Eph 5:31 (NIV) "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."This verse applies just as much to wives as husbands, although both can err. Why does God tell married people to "leave their fathers and mothers"? In what sense, "leave": emotionally, physically, financially? How do we square this with "honoring our father and mother" in the Lord? Can't married people have their fathers or mothers live with them, maintain close relationships, receive financial blessings from their parents? Well, yes and no. It depends if these thing come with strings attached or not. It depends on the fruit.In many cultures around the world, parents of married people relate well and constructively with their children. A common theme of these cultures is a modesty in counsel and resistance of interjection into the emotional aspects of marriage. Apparently, this restraint is a missing element for many southern mothers (USA), and the results we have seen have been overwhelmingly bad. Now you don't have to be either southern or a mother to be a southern mother, but those who are have a high propensity to wreck their children's marriages. Why is this so? How can good people go so far wrong?
When people marry, they are making a covenant before God to put each other first and foremost on earth. The spouse should always be the highest priority, the most significant other, the closest friend, the most intimate confidant. When this relationship is breached by a third party, even if that third party is a nice enough person, destructive pathologies come into play that will quickly bring strife and discord to a marriage. When the third party is a parent who is interjecting him or herself, the results will most likely be catastrophic if boundaries are not quickly set and repentance does not occur.
Pr 11:13 (NKJ) A talebearer reveals secrets, but... a faithful spirit conceals a matter.For example, Mrs. Apronstrings was once enraptured in love with her husband, but lately she finds him distant and hard to talk to. Her mother and she, on the other hand, can chatter away for hours on end and often do. After exhausting herself conversing with her mother, there is little left that she wants to talk about with her husband. When something of significance happens in Mrs. Apronstrings life, the first person she thinks of telling is her mother. More and more, she doesn't even bother sharing things with her husband, as things seem stale by the time she gets around to it. Gradually but surely, her mother is becoming the most significant other in her life. At this point, we are just talking about an emotional funk, not necessarily a catastrophe; and many spouses often go through such phases and seasons and drifts. But right here is where the destructive pathology of over-involvement comes into play.Heb 13:4 (NIV) Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure...
Pr 5:16-17 (NIV) Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
Mrs. Apronstrings feels more and more detached from her husband, and each of them recoil all the more due to experiences of vapid communication, dull stares, dead air, and occasional boil-overs of latent anger. If the mother lives out of town, perhaps an argument ensues over outrageous phone bills; if she lives in town the confrontation is over priorities or time-spent. Conversations grow terse, ugly, and potentially dangerous. Further estranged from her husband and spiraling into marital disaster, Mrs. Apronstrings needs someone to talk with about this, and good old mom is the ever-accessible kindred-spirit. Now the conversations take on a deadly direction, for the most important thing in Mrs. Apronstrings life now is the deterioration of the marriage. She talks on and on to her mother about what a jerk he is, of all his failing and faults, and paints an increasingly dismal picture indeed. Mother is sympathetic and a most excellent listener and sounding board. She loves her daughter and hates to see her suffer. Over many weeks or months of this negative input from her daughter, our southern mother makes a subtle shift from listener to participant; for she honestly comes to believe that her poor daughter would be better off without this louse. Our interjecting southern mother has heard way too much bad about her son in law. So, she begins to counsel, suggest, and encourage her daughter towards separation and divorce.
That is how good people can go so far wrong, and often do.
Mat 19:6 (NKJ) "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."The same mother who witnessed the marriage vows being made, who agreed never to act to separate them, who prayed long and hard for joy and peace for her daughter's marriage, now is the principal satan in the situation, goading her daughter towards heartbreak, disobedience to God, and a destroyed life.Rom 7:2 (NIV) For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive...
1Cor 7:10 (NIV) To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.
The situation gets really diabolical when the mother enables the separation by allowing Mrs. Apronstrings to move back home, and further offers herself to be a surrogate husband by baby-sitting the kids. Money is offered to pay for a lawyer, and the situation begins to harden. We are not talking about proper sanctuary for a battered daughter, but an enabling of an emotionally immature and self-destructive one. Without dear old mom, Mrs. Apronstrings would be home working out her very routine problems with her husband; as is the common lot for married folk. How can a seemingly decent mother find herself encouraging her daughter to wreck her marriage? Why is she actively making the divorce more easy and likely? Well, because she really believes it is best for her dear daughter, due to over-talking about all the bad things about her son-in-law. Mother has started to believe the propaganda. So, she does what is obviously not best, to put it delicately.
Now all this assumes a well meaning and otherwise well-intentioned mother, and we know that the archetypal southern mother is another beast entirely. Classically, manipulative southern matriarchs domineer the whole family, meddling in their affairs, keeping them from financial weaning, insuring that they live close by, and manipulating the finest detail of their children's lives. In extreme cases like this, real evil is in view that will take more dramatic measures than we can deal with here. But even nice mothers can easily fall into the above syndrome with their children and become encouragers of sin.
Heb 10:24 (NIV) And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.The solution? How about mothers getting out of replacing their daughter's husbands as the most significant other? How about daughters repenting of this and turning back to desire their husbands first and foremost in "all things" (Eph 5:24) again. How about mothers being mothers instead of surrogate replacement husbands? How about daughters seeing this for what it is, and not allowing it to happen in the first place?How about repentance?
2Cor 2:11 (NIV) ...in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.Marriage Counseling IndexPr 14:1 (NIV) The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.
Heb 3:13 (NIV) But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.
Gen 3:16 (NIV) To the woman he said, "...Your desire will be for your husband..."
