Why Romance Doesn’t Last

“Romance doesn’t work.” At least that’s what I told myself on January 12, 2013. Two months after our wedding.

I was irked at Teresa for not responding to me as affectionately as I wanted. For some reason the same methods that worked to create “hot” and “romantic” times together as we dated weren’t giving the same results after marriage. Had we already turned into some middle-aged couple who hardly had any time for sex and romance, and instead find our days filled with changing diapers, paying bills and short, quick responses to each others attempts at expressing our undying love for each other?

No. We were newlyweds. No diapers. Not even any bills, that day. It’s just what I was trying to do didn’t work because it wasn’t new anymore.

Let me explain.

The Wrong Definition of Romance

Romance is the term typically used to describe the relationship between a man and woman as he is wooing her affections. It’s cool when a couple married for forty-three years still romance each other. I want to be that kind of couple.

Even cooler, is when my Grandparents who have been married for over sixty years do it. And yes, I’ve seen it at times. He calls her “Grandma,” and might say something slightly cheesy and we all ooh because for some reason it feels like only eighteen and nineteen year olds say such things.

But that’s different. Romance at eighty has a different feel than it does at eighteen. It has a different feel at twenty-four than it did at twenty.

Romance, the way we perceive it at first, like the ecstatic feeling of affection on the first date, or the hot sparks and fireworks that electrify your phalanges at the first kiss—that kind of romance doesn’t work.

Here’s why: Romance then is based on feelings of affection. It’s like being excited for the first time your traveled overseas: the only reason it’s exciting is because it is something new (and because you haven’t experienced many new things, yet).

Those feelings won’t last. They never do.

And if you are somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four and have never been married, here’s something you need to grasp: it’s okay that those feelings don’t last.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up on being romantic. A few nights ago I turned on music and lit a candle for a romantic time with my wife. I still take her on hot dates. I like getting her flowers and wooing her affections.

But the romance that truly lasts, the romance my grandparents experience in their eighties, is based on something much more stable than feelings. Romance lasts when it is based on the purpose of why we have romantic relationships in the first place.

Defining Romance That Lasts

Yes, romantic relationships, like marriage and courtship that bring cloud-nine ecstasy is designed by God and beautiful. There is a purpose for it. It’s not just cheese and cakes fulfilling fleshly urges. Neither is it about the euphoria of love.

Romance isn’t about us. It’s not about happiness and feeling good. It’s not about raising a perfectly healthy family living in a stylish Midwestern home drinking pink juice so everyone feels good enough to love each other. It’s about bringing glory to God and demonstrating to the rest of the world God’s love for us. And I’m sorry, but that is sometimes just plain miserable.

And that’s okay.

We’re not always healthy. We’re not always happy. We don’t always have enough money for what we want, and each of those moments give us greater opportunities to show God’s love for each other.

Sometimes, romance includes depression. For. A. Long. Time. Other times, the one you love may find themselves overweight and unable to take it off because of genetic malfunctions that can’t be perfectly cured.

I absolutely believe God wants to heal and bring life to each one of us, and I believe we don’t trust Him—or even expect Him—to do as much as He can, but what our generation of American Christians need to understand is that we don’t glorify God only if we get something out of the deal. It’s not about us.

It’s all about God. If God chooses us to suffer years of health issues, He will make it possible to experience joy and life in the midst of it.

But not if I’m fancying about romance.

How to Develop Romance That Lasts

Depending on your background, romance may or may not be a big thing to you. Many conservative backgrounds tend to downplay romance and make everything in marriage serious and solemn. Is there a place for loving on your spouse? For cultivating affection toward each other by having candle-lit dinners and writing sweet notes to each other?

Absolutely.

Pursuing each other in love is part of the plan for marriage. Enjoying the euphoria of sexual intimacy (even the anticipation of it, prior to marriage) is biblically appropriate. But if it is only for the purpose of maintaining a sense of romantic feelings, it won’t last.

And to be honest, probably one hundred percent of us young couples who have been married less than five years primarily still attempt to maintain feelings through our romance than to actually serve the other.

Building a Biblical Foundation

Ephesians 5 is one the most extensive teachings on marriage in the Bible. Thanks to Emerson Eggerichs, it’s become known as the “Love & Respect” chapter and rightfully so. When it comes to marriage and relating to each other in ways that speak love, we do well to understand the insight behind Paul’s exhortation for husbands to love their wives and women to respect their husbands.

