feet and said: “On me, my lord, on me let this iniquity be! And please let your maidservant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your maidservant. ²⁵ Please, let not my lord regard this scoundrel Nabal. For as his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him! But I, your maidservant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent.”

 

Another thing that brings about vertical disequilibrium is when the man does not show love to his wife as commanded by the Lord. Let me quickly show us how lack of love can bring about marriage disequilibrium in the Bible as told in the story of Jacob and Leah. Genesis 29:31-35 and 30:17-21. The Bible says:

 

When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren. ³² So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “The Lord has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore, my husband will love me.” ³³ Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon. ³⁴ She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore, his name was called Levi. ³⁵ And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Therefore, she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

¹⁷ And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. ¹⁸ Leah said, “God has given me my wages, because I have given my maid to my husband.” So, she called his name Issachar. ¹⁹ Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. ²⁰ And Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons.” So, she called his name Zebulun. ²¹ Afterward she bore a daughter, and called her name Dinah.

 

HORIZONTAL DISEQUILIBRIUM occurs when the woman fails to submit to the leadership authority of her husband in the marriage. In this case, the man feels dishonored and disrespected. Submission in marriage does not make you less inferior in the marriage or a slave or not so much important. This is the notion that a lot of modern-day women has about the union of marriage and it is a wrong notion. Let us see Ephesians 5:22-24 in the Message translation so that you can see what truly submission means, because it is important that as a woman, you get this fact correctly. The Bible says:

 

“Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.” So, the word submission there connotes that you support your husband, give him the necessary assistance and help that he would need so that he can provide the needed leadership in the marriage. And it says, “support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ” which means that you should support your husband the way you would support Christ.

 

There is a popular story in Esther 1:10-12 that would further explains this horizontal disequilibrium to us. The Bible says:

 

“On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, ¹¹ to bring Queen Vashti before the king, wearing her royal crown, in order to show her beauty to the people and the officials, for she was beautiful to behold. ¹² But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command brought by his eunuchs; therefore, the king was furious, and his anger burned within him.”

 

 

How to Resolve Marriage Disequilibrium

I am going to show us four ways of resolving marriage disequilibrium using the word of God as our example.

 

In other to resolve marriage disequilibrium, there is something that the man is expected to bring to the table, and there is something the woman is also expected to bring to the table. More or less of those things would bring about disequilibrium in the marriage. We have established that love is essential on the part of the husband and submission is required on the part of the wife. Lack of either of those two things would bring about disequilibrium in the long run. Ephesians 5:33 says “Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her own husband.”

 

Another way to resolve marriage disequilibrium is that the husband and the wife must grow together. The moment either the husband or the wife outgrows each other, from that moment disequilibrium begins to set in. You know in the elementary theory of economics, the moment there is a slight shift in price, either upwards or downwards, disequilibrium sets in.

 

The same thing is also applicable in marriage. When the husband begins to look old and not handsome any longer to the wife, and the wife begins to look outdated to the husband and he begins to do all manner of untoward things outside of the marriage vows, something is fundamentally wrong. So, in order to avoid this, it is imperative that the husband and the wife should grow together in everything so that no one leaves the other behind. 2 Peter 3:17-18 says: “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; ¹⁸ but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

 

Another way to resolve marriage disequilibrium is that the husband and the wife must look for ways to come out of their misunderstanding as quick as possible. I was meditating on the statement that Adam made in Genesis 3:12 when he said to God “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” I mean, how could Adam have said something like that? I believe after they ate the fruit and they discovered they were naked, there must have been a serious misunderstanding and debate among the two of them as to who was responsible for what just happened to them.

 

The fact that he made that statement to God means that they were unable to resolve that misunderstanding before God came visiting and hence, that statement came out of his mouth. Another thing that would prove this notion to be true is evidenced in the sequence at which they were passing the bulk of the blame to the other person. Adam said “it was the woman”, the woman said “it was the serpent.” It was only the serpent that didn’t have where to push the bulk to because it came with the intent of taking them away from the purpose of God and that it got.

 

Another way to resolve marriage disequilibrium is that the husband and the wife must seek appropriate counsel. Don’t seek counsel from marriages that are struggling. Don’t seek counsel from a man or woman who is struggling to make his or her own marriage work. Look to people whose marriages are working and seek counsel from them because it is highly possible that the challenge you are battling with in your own marriage, they have overcome them. God said concerning Abraham and Sarah, “look to them.” If there is nothing to look to them for, God wouldn’t have commanded us to do so.

 

I believe you have learnt something!

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

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