When two people get married, they bring some family baggage with them. Marriage opens up our eyes and awakens us to some of the hidden effects that our families have had on us — even if we weren’t aware that we had some baggage.

Many of us have no idea about the unique dysfunctions of our own families until our spouse looks at our families from their own outsider’s perspective. We each grow up within the four walls of our own family mess, and so we often have no frame of reference to see that our family wasn’t as ‘normal’ as we always thought. Although, we may have been aware that there were some dysfunctional aspects of our family, we often fail to see how much it has influenced us and shaped our perspective until we get married to someone who has grown up outside of the four walls of our family.

God works through marriage to reveal the depths of our souls and to help us grow in becoming more like Jesus. In writing to the Colossians, the apostle Paul encourages Christians with these words:

Colossians 3:12-14

“So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”

One of the beautiful aspects of deep meaningful relationships — like marriage — is the fact that it forces us to learn the practice of forgiveness. When we experience the struggle of having to forgive someone who has hurt us, it begins to take our understanding of God’s forgiveness to a whole new level. Jesus has commanded us to forgive people who wrong us, and perhaps there is no better arena for the art of grace and forgiveness than the home of a husband and a wife.

Every marriage experiences moments where grace and forgiveness are needed. One day your spouse will do something that hurts you. One day your spouse will wrong you in some way. One day a conflict will arise and some conflict will ensue. And it’s in these moments that we will come to the proverbial fork in the road of our relationship.

At these fork in the road moments, we find ourselves forced to choose between two different paths on how to handle the conflict. We can either choose the self-centered path of Building Our Case or we can choose the serve-centered path of Extending God’s Grace.

Building Our Case

The first marriage relationship that is portrayed in Scripture demonstrates the temptation we all feel when conflict arises in our relationship. In the book of Genesis, we read about the original rebellion of humans, and it plays itself out like this:

Genesis 3:6-7

“When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it — she’d know everything! — she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.

Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on” — saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.”

In the midst of being tempted to do the very thing that God had commanded them not to do, the man seems to passively just watch his wife be tricked into doing something that would bring devastating consequences for them both. It makes you wonder if the man willingly compromised his wife’s safety in hope that he might gain something from her actions without being responsible for the consequences. Maybe he wanted the benefits of what the forbidden fruit might bring him, but he didn’t want the responsibility that came with it.

God confronts the man about the fruit, but he quickly defends himself and builds his case on why this is not his fault. He attempts to throw the blame on his wife, and even worse, he throws some of the blame towards God by declaring, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”

God also confronts the woman about the fruit, but she quickly defends herself and builds her case on why it’s not her fault either. She attempts to throw some of the blame on her own innocence and also on forces that were seemingly outside of her control. She says, “The serpent seduced me, and I ate.”

This scene in the garden portrays the self-protection and self-promotion that plagues all of us as human beings. Men and women throughout history (and of course still today) are prone to get defensive and play the victim when confronted or held accountable for their actions. We have a tendency to build our own case and quickly blame others in order to rid ourselves of any responsibility. This pattern of playing the victim in response to marriage conflict usually plays itself out like this:

• First, you begin by building your own case (even if you don’t verbalize it to anyone) by bending the truth of what actually happened in your favor and by subtly bringing up other unrelated issues from your relationship history that prove you are the better person in this relationship.

• Next, you become the judge of the relationship by questioning your spouse’s motives and by determining what your spouse ought to do to make things right again.

• Next, you become so self-consumed and so set on your own self-protection that you become unaware of what’s going on in the lives of others around you, and every conversation turns into a presentation of your case. You begin to pollute the minds of others with your own distorted viewpoint while also polluting your own mind to the point of losing touch with what actually took place.

• Now, you’ve reached a point where you will judge your friends and family based on their commitment to your case. And anyone who challenges you or chooses not to embrace your bitterness is perceived as an unsympathetic threat or an a potential enemy.