But let’s look past that, for a moment. Why are husbands supposed to love their wives and wives respect their husbands? Because of the way it represents Christ and His Bride: the church (Eph. 5:32-33).

Wives submit (or reverence/respect) to their husbands because they are the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church (Eph. 5:22-24). Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25-27). Marriage should work, not so people have less pain, but because when it doesn’t work it misrepresents Christ.

Love is for the purpose of showing God, not for the purpose of seeing results and experiencing fruit.

We may love our spouses all we want and never get the fruit we desire. Are we still willing to love? Or do we get irritated and tired? Does a sense of frustration rise up within us when after having helped in the kitchen and spoken sweet nothings into our wife’s ears, she still rolls over in bed, tired and exhausted, with no interest in sex?

Are you tempted to withdraw and give your husband the cold shoulder when, after having served him hand and foot with preparing a wonderful meal as he rested with a book on his favorite chair, he still spends most of the evening on the computer in his office doing work?

Is it okay that those things frustrate? Yes. We can’t remove ourselves from our needs and the emotions that follow when they are not met, but romance (pursuing the affection of another) is not for the purpose of happiness. It’s for the purpose of showing God.

Paul believed this so much that he goes so far to say that those who are married should live as if they have no spouse (1 Co. 7:29b). Why is that? Because “the appointed time has grown very short.” (1 Co. 7:29a)

This world—the luxury of 21^st century Americans, the pleasure of living in the grace of God as a fallen people, the houses we come home to every night and the cars we drive to leave them in the morning, and the dollar bills that fill our bank accounts—all of it is passing away (1 Co. 7:31b). That fact, the reality that your next-door neighbor who doesn’t yet know Christ will one day be eternally separated from even the option of knowing Him, that is supposed motivate us to an undivided devotion to the Lord. (1 Co. 7:35)

The problem is, romance has distracted us.

Breaking Free from Christian Trends

It’s trendy today to get married, have a few kids, renovate a house, being physically healthy, and be apart of humanitarian aid. We like beauty, goodness, and helping others and being helped. Of course we do! We were made for such.

What is happening, though, is that we’re stopping there.

We want a healthy marriage because people in healthy marriages are happier. We want respectable kids because raising good kids gives us a sense of significance. We like feeling good and that we’re doing good to others in this world because it gives us a sense of purpose. But God never intended any kind of beauty to be simply for the one displaying it.

One of the biggest urges we must fight as young married couples is the temptation to become so inward-focused that we are no longer willing to do the work it takes to invest eternally in others. It is a legitimate temptation because having a young family is difficult work! Any good parent wants to put the energy and effort into cultivating a good marriage so their kids have a healthy home to grow up in.

Furthermore, they want to deepen relationships with their children and so they will spend time with them. The necessities of life also take time and before we know it we are so consumed with paying bills, communicating with our spouses, investing in our children, and keeping a sane social life that we are no longer interacting our family with those in our communities who do not know Christ.

We become okay with “smile and wave” evangelism.

“We’re shining our light in our community,” you might think. But are you really? Do people know why you are so happy? Why your family always gets along? Or if you don’t always get along, do they know how you manage to continue living together?

You can’t influence people for Christ without getting involved in their lives and eventually talking with them about Him.

Trends are dangerous to Christians, and the most destructive kinds of trends are those that encourage living rightly without actually following Christ the whole way.

You can spot a trend because trends never call you to risk. Trendy Christianity allows you to maintain life as it is and still be “a good Christian.” In other words, if glorifying God to you means getting your marriage in order, spending time with your family, going to church, and helping feed homeless at the local shelter than you’re just apart of a trend. You can do all that and have complete control of your schedule.

If you were to move into a neighborhood where every immediate neighbor around you either was divorced, alcoholic, or idol worshippers and then if you actively pursued them in prayer and relationship, inviting them for supper, getting to know their stories, helping them when they need something, and sharing gifts over the holidays, they would begin tapping on your door at hours you don’t “have time” for. Your schedule would no longer function as smoothly as you might like. But those opportunities are primed and perfect for sharing Christ with them.

That’s not a trend. That’s following Christ. And in that context, people see our families–godly, healthy, even happy—and Christ is glorified because we are representing Him to the fallen world around us.

Trends don’t require us to get dirty, and we don’t like getting dirty.

Identifying Purpose as a Couple

If you’re considering romance today, don’t just be apart of another trend. If you’re in a romantic relationship already, or if you’re married and raising a family (sometimes clueless as to how this is all supposed to work, as I am at times), don’t settle for trendy Christianity that gets distracted by fluffy romance. A romance only for the purpose of feeling happy and looking classy.

