Squad Up: Your Marriage Takes a Team
I don't look like it now, but when I was a younger man, I was on the wrestling team. Now, if you did not have a wrestling team in your school, let me clarify one thing up front: I am not talking about WWE-styled wrestling, but Greco-Roman mat wrestling ... the kind you see in the Olympics. And, yes, we did have to wear those really tight suits (singlets) ... I apologize for that visual image.
Wrestling is a little bit of a weird sport in that it is both an individual and team sport at the same time. You wrestle one opponent from the other team and try to win by either accumulating more points by executing certain moves or pinning your opponent down for a specified period of time. At the same time, you can win your match, but your team can still lose if your teammates don't also win theirs.
As awkward as the comparison might seem, marriage and wrestling share a lot of similarities. When you are on the mat, wrestling feels like it is a one-on-one sport; when you get up from the mat, that's when you see the scoreboard in front of you and your coaches and teammates on the sidelines. During a match, it is very easy to lose sight of the support that you have on the sidelines and get tunnel vision focused on the other person on the mat, especially when you have been wrestling for more than one set (round).
If you are winning at marriage, then it probably feels like it is just you and your partner taking over the world without much help from anyone else. If it feels like you are losing, it can appear like the entire weight of the challenges that you and your partner are working your way through are yours to bear, without much help ... lots of opinions, but not much help.
When you are struggling, knowing who and how to ask for help, when you are supposed to have this marriage thing under control yourself, can be a challenge. All that you can seem to see in those moments is the other person on the mat, who can look and sound more like an opponent than a partner.
"A part of being in a successful marriage requires that you squad up."
Here's the thing, though: marriage, just like wrestling, is not just a one-on-one or a team sport; it's both. That is why a part of being successful in marriage requires that you squad up. Getting in it to win it means that while you must focus on the match in front of you (your relationship is worth the work), you've also got to plug in to the community around you that can give the advice, encouragement, and inspiration to do what it takes to develop, maintain, and maximize your relationship.
So, look around you ... who is on your squad?
Crowd - every good sporting match has a crowd. The crowd adds energy and can help to create an environment that pushes you to want to perform. In a marriage, the goal is not to entertain, but the basic point is still the same: an environment in which making and delivering on a commitment to marriage is celebrated can add the kind of fuel that can help you to push through a tough moment (home court advantage). On the other hand, a nonchalant or outright oppositional perspective on marriage, generally, or your marriage, specifically, can also impact your want-to in difficult moments. So, what groups and institutions in your life celebrate and support marriage?
Teammates - you practice with your team. You see some of their strengths and watch them work through their weaknesses. Hopefully, you learn from their growth process some tricks of the trade that you can also use in your own relationship. Who are the people that you are doing life with that you respect enough to also learn from and with?
Coaches - typically, your coach has been around the block a bit and has not only learned the sport but, also, how to teach the sport to someone else. Who are those people and what are those resources that can give you practical and proven advice and can be consulted when you are trying to make that advice work in your unique situation?
Referee - during a wrestling match, the only other person allowed on the mat beside you and your opponent is the referee. S/he makes sure the match is fair, beneficial rules are in place, and calls time to prevent either wrestler from seriously injuring their partner. When you can't hear the crowd, when you don't see your teammates, when you can't find your coach, the referee is the only person that can step in and reset the match. Who or what is that for you? God, ground rules, grandma ... some combination of each of those things? Something else?
"Privacy and secrecy are not the same thing."
The point of this post is not to say that you or your wife need a truckload of folks in your marital affairs - you don't ... unmanaged, too many opinions can cause just as many problems as not having enough support. But, consider this: privacy and secrecy are not the same. Preserving an intimate space where your relationship is guarded is a very different thing from cutting your relationship off from the beneficial influence of other important relationships and resources.
My two cents: you need a squad for long-term success in marriage. Who is on your squad?
If nothing else, my hope with this site is to provide a place where the books, blog, and resources that you find become a part of your team, and, maybe, even serve as a coach every now and then. So consider subscribing to the blog and checking out the books. If this article has been particularly helpful, consider sharing it on your social networks.
I, along with some other contributors, are in the process of adding more resources to this site. In the meantime, there is one resource that I would suggest that you check out, "In It to Win It: A Guy's Guide to the First Years of Marriage." It is a relationship book for guys who do not like relationship books, with short, easy-to-read, action-oriented chapters on all the things that they forget to tell you about the first years of marriage.
Check it out on Amazon.com by following this link.