Covenant Marriage | Top 3 Benefits

Today I'm going to talk about three benefits of having a covenant marriage versus a contract marriage. Let's begin by defining my terms.

What is a covenant marriage?

A covenant marriage is where both partners are committed to one another and the relationship long-term, despite having seasons of difficulty and strain. When things get challenging, both partners work harder to make things better in the marriage rather than giving up.

A contract marriage is what the majority of couples have today without realizing it. In a contract marriage, your commitment is contingent entirely upon your feelings. It says "I am committed to you as long as my needs are met and I'm in love but the moment my needs are not met and I don't feel in love with you, divorce becomes a viable option." That's the contract mindset and is heard often when people get divorced because they say "I didn't love them anymore" or "my needs weren't being met." The risk with the contract approach is that feelings ebb and flow. If you've read my blog post on the four seasons, you know all couples go through summer, fall, winter, and spring. So the contract approach has a higher risk for divorce because it's based on how you feel and feelings are feeble and fragile. In contrast, the covenant approach sees marriage as a lifelong commitment, regardless of emotional fluctuations. Even if you go through dry spells and seasons of winter, you're still devoted. To clarify, the covenant approach isn't underestimating the importance of having your needs met and feeling in love. Quite the contrary. Having your needs met and feeling in love is one of the top goals for happy marriages and it's what I help couples with all the time in my practice. The three exceptions where divorce is permissible in the covenant marriage is adultery, abuse, and abandonment. However, even if one of those occur, recovery is still possible if there's full repentance and change. Also, dismissing your partner's top needs repeatedly and refusing to change could be considered neglect and fall under the abuse umbrella and be grounds for divorce. Here are the top three benefits of choosing the covenant approach to marriage.

Covenant Marriage | Top 3 Benefits

Benefit One

The first benefit of the covenant approach to marriage is it promotes security. If you and your partner both know you're in it for the long haul and you're going to stick through the highs and lows, it will produce security. When we feel secure, we become more authentic and transparent because we feel safe. Greater transparency and safety leads to closer emotional intimacy, which leads to greater sexual activity. Talk about a powerful benefit!

Benefit Two

A second benefit to the covenant approach is you're going to handle conflicts much better compared to if you're in a contract marriage. If you're in a contract marriage and go through a winter season where you're unhappy, you're going to already have one foot out the door thinking of divorce. If one foot is already out the door, the motivation to work through marital problems decreases because divorce is right there tapping you on the shoulder. In contrast, if you're in a covenant marriage and go through a winter season where you're unhappy, you'll ask yourself if adultery, abuse, or abandonment is happening and if it's not then divorce is not an option for you. Therefore, your only option is to dig deeper and work harder to resolve the problems. You may need outside help and resources to help you through because divorce is not an option. As you can see, the contract and covenant approach to marriage greatly impacts how couples react to problems. I've experienced this firsthand. My marriage has gone through several seasons of winter since getting married in 1999 and I can remember thinking "is this adultery, abuse, or abandonment?" The answer was no so even though everything inside of me wanted to get a divorce because I was unhappy, I knew that wasn't an option because I was choosing the covenant approach. Because of that conviction, I had no choice but to work harder and dig deeper to get our marriage to a better place, which it did! If I would have been approaching marriage as a contract, I'd be divorced right now.

Benefit Three

The third benefit to a covenant marriage is personal growth. When you're going through hard times in a covenant marriage, they become opportunities to grow your character. For example, maybe you're going through some problems in your marriage because you haven't learned how to share power yet. You like to do things your way and that's creating conflict in your marriage. Learning how to share power is refining your character. If you were in a contract marriage, you'd probably just get a divorce from all the conflict and take your pattern of not sharing power to your next relationship. Another example is perhaps your marriage is going through a winter season because you're not very empathetic so your partner is frequently upset with you. If you're approaching marriage as a covenant divorce is not an option so your partner's frustrations are an opportunity to refine your character by becoming more empathetic. If you were approaching marriage as a contract you'd probably get a divorce to escape the marital discord and then you'd take your pattern of no empathy to your next relationship. Sticking out the inevitable ups and downs of matrimony creates opportunity for feedback and growth on how you can become a better person and partner.

So, if your partner is teachable and willing to improve your relationship and you want to experience the benefits of increased emotional and physical intimacy, increased motivation to resolve conflicts, and opportunities for personal growth, begin viewing your marriage as covenant.

Further Reading:

Marriage Teamwork

Partnership in Marriage

Marriage and Dating

Finances in Marriage

In Laws

Dr. Wyatt Fisher