Are you actively related to some organization or group interested in making the world a better place?

Here the word “active” is important. Merely having a nominal membership or making a small donation is not enough. For despite the disunity which may result from differences regarding the support of “worthy causes,” the concern which these represent is of great importance to the success of the family itself.

To begin with, activity in a common cause which they earnestly share can be a powerful bond uniting the couple more closely. We know that men in the same combat unit, such as a bomber crew, quickly develop amazingly strong feelings of attachment for each other. Few things weld people together as strongly and as closely as fighting side by side against a common foe for a common goal.
 
LOVE   AND   SUCCESSFUL   MARRIAGE

In the second place, social concern is an indication that you can rise above the small, selfish interests which threaten a marriage. The man who is vitally interested in a better city government is not likely to spend too much time being suspiciously jealous of his wife.

The woman who is fighting for better schools will be less likely to feel resentful toward her husband because he does not bring her presents all the time. Those who are willing to make real sacrifices for ideal ends are certainly interested in something beyond themselves. And such a concern for others is among the most im¬portant character essentials for success in marriage.

Finally, an active social concern is essential to the job of being a good homemaker. It sounds very well to say, “My job is not to go running around to all kinds of meetings. The best way I can contribute to a better world is to stay home and do a good job with my own family.”

But what is “doing a good job?” Is it spending all one’s time in washing walls and cooking fancy dishes? Your family does not exist in a social vacuum. It is part of a community, of a social and economic system. Unless this larger setting is healthy, you may not be able to “do a good job.” The lady who resented a donation to the Better Government Association felt quite differently about it when her own daughter was robbed—a crime which greater police efficiency could have prevented.

Those who stay home and pay no attention to economic reform may feel quite differently about it when a depression comes which puts the husband out of a job. We live in what is, in some respects, an evil and a dangerous world. We cannot put out a fire or prevent world conflagration by staying home and minding our own business.

The gangs in the neighborhood, the condition of the government and the schools—these are the business of parents, far more than running a vacuum cleaner and frying chicken. Nor is it enough merely to check evils. We must also participate in the intelligent planning and creative building of the future.

People are rightly committed to great social and religious purposes, and to the programs and institutions which bring these to pass. The couple which works together for a better community is not driving a wedge of separation between themselves. They are forging a powerful bond of unity. Parents in the thick of the fight are doing more than helping protect their children.

They can also make them strong. For safety in our kind of world is best achieved not through shelter, but through active understanding. One of the best services which parents can render their children is to open the windows of their homes and let the world, with its evil and its good, flow through.

Christian Marriage Counseling Blog

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How strong are your interests in common?

What sports and amusements do you enjoy together?

We start with this, not because fun is too important, but because it is what so often first brings the young couple together. A boy and a girl find that they like to swim, play tennis, and go to shows together. This is a fine start, and some of these activities can be enjoyed together for many years. But physical activities can do no more than to give the initial push.

As people grow older their physical energies diminish. They become interested in other things. And in any case, marriages are not mainly recreation. Therefore it is essential that the couple consider other interests which will hold up better under the long pull.

What intellectual or cultural interests do you have, such as music, drama, literature, painting, or history?

This list may seem to be of possible interest only to highbrow intellectuals. Yet many people of little formal schooling have developed considerable interest in, and taste for good music and art. Other people have less pretentious hobbies, such as woodworking, dog breeding or clay modeling.

Every family should have at least one amateur photographer. Some of these interests may be related to a vocation.

Frank had a very real interest in his garage work. The girl whom he finally married developed a very profitable, but no less real interest in raising chickens.

It is not necessary that both husband and wife have the same interests. In some ways, their relationships will be more fruitful if one specializes in one thing and the other in another. Then by sharing, they can both have a broader development.

It is important that they do have interests. The person who has interests is more interesting as a person. The wife who spends considerable time in her garden and really tries to do a good job, may prove far more attractive to her husband than if she spent the time in a salon.

Furthermore, interests which seem quite divergent can often be shared in most valuable ways. Cathy was a research physician and Alex a sculptor and painter. When she wrote a book on a technical medical subject, he illustrated it.

One need not be a specialist in the field of the other. A couple needs only interests to share, and interest enough in what the other is doing to make possible the sharing. A young couple will rarely know in advance just what and how their interests may later develop. They should be able to tell, however, the extent to which either or both is alive to any part of life which is beyond themselves.

But if you discover that one or both of you has no significant interests, what then? Your answer will depend upon what you want from each other. Some men, often because they feel inferior, want a wife who will be little more than an appendage to the household and otherwise be as colorless as possible.

Likewise, some wives will want husbands who will provide reasonably well financially, but who otherwise will trouble them as little as possible. We shall not here pass judgment upon such persons. We shall say only that if this is what either or both of you want, you should both know it and face fully what it means.

But if you want your marriage to be a rich companionship, real interests are essential. Marry a person without hair, teeth, fingernails, or a nose, but not one without interests.

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