A Key To Intimacy In Marriage - FRIENDSHIP

One of the key factors to increasing intimacy in your marriage relationship is FRIENDSHIP

John 15:15 "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

"Friendship" exemplifies the open, intimate, respectful, mutually submissive relationship Christ builds with his people. Such friendship is a wonderful model for what God wishes for our marriages.

Any survey of long-lasting and fulfilling marriages reveals that the central component that carries a couple through the tough times and allows them to benefit the most from the good ones is friendship.

Love, in the absence of friendship, is only a hormonal illusion. One cannot desire another person over the long haul without really being friends with him or her.

Creating and then sustaining significant friendship in marriage is no easy task. It takes work to resist the downward pull of the baggage we bring into the relationship and overcome the barriers that stand in the way.

Kinder and Cowan have identified five barriers to friendship in marriage:

1.  Looking outside of the marriage for your best friend. We need to look first inside our marriages for friendship, then look outside. 

          Is your spouse your best friend?        ❑ YES    ❑ NO

2.  Lack of sharing.  Not being direct, honest and open destroys any chance of real friendship.  

3.  Viewing your mate as inferior.  The give-and-take of friendship occurs only when we approach our mate as an equal. It requires us looking at each other as "heirs together" — co-equals in God's sight. 

          Are you and your spouse on level ground with each other?    ❑ YES    ❑ NO

          Which one is viewed as superior and why?

4.  Lack of acceptance.  Friends are tolerant of differences. We don't expect our friends to be our mirror images, but admit to it or not, many of us expect our mate to be exactly that.

          Do you feel accepted by your mate, just the way you are?     ❑ YES    ❑ NO

5.  Holding grudges.  Old grudges and resentments have to be set aside.   The past needs to be forgiven and left in the past.  Recycling old issues, resentments, and hurts will only create bitterness in the marriage relationship. The Apostle Paul writes this great encouragement about the need to forgive each other in order to get rid of the potential for bitterness and anger.

Ephesians 4:31-32  Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.

CONCLUSION

God's design is that we would achieve intimacy in marriage.  It doesn't happen automatically or easily because it is inevitable that there will come conflicts and moments of disagreements, disappointments, and/or dissatisfactions. We must desire intimacy and be willing to work hard to attain it. We must rise above our own selfish pride and pettiness, that stands in the way, and seek one another's forgiveness as we make every effort to be kind and tenderhearted to one another. 

Further Reading: 
1. The Role of Friendship in Marriage

2. The Art of Friendship in Marriage