Marriage begins with a husband and wife, which creates what we call the marital subsystem. As the author of Genesis stated long ago, "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."¹ (Gen 2:24-25) In that initial state of marriage, the man and woman were able to fully offer themselves to one another with no doubts and no interference. When children come along, new roles are introduced; not only are we husband and wife, but we are now also mom and dad.

The second law of thermodynamics states that you can never get more out of a system than you put into it. In fact, you can't even get as much out of a system as you put into it. Take, for example, a Bunsen burner heating a beaker of water: you can't get a one-to-one exchange of energy from the Bunsen burner to the water. Some of that energy is going to escape. The second law of thermodynamics holds true for the marital subsystem: you can never get more out of a marriage than you put into it; you can't even get as much out of a marriage as you put into it.

Don't go confusing family with marriage; they are not the same thing. Families represent both the marital subsystem and the parental subsystem and the task of those two entities are vastly different. For a strong a marriage to exist, ongoing effort (energy) has to be put into the marriage to keep it alive. Failure to make substantial investment in the marital subsystem (husband and wife) causes the marriage to disintegrate and the ensuing loss of connection leaves the marriage at risk.

In some instances, children can actually create the circumstances that make a marriage vulnerable. If a child is acting out and mom and dad have a different choice of response, then the marriage can be placed at risk. Contempt often comes into play when there is a difference of opinion over an issue that is of extreme importance to both husband and wife. Both mom and dad would die for their children, and that passion can create a massive dilemma for one or both partners.

Contempt causes devaluation. We can't understand how the person we're married to can be so blind and not see how this needs to be handled. We judge it as inadequacy when they don't see things as we do, and that devaluation creates the vulnerability.

In order for marriages to remain strong, we have to maintain an attitude of respect and choose to feel fortunate to be with our mate. Failure to do so can leave either party vulnerable to others who validate us by sharing our ideas and opinions. We naturally see what irritates us about our mate, but we have to actively look for what we appreciate about them. If you and your mate can't pull together in handling a difficult child (or whatever the issue causing contempt may be), then find an outside party to help you get on the same page. Don't let differences in the parental subsystem make you vulnerable to inappropriate outside support.

John Gottman has spent years researching what causes marriages to succeed or fail.² Most marriages could be very satisfying if both parties knew how to relate to one another, but, unfortunately, we remain clueless. For marriages to thrive, husbands and wives need to affirm one another; they can do this by simply responding when the other one speaks. They need to learn how to keep conversations from becoming too negative, staying positive even in negative situations.

Many couples develop destructive patterns of interaction that inhibit their ability to connect. For some, pride kicks in and they refuse to listen to their mate's opinion because they have to be right. Others go from zero to sixty when addressing irritations and have little regard for their mate. Some couples have little margin for differences and falsely believe a differing opinion is proof of growing disconnection. Others flood emotionally and then stonewall their mate while trying to calm down, leaving the impression that they don't even care for their mate. And the list goes on. Poor marital and relational skills leave both parties feeling disconnected and leaves the marriage vulnerable. Poor marital skills can be easily corrected if both parties are willing. All it takes is a willingness to get help in order to learn the necessary skills.

Life is full of transitions, and failure to navigate well these critical points in time leaves marriages vulnerable. When we first get married, we either consciously or unconsciously create a marital map of who is responsible for what and how things will be done. But the division of labor negotiated by a newlywed couple doesn't necessarily work after the birth of the first child. With the introduction of a child and increased demands, the initial marriage map has to be adapted. Inflexible marriages struggle with adapting to change.

Almost all marriages experience the following points of transition: the birth of the child, the birth the second child, when children begin school, adolescence, when children leave home, and the empty nest. Each one of these life transitions requires adjustments to their marital map.

Healthy marriages adjust to the ever-changing landscape of life through the use of negotiation and compromise. Rigidity and a refusal to change creates a brittle system which will eventually stop working for someone and increase marital vulnerability.

This is one of the patterns that left my own marriage vulnerable. It was certainly no excuse for what I did, but addressing this pattern would have decreased my vulnerability.

