Here is the first response I received on the questions I posted about two becoming one and marriage.
Married 7.5 yeas.
1. what does the concept of 2 becoming 1 mean? It means just that, physically of course, but also that you share everything. Both your paychecks go into the same account and from that account you pay your bills, including the debt you respectively brought to the marriage. There is no "my" anymore, it is "ours". It means that your dreams/goals/visions align. I'm not saying that you both have to want to be lawyers or if you are a doctor you have to marry a doctor. I'm saying that if I have dream to stop abortion it would make for a horrible marriage for me to marry a man who performed them. My husband and I both have a dream to see our neighborhood united and come under God's authority. It would be detrimental to our marriage if Christian wanted to move here and I wanted to live in a gated community. We are one when it comes to how we spend our money. We have a small allowance that we can blow on anything with no accountability but outside of that and paying bills, we discuss every expense and are united as one when it comes to our spending. We are one when it comes to disciplining our children, if one thing doesn't work we talk about and are one when trying something else. Because Christian and I are one, Nick knows that when I tell him no, it also means dad will tell him no and it is not acceptable to ask another adult when one of us tells him no. I'm sure there are more things but this is all I have right now.
2. I think that is what 2 becoming 1 means to my husband
3. Has my view changed? I don't think it has. My parents have this view and my mom has always taught me the things I talked about in question 1.
4. The above is how I would explain it to a newly or nearly married couple.
5. How have I seen this work in my marriage? This works in marriages... this is what works in my marriage, I gave several examples in my first answer. We stick by this. We don't fight.
6. How have I seen this work in other marriages? Well... I learned this from my parents and they have been married for 35 years.
7. Do we do anything intentional to work on this idea? Christian just called me (literally 5 minutes ago) because he checked our bank account and found a few things that he wasn't sure about. He called me and asked what was going on- he didn't yell at me, he didn't accuse me of spending random money- and it turned out to be a legitimate expense. That was intentional. First to not yell at each other for things. Secondly the communication. I know some couples who wouldn't talk about this. He would see two paypal payments of 20$ made by the other and would think "well she just bought something on ebay for herself, I'm going to do the same thing." She would check the account and see that he bought something for himself and do the same thing. It is difficult for me to watch Nick ask dad to do something and have dad tell him no when I think it's ok to do. I have to be intentional not to undermine Christian in that instance. We have to be intentional to talk about how we are going raise our children. Ok so after typing all this I can boil it down to one word- COMMUNICATION. We have to be intentional about communicating with each other. Granted communicating comes easy to Christian and myself but we intend to do this.
8. Questions I would ask an older married couple.... What is your secret to being married 20, 30, 50 years? How do you deal with a major tragedy/loss in your marriage?
9.We do spend time with older couples. My parents have been married for 35 years. We are part of a life group at church, most of us are married and we are all ages (actually I think Christian and I are the youngest in the group.) and two of the couples we are good friends with have been married for 14 and 20 years although they are only 5-ish years older than us.
10. What marriage examples do I have in my life? I can't speak for what happens behind closed doors but what I have seen has all been positive. My family growing up, for the most part, are all married for the first time. my grandparents for almost 60 years, parents for 35 years. When my great-grandfather died, he would have been married to my great grandmother for almost 70 years. I wasn't exposed to divorce until I was in Jr high school when my uncle and aunt were divorced. My uncle had started going to church and his wife couldn't take it and started her own thing. He remarried to a Christian woman and now lead "Married for Life" classes for other couples.
11. Biblical concept of 2 becoming 1. I chose a marble cake for our wedding cake. The reason for this is because you have vanilla cake and chocolate cake, two different cakes, different flavors, different colors. They become one cake mixed together. They still keep their original color and flavor, yet they are baked together in a way that makes them one. They 'can' be taken apart but painfully with a lot of work and they will never be the same. I believe there is a verse in Psalms or Proverbs that equates divorce with "ripping apart". That brings a vision that looks to me like abortion, the ripping of flesh from someone.
12 When does this process take place? I believe you start practicing the communication when you date seriously. You talk about your dreams and visions. You discuss how you want to raise your children. You start to practice with finance when you become engaged- figuring out who will pay for what concerning the wedding. The process actually takes place during the wedding. This is when dad says "ok, you are going to be responsible for my daughter now" I think this is the symbolism in dad walking the bride down the aisle. He ushers her into life (church) and on a journey to meet her spouse (down the aisle). He relinquishes all responsibility to the husband and when the husband walks her down the aisle and out of the church that is symbolic of the husband leading her on a journey out of life. This is -grrr had to feed Levi and lost my train of thought-. oh, during the wedding is when the wife takes the husbands name, when you are married is when Credit unions will allow the spouse to join. We got into an accident on our honey moon. Christian didn't have a car so he didn't have insurance ( he was driving) but because we had just gotten married, even tho I hadn't changed my name or address with the insurance company, they covered him. This is the only acceptable time to become one physically and to become one financially.
Whew! Probably more than you bargained for but I love talking about good marriages, that's another passion Christian and I share. God has blessed us with an amazing marriage. I am embarrassed sometimes when I'm with the girls and they are talking about problems and I can't relate. You've heard the adage "to good to be true", well I'm still expecting the bottom to fall out. It feels to good to be true so it must me. It's just all God, we have minor disagreements but we've never "really" fought and you've known both of us long enough to know that Christian has a temper and I am moody. We should fight all the time! Statistically speaking we should be divorced or close to it by now- we've battled unemployment, loss of children, we practically lived together before getting married and we weren't virgins when we met and we live paycheck to paycheck but we don't have debt, we agree about our relationship with God and we talk. Chrisian tells me all the time that I am #2 in his life, God comes first and always will... that is the most romantic thing he says to me.
Ok, I'll stop now. I hope this is what you were looking for and I hope you haven't gotten bored and stopped reading by now. =)
