Why Viewing Marriage as a “Ministry” Can Harm Women

“Marriage is not supposed to make you happy; it’s a ministry” is a message that can lead to terrible outcomes for women.

This week, a reader sent me a video clip of someone being interviewed on national TV.* In the video, she argues that marriage is not intended to make us happy because it’s a “ministry.”

She gives examples from her own life of how she had expectations of “romantic love” as a newly married woman and how she had to let them go to accept her husband as he was.

Her husband was relationally and physically absent, and she believed she was at fault for expecting him to be the person she thought he was when they married.

Throughout the clip, she argued that women should adjust their expectations, as she had. “Marriage is not meant to make us happy; it’s a ministry.”

It was a hard clip to watch, not only because of what she was saying but also because she was in a panel-type discussion, surrounded by three other women who were all laughing and agreeing with everything she said. Not a squeak of disagreement.

Why Viewing Marriage as a “Ministry” Can Harm Women

Let’s start by acknowledging a common thread: “Marriage isn’t meant to make you happy; it’s a ministry” phrase is primarily directed at women. We rarely say it to men.

It’s the women who are supposed to sacrifice their joy, their soul, their integrity, their expectations, their hopes, their dignity, their sense of belonging, their safety.

When the bare expectations of a functioning relationship aren’t met, we don’t ask the men to step up. We don’t tell him to grow up, to be loyal, faithful, respectful, supportive, and cooperative, to defer as she does, to carry his own weight and share the relationship load and labor.

No, we ask the woman who has ALREADY been carrying the burden of the home and relationship to keep giving and making sacrifices. And we shame and guilt her for expecting better.

Why Viewing Marriage as a “Ministry” Can Harm Women: We tend to pass on what we know.

I get it.

We tend to pass on what we know. If we don’t know better, we don’t do better. (Of course, knowledge alone isn’t sufficient; we must also embrace softness, flexibility, and a willingness to adjust our beliefs, but that’s another topic.)

A few years ago, I was your typical marriage blogger and author. I said some stuff and wrote things I no longer believe or teach. But back then, it was all I knew. I said the unhelpful things because I believed they were godly. I thought all healthy and godly individuals shared my beliefs.

But then I started to read, research, and study Scripture for myself and found myself opening up to the possibility that I was wrong. And it changed everything.

My pivot is why I believe that those who are curious and willing can do better. We can open ourselves up to new points of view. It takes pliability, yes, but we can do it.

A whole world is waiting for us to get it right: beliefs like “Marriage is not supposed to make you happy; it’s a ministry” can lead to women staying in toxic, abusive marriages, believing it’s their lot in life, or enduring solvable problems, thinking these issues cannot be addressed.

So let’s break the cycle.

Breaking the Cycle

Let’s break this cycle in our culture and affirm a woman’s right to dignity, belonging, joy, and safety in her own self and body. Let’s affirm her intuition and lived reality.

Let’s tell women it’s okay to expect more from their men. That they don’t have shed blood, sweat and tears so their partners never have to feel inconvenienced and grow up.

Let’s stop perpetuating old tired messages that harm individuals and do not help healthy couples. And let’s go to therapy and heal so we can pass on healing, not our trauma.

When I talk about healthy, connected marriages, periodically, someone will tell me that my idea of marriage doesn’t exist. “Marriage isn’t without effort.” I agree: All good relationships, including marriage, require intentionality, aka effort. But effort goes both ways.

And you never have to choose between happiness and caring for one another. Well-adjusting and healthy couples do it all the time. It’s actually when we have to choose between being happy and caring for our spouse that it becomes a problem.

My new book, The Newlyweds: Pursuing Mutuality, Health and Happiness in Marriage, is all about helping couples co-create a life and marriage that BOTH people enjoy, AND validation and clarity for when the marriage isn’t working.

We can retire gender-specific roles, 24/7 sacrifice, and the death of our personhood. We can tell women that if a man reverses course on the important things that initially convinced you he was the right guy for you, you don’t have to put up with it like some holy cross to bear. You are entitled to make decisions and choose paths that work for you. And God won’t be upset about it.

The Newlyweds shows you how to discern when the dynamic is off and work together when both people have goodwill and lasting fruit.

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*The interview was aired on NTV, a leading Kenyan TV network.