• And finally your relationship with God has become so dependent on God doing something on your behalf that you begin to reshape your beliefs about God to better fit your circumstances and the case you’ve built.

This pattern of defending yourself and playing the victim exposes the depths of our selfishness and pride. And sadly, until we break this pattern and humble ourselves to the point of being able to extend grace and forgiveness, we will find ourselves not only bitter and resentful but also feeling unloved by others.

Building your case builds an impenetrable wall around you that keeps the love of others locked out and your love for others locked in. And unless something changes, true restoration between you and your spouse becomes impossible and constant fighting or consistent pretending will be the fate of your marriage future.

Jesus does not want us to fall into the trap of building our own case against each other in order to validate who’s right and who’s wrong. Jesus has called us to love, serve, forgive and extend grace to one another no matter who’s right or who’s wrong.

Extending His Grace

The two most important practices in marriage are the practices of confession and forgiveness. Confession is simply being honest and telling the truth even when it’s difficult. In his book, The Meaning of Marriage, Timothy Keller puts it this way:

“One of the most basic skills in marriage is the ability to tell the straight, unvarnished truth about what your spouse has done – and then, completely, un-self-righteously, and joyously express forgiveness without a shred of superiority, without making the other person feel small.”

So how do we practice confession and forgiveness when there is conflict in our marriage? How do we resolve conflict by extending grace? Unlike the pattern of defending yourself and building your case, the process of extending God’s grace ought to play itself out somewhat like this:

• First, we have to be honest with ourselves that something has hurt us and how we’ve been hurt by it (this doesn’t mean we verbalize it to our spouse). We cannot be too proud or too ashamed to admit that we’ve been hurt because we cannot extend forgiveness until we admit that we’ve been sinned against and acknowledge how that sin has affected us.

• Next, we come to God in prayer and tell him the truth about what we are feeling. We may convince ourselves that God doesn’t need to hear our issues, but we are promised that the peace of God that transcends all understanding is waiting for those who bring everything to him in prayer.

• Next, we decide to forgive our spouse before God in prayer. We hand over the case to God as the Judge, and we trust in his character, strength, love and protection to heal us from our hurt and the effects of our spouse’s sin. Obviously, this does not resolve the conflict and reconcile the relationship, but this is the act that begins to free us from the bitterness, resentment and judgment that we will hold on to if we don’t forgive and trust God to restore us.

Forgiving our spouse before God in prayer is the only thing that truly frees us to the point of actually being able to extend grace (unmerited forgiveness and love) to my spouse before they’ve even admitted they’ve done anything wrong.

• Now, we wait for our spouse to tell the truth (confess) and seek forgiveness. This may take longer than we wish, but we cannot demand confession nor force it. Telling our spouse that we forgive them before we’ve given them the opportunity to confess will rob them of experiencing their own freedom from the guilt and shame of what they’ve done. However, our spouse’s confession is no longer needed to heal our heart (we took care of that when we forgave them before God); it is simply needed in order for trust to be restored and the relationship to truly be reconciled.

• That being said, when confession and forgiveness have finally taken place, we must not falsely assume that trust has now been completely restored. Confession and forgiveness set the table for trust to be restored, but they offer no guarantee that trust will be fully restored. Trust is easily and quickly broken, but it is patiently and slowly restored.

• Lastly, we need to check our motives and make sure that we are pursuing the reconciliation of the relationship more so than the mere resolution of conflict. We must avoid quick-fixes and be willing to do the harder work of extending grace and giving your spouse the time and opportunity to confess and receive forgiveness.

Learning to extend grace through the practice of confession and forgiveness maintains an environment where no one is adamant to affirm that they’re right and no one is afraid of admitting they’re wrong.

So how can we make sure that we possess the power we need to extend grace?

The power to extend grace is a work of God in us and through us. Trying really hard in our own willpower to extend grace and forgiveness will not work. As we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and have the eyes of our hearts enlightened to the reality of God’s forgiveness towards us, we will find ourselves humbled and empowered to extend this same kind of grace to those who have sinned against us.