“Consumer Marriages”

The Consumer Mentality

•Everything is disposable.

•Everything is replaceable.

•Everything is marketable.

•Everything is designed/engineered/manufactured for the consumer’s satisfaction.

Consumer Mindset Applied to Marriage

•NO spouse can meet every need of the other.

•Unrealistic Expectations

The consumer mentality and the

pursuit of “becoming one” cannot coexist.

“Differentiation”

•“Differentiation”

• Two basic life forces:

• the drive for individuality

• the drive for togetherness.

• Individuality propels us to follow our own directives, to be on our own, to create a unique identity.

• Togetherness pushes us to follow the directives of others, to be part of the group.

• When these two life forces for individuality and togetherness are expressed in balanced, healthy ways, the result is a meaningful relationship that doesn’t break down into emotional dysfunction.

Sounds great in theory, doesn’t it?•“Thought this was Adult

Discipleship not Psychology 301.”

•“I think we tried something like this once.”

•“How does this actually apply?”

Discuss.

•First impressions of the idea of the consumerism effect on marriage

•Differentiation

•How does the Bible’s vision of marriage fit into this?

•The bad news is that there is no How-To plan.

•The good news is that there is no How-To plan.

•Growing marriages have to figure out how it’s going to work for them.

•A healthy relationship does not demand I give up my identity, nor does it demand my partner to give themselves up to meet all of my needs.

•A husband and wife are to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” Ephesians 5:21(NIV).

•This is a mutual submission that does not ask us to give up our created image in God (Gen. 1:27) in order to fulfill every need the partner may have.

Practicing mutual submission,

self-sacrifice and unconditional love

overcome the “consumer mentality” in marriage.

•In marriage, we are not consumers, we are spouses.

•And our love is rooted not in the other but from our Creator. (It’s given/received to the other ...)

“Being free means ‘being free for the other,’ because I am bound to the other. Only in

relationship with the other am I free.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer