One of the greatest joys of marriage is the ability to experience a level of intimacy with another person which transcends anything you have previously experienced in other human relationships. Intimacy is simply a sense of closeness – spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. Prior to marriage, we experience all sorts of other relationships with varying degrees of closeness. However, marriage is designed to bond us closely to our spouse in a way that is distinct and different from all other human relationships we enjoy. That bond of intimacy makes fun times even happier and tough times easier to bear. It is also the bond that helps us focus on achieving a common purpose together.
So how is the bond of intimacy created? In Genesis 2:24 the scriptures describe a two-stage process designed to create the highest level of intimacy possible between two humans. ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ This simple but profound statement was made by God as soon as He created marriage. The moment Adam laid eyes on Eve and came to the realisation that she was meant to share his life, God made this pronouncement. Essentially He was saying, ‘This is how this thing is designed to work’.
I have found that many times people focus on the ‘cleaving’ aspect of intimacy without first taking care of the ‘leaving’ aspect and consequently, as hard as they try, they never quite experience the intimacy they anticipated in marriage. It is crucial to note that when God made this pronouncement about intimacy, there was no such thing as a father or mother. God was addressing the first humans that ever existed who were to become the father and mother of the human race. Yet He felt it was important to set the ground rules for how marriage was designed to function, well before the complexities of family and in-laws ever existed. The formula is simple: you must leave, then you are properly positioned to cleave and ultimately you can become one. Marriage was not designed to work without this two-step process of leaving and cleaving.
‘Leaving’ has often been misunderstood to simply refer to geographical removal from your parents’ home. While this is part of the concept God had in mind, it does not embrace the full meaning of what He intended. You can be geographically separate from someone while mentally and emotionally you are still bound to them. Geographical separation is simply supposed to symbolise the spiritual, mental and emotional independence you have attained which indicates that you are now prepared and equipped for marriage. The role and responsibility of parents is to invest in and train their children with a view to releasing them into full independence at the appropriate time. It is an anomaly for a parent to cling to control over an adult child or for an adult child to remain dependent on the parent. A parent has not fully succeeded in his or her role until they have released their child into independent living. Letting go can be a difficult thing to do as parents when we have nurtured children for years but ultimately, when our job of shaping our children is done, we should be able to trust them into the hands of the God who said they have to ‘leave’ to fully enjoy the next phase of their lives.
So what does this mean in practice? Leaving does not mean abandoning your parents. That would be a violation of scripture because the Bible commands children to honour and care for their parents. In fact, Ephesians 6:2 makes the point that God’s commandment to honour your parents is the first commandment to which He attached a promise, so God takes our attitude to our parents very seriously. Nevertheless, for marriage to work, the nature and character of parental relationships, and all other relationships surrounding your life, need to change in order to make room for the marriage relationship. Leaving means you restructure your relationship priorities so that your spouse becomes your first priority. That is what the next phase of your life requires. Your relationship with your spouse must take pre-eminence above all other human relationships if your marriage is to thrive.
It is impossible to ‘cleave’ if you don’t leave. To cleave means to be joined to and adhere strongly to someone such that you become inseparable. If the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical bonds binding a person to their spouse are weaker than the bonds to their parents, that marriage will struggle and will never achieve the realms of intimacy possible, without a realignment of priorities. A marriage where leaving is incomplete becomes a dysfunctional marriage because you will be attempting to bind more than two people together in that union.
If you are struggling in this area, you need to recognise it and deal with it if you want your marriage to succeed. There are a number of ways to identify that your leaving process is not yet complete:
- When you have significant news, good or bad, and the first person you think to share it with is your parents, not your spouse
- When the opinions of others, particularly your parents, always weigh more heavily on your mind and influence your decision making more than your spouse’s opinions
- When your extended family actively disrespects the boundaries of your marriage (for example by trying to influence your decisions or making inappropriate demands of you, your time, your resources etc. to the detriment of your spouse and children). It simply means they fail to see your home as an independent unit but rather see you as an extension of themselves.
- When your extended family actively disrespects your spouse, whether present or absent, and you do not step in to protect your spouse. If your family feels comfortable to disrespect your spouse in your presence, it means you have enabled them.
No matter how well intentioned they are, in God’s design your extended family are not supposed to interfere with the intimate bond between husband and wife. Because they love you, they should support your autonomy as a family unit. Extended family is designed to be a support system for your marriage and you should be there for them and support them, without giving them pre-eminence over your husband or wife. It is your responsibility as a husband or wife to set the ground rules with your family as to how they relate to your spouse. If you establish excellent relationships and healthy boundaries with both sets of extended family, you will have placed your marriage on a sound footing to achieve the intimacy which God has designed you to enjoy.
