Way Point 3 – The Adolescent Phase
Who remembers the awkward phase between childhood and adulthood? When you felt you were old enough to take care of yourself and make your own decisions, but your parents knew otherwise? If you are old like me, you remember snippets of time but not the details. It might be easier to recall what we have seen from our children or grandchildren during this phase of their life.
The marriage relationship will also go through many of the same growth pains as we work toward unity and oneness. I believe it beneficial to our cause to look back at that awkward phase and see how it applies to our path toward oneness. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, along with our allegorical couple, Jack and Jill.
Adolescence
Our couple Jack and Jill have moved beyond trying to figure each other out, and at this point have a decent understanding of each other. They have also learned a good deal about themselves through the eyes of their spouse. There is a feeling that the relationship has a stable footing, growth toward oneness and unity is evident.
This is a dangerous time for this or any couple. Just like the adolescent who feels they can take care of themselves, they have arrived and don’t need anyone, our couple is in precarious spot. Take the example of the child who has been riding a bike with training wheels, they have demanded they be removed, “I’ve got this daddy!” You remove the wheels and as they try to take off you are walking alongside holding their back, only to be told again, “let go, I’ve got it”. The outcome is skinned knees, a bruised ego and a “why did you let me fall, daddy?”
To understand how we arrived at this way point, let’s go back and detail what happened in the life of the relationship to reach adolescence.
Ascending the growth ladder
What does a marriage relationship need to grow? Many of the same things an infant needs to grow. Nurturing, Nourishment, love, encouragement, and discipline. Over the next few paragraphs, we will compare and contrast the important elements that denote growth in a human child and the marriage relationship. This should be a fun ride.
We mentioned in our previous post that the marriage undergoes numerous cycles of change throughout. Evidence that the relationship is growing. Our Pastor said not long ago, “Living things grow, growing things change”! A tremendous truth whether we are talking nature or human existence.
So, what are the markers of change in a child’s growth and development, aside from the obvious? Below we will talk through a few of those markers. It is certainly not an extensive nor complete list, but it contains a few of the most important.
Markers
- Basic needs are no longer the sole responsibility of the parent or caregiver. Feeding, dressing, and basic life decisions are handled by the child. (Note in some cases dressing themselves can still be a struggle. Young ladies may not yet comprehend the impact of attire on the male gender, and the boys, well, they have no color coordination sense!) My wife would agree that some of us never fully develop that skill.
- In the same manner, the marriage relationship has grown to the point that both spouses realize their input and impact on the relationship. As companionship emerges, trust begins to grow, and boundaries are beginning to appear. Effort is still required to move the relationship forward, but you are no longer paddling upstream, the relationship current is beginning to ease the effort required. As the focus begins to shift to one another, (the relationship), nourishment and nurturing result organically.
- Communication is now clear and concise. For a child to have reached the adolescent stage, they have to have developed communication skills beyond the basic crying and laughing that lets you know they either need something or are happy with the situation. They must now be able to not only communicate to the parent, but they must prove that they can listen and interpret the various forms of communication that we humans use. It is part of their intellectual development. Imagine a 12-year-old that lacked the ability to understand NO or Danger. What if they could not interpret everyone around them running away as a sign of danger? Learning how to communicate and interpret is paramount to a child moving to the next stage in human life.
- The marriage relationship growth toward unity and oneness requires growth in the area of communication! The inability to communicate is the number one destroyer of marriages, and the greatest chasm a couple has to cross to reach unity. At this phase the individuals are beginning to understand one another, searching out ways to better understand and share their thoughts and feelings. While this too, will go through cycles of change, with focus, our couple can begin to solidify the relational foundation.
- Trust is established. In the beginning a child cannot be trusted to make good decisions for themselves. As Andy Griffith said in one of his episodes “You can’t let a young’n decide for himself. He’ll grab at the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it. Then, when he finds out there’s a hook in it, it’s too late”. Children don’t have the experience or the sensibility to make the right choices, thus it takes time for them to reach the point where they can be trusted. Make no mistake, the passage of a child to adulthood has to go straight through the path of trust. As a parent our duty is to ensure that our child’s intellect is at a level where their decision making will lead to acceptable outcomes. May not always be right, but it will keep them and others on a somewhat straight path and alive!
- A good marriage hinges on trust, trust in one another and trust that each party has the other’s best interest in mind. This type of trust does not happen overnight, it grows through years of decision making, both right and wrong. It grows from boundaries set to protect the relationship from within and without. It grows from arguments, and fights, forgiving and laying down of one’s rights, (sorry I went a little Dr. Seuss there). The picture developing here is as we heard from John the Baptist when he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease”. As we grow in unity and oneness, our self-focus must shift to a us focus, as it does the relationship grows and our path toward oneness moves forth.
Conclusion
From the afore mentioned foundational steppingstones, grows our ability to love one another as Christ loves us. The ability to forgive and invest heart and time into another human for their betterment as well as ours. The ability to make it through the dark, harsh times in life which will inevitably come, brother will they come. The relationship that has one or both participants stuck in infancy or unwilling to grow toward oneness is doomed to fail.
Self-focus or self-absorption is the enemy of any true love or relationship, whether it be marriage, friendship, familial or simply work/school. You might say, Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself,” what about that? My take on the verse is this; Jesus was saying I know you love yourself, what I am asking you to do is get outside yourself and love those around you in the same manner.
Our next and last phase will be Maturity. What a hard way point to end on as maturity is not easy to measure. We will take a crack at it. If you look at a picture of me today, you will say wow he is mature. By definition of the word relating to age I am, but hang around me a little while or talk to my wife, you will likely have a very different word you use. Especially in certain areas of my life.
Until next week, God bless and remember “All of life is ministry”.
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