The Art and Craft of Marriage

Building a magnificent marriage requires both craft, and art.

On this site we've looked hard at the craft of marriage--the tools and skills that every marriage needs to grow and become magnificent. Tools like communication, understanding, listening, sexual love, tools that handle conflict, build love, build relationship, and many more.

These tools are for all marriages, and using them well is all in a day's work for a master craftsman.

That's what we all are--marriage craftsman. And that is not just pretty talk or a nice writerly metaphor. This is our calling, this is our craft. And the results of our work are what we present to our own hearts first, then to our families, our community, and our society.

However, we are all working with different materials. Some of us have extrovert spouses, some have introvert spouses. We all have spouses that were either more or less damaged by events that happened in their lives before we met them. And all of our spouses have experienced things we have not. They are people different from ourselves. Here is where the Art of Marriage comes in.

Michelangelo used the same tools as the other artists of his day. He knew his craft. But it was how he used those tools on this particular piece of marble, how he painted on this particular wall surface, how he worked with these particular bricks or stones that made all the difference.

The Art of Marriage is in applying the craft you know to your particular spouse and your particular situation. Michelangelo practiced and worked hard to become the great artist he was. We practice and work in our marriages too.

We use a particular communication tool with our spouse and then decide to use a different one next time, or to use the same one but in a slightly different way. We learn when to use hugs, when to listen, when to act. We adjust, we learn, we grow.

I'll be leaving Suite this week. My writing responsibilities and vision will be taking me elsewhere. But no matter where I go, I, like you, will be an artist and a craftsman working to shape and develop a magnificent marriage with the spouse I have promised to love forever.

I'll be thinking of you. Respecting your craftsmanship. Admiring your art.

God bless.