Dear Husband, You Will Never Complete Me
I love you, but you don’t complete me. In fact, you will never complete me. You are not actually my other half. You can never be that for me.
Whoa. That seems harsh, but in reality, it is actually the marking of a very healthy relationship. “You complete me” may be one of your favorite romantic lines of all time, but the line actually reveals a very dysfunctional misnomer about marriage. Two people relying on one another to fill the gaps within themselves is not a great marriage. A great marriage is two fulfilled people relying on God to fill their emptiness and thus they are empowered to live in true unity with one another.
You may hear this Bible verse quoted a lot, even the Bible quotes it a lot! “The two shall become one flesh” Gen 2:24/ Mark 10:8/ Eph 5:31. The two becoming one is not only a sexual union, but it is also a spiritual union. At NAME we like to describe the one flesh principle through something that we call the Mathematics of Marriage.
It is true that ½ + ½ = 1, however, when we add one another to our lives, it is thus easy to subtract one another from our lives. That is exactly the motivation that many with this mentality have toward marriage. I married him because he was supposed to complete me; he stopped making efforts to fulfill my needs so he no longer is a part of my life. In other words, when you are looking to add someone to your life to fix your own emptiness, you will inevitably be disappointed when he isn’t superman. You will naturally attempt to gravitate towards someone else who looks like he can “meet your needs” better than your current husband.
It is also true that 1 x 1 = 1. Imagine this: two whole people, whose needs are met and fulfilled in Christ, are empowered and unified together in marriage. Neither suck one another dry, demanding his or her needs to be fulfilled. Neither seek outside fulfillment because they are happy in their marriage. Both gain their fulfillment and completion through God, and thus are able to overflow the love that they get from God into one another’s lives.
This is God’s intent for marriage. You were not meant to complete one another. You were meant to be complete in Christ. Two whole beings do not make aggressive demands at one another. Two whole being do not rely on one another to be super human and expect each other to heal past wounds. Two whole beings rely on God to meet those needs and thus do not drain one another.
Dear Husband, you will never complete me… because you were not made to. I will never demand you to do a job that only God is capable of. I love you with the love that God has filled me with, and I vow to make God my source, so that you will only be an outpouring of that which I receive from Him.