Romance works. It really does! But only when grounded in the purpose for which it was designed: representing Christ to the world.

I’d like to close out this article by giving you five questions to ask yourself that help you find purpose as a couple. These are questions my wife and I have asked ourselves, whether formally or informally as we processed decisions and talked about dreams God has laid our hearts.

1. Why did we marry each other (or why do we want to marry each other)?

I know this may not be what you were expecting. “Come on, Asher, give me some life-changing, provocative questions that rattle my internal cages.”

The reality is, each of us that are married married our spouses for a specific reason, and that reason is quite likely foundational in understanding what your purpose might be.

For me, I married Teresa because I enjoyed her. She was beautiful, responsive and respectful. She had a heart to nurture which I saw by the way she valued relationship with people and cared for children. I had a deep sense that God would have us involved in ministry of some kind and knew that was crucial for ministering to others.

There are many other reasons I could give, but you see the point. Understanding why we chose our spouse is important. It tells us something, and it gives direction for our purpose.

2. In what ways have we served others that we enjoyed?

You can ask this in the context of your relationship, or your single years.

One thing both Teresa and I enjoy is hosting people. We have hosted family, close friends, distant relatives, people we didn’t even know, friends from church we wanted to get to know better, neighbors, and lots of youth. And we’ve only been married for three years! It’s something we enjoy doing together.

3. What are our spiritual gifting’s?

To be honest, gifting’s have gotten overrated. What I mean by that is we are so obsessed with our gifts that we aren’t willing to serve if it’s not inline with them. But if you have an idea what your spiritual gifts are, or other skills and talents you have, it helps in clarifying what you have to offer others as a couple.

Just remember, those gifts are for God’s glory, not your own. When people ask you to play piano, do so and smile and enjoy it as you do. That gives God pleasure. Don’t fake humility at the cost of God’s glory.

4. What are we willing to risk?

I’m not willing to risk my family, but I’m willing to risk money. I don’t have to be rich. I have friends who drive brand new vehicles and that’s okay. I don’t have to condemn them or envy them. I purposely chose to give that up because I want to be involved in pioneer work, and pioneer work doesn’t yield financial comfort.

I don’t share this to insinuate that if you have a good paying job you aren’t involved in God’s work. A good friend of mine who is well to do recently shared how God has opened tremendous doors for his church in being able to reach the Amish community. He is actively involved in Bible studies with different Amish guys. That is awesome! I told him that, because it is. God is at work!

I shared this because, honestly, money is something I wrestle with risking. I like being financially comfortable, but I have this sense of calling I can’t shake. At this point in life, it requires to risk money. Am I willing to do that?

Yes, I am. And God has provided miraculously on many occasions.

What are you willing to risk in order to represent Christ? Maybe political security?

5. When we’re on our death beds, if we spent our lives doing what we do now, would we feel peace and joy or anxiety and regret?

We cannot get back the time we’ve already spent. I can no longer have back the hour I’ve just spent in finishing up this post. It’s done and gone.

Is the way you spend your time building eternal joy and anticipation? Or is it just fulfilling current voids?

Romance Doesn’t Have to Not Last!

My wife and I recently lost a baby we were expecting in July, and it has caused us to grieve in a way we’ve never done before. My wife feels a loss of purpose. I now hurt every time I play with my boys because I know I’ll never play with little Avi like I do them.

And there’s nothing we can do to fix this problem.

Romance to us is taking on a new look. We could withdraw and become a stale, old couple within a half-dozen years of our wedding, or we could together press into the heart of God with grief and frustration and potentially experience a deeper oneness as a couple and with Christ. I have this sense that what we choose to do depends on whether we pursued romance for the feelings of affection or for the purpose of representing Christ to the world.

We are on a journey, and envy your prayers; but so far God is using this to deepen our marriage and our trust in Him.

I’m guessing if you’ve read this far in the post, you want your romance to last. You want a marriage like my Grandparents who still romance each other in their eighties. It’s possible, but not the way culture tells us it is.

Devotion to God must be undivided. Our romance must be centered around Him and His glory. If it’s not, it won’t last. If it is, it won’t always be sunshine and roses, but there will be an ever deepening joy as we romance together through the journey of life.

Question: Have you ever felt like romance doesn’t work? Do you think it would help to clarify your purpose and calling as a couple? Share your thoughts in the comments below by clicking here.

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