Much of the communication between husband and wife is about someone (or something) besides themselves. If Stephanie and I are talking about a person we both like, then there's no problem, because our perceptions of that person are similar and we'll both feel supported by each other.

If Stephanie and I are talking about someone neither of us like, we can talk all day about that person and still feel connected because we both agree.

But if Stephanie says something negative about someone whom I feel positive about, a potential problem arises. Since I like Stephanie and I like the other person, I can feel torn as to how to respond. The temptation will be to support the other party and to disagree with Stephanie's opinion. In the conversations involving another person, my defensiveness on their behalf might result in her feeling as though I'm being disloyal to her and that I don't take her side.

A marriage where one partner is consistently contradicting their mate's opinion creates an unstable marital system and leaves the other party feeling unsupported. It's natural for us to have differing perspectives, but loyalty to our mate requires tolerating their perspective without correcting. Tolerance is about accepting another person in spite of our differences; it doesn't mean we have to agree with their opinion. My constant correction did nothing but invalidate Stephanie and destabilize our marriage. It also left her feeling that I never took her side. I had to learn that it was more important to support her and let her have her opinion than it was to defend someone else who wasn't nearly as important as my wife.

Two-thirds of the time, intimacy in marriage will create short-term instability. Intimacy is a willingness to be authentic and let your mate know who you are and what you're doing. It's also a willingness to explore the deep mysteries of your mate's life. Once married, the illusion that we're the same is shattered quickly. Couples often believe that intimacy is about closeness, but that's a misnomer. Closeness is just pseudo-intimacy where one or both parties have to compromise who God made them to be in order to maintain the illusion that we see things the same way.

Inauthenticity in marriage prevents growth and leads to resentment. Those in healthy marriages are able to be honest about who they are and what they've done because they have enough integrity to fully and freely offer themselves to their mate. While that level of honesty may create short term instability when differences and disappointments occur, intimacy creates deeper levels of connection, increasing marital satisfaction and reducing marital vulnerability.

Here's a hypothetical situation to help explain intimacy. If I were to be intimate with Stephanie and tell her I used a pornography website, do you think my honesty with Stephanie will make us close in that moment? Absolutely not, but when things calm down and she still chooses to be with me and love me, our marriage is stronger than ever. I now know that she loves me unconditionally for who I am rather than for who she thinks I am. My honesty with her, even when I know it's something she doesn't want to hear, leaves her feeling more secure because she knows I'm going to be real and authentic with her.

When couples avoid intimacy, marriages begin to atrophy. It feels as if we're just roommates sharing living quarters. Real marriages require real people. Shallow marriages with little or no intimacy are far more vulnerable.

Marital imbalance comes in many forms. One form is underinvestment verses overinvestment. If one party invests far more into the marriage and the running of the family, then the underinvested partner is more vulnerable. Their lack of investment makes the marriage and family seem less valuable and makes it easier to consider walking away from the marriage. Underinvested partners have a tendency to be absent, doing whatever they want with little thought to the burden placed on their mate. This pattern can leave the invested partner feeling abandoned by their mate. The overinvested partner places a much higher value in the marriage and family, leaving them less vulnerable to giving up on what they've worked so hard to create.

Some marriages suffer from a parent-child type of relationship. This marriage has an extreme power imbalance and leaves one party feeling disrespected and powerless. Being treated like a child results in that person feeling devalued and like they don't matter to their mate. In this type of relationship, the dissatisfaction leaves both partners vulnerable.

When relational bonds are broken by misunderstandings, differences, failures, and self-centeredness, those bonds need to be repaired. All marriages experience good times as well as bad. With two-thirds of all marital problems being unsolvable, it's inevitable that we'll experience disappointment. There will also be times when our words and actions will wound our mate. It's not these wounds that create marital vulnerability; it's our inability to reconnect after the damage occurs.

Good marriages accept that there will be wounding and withdrawal, and they take responsibility to keep those wounds clean and to keep putting effort (energy) into their marriage. They know how to repair the hurts in their relationship and refuse to allow failures to drive them apart.