Genesis 2:24
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
You may have heard this verse spoken at a wedding, maybe even your own wedding. You may be newly married or celebrating 50 or more years together and you may still be clinging to your parents (dead or alive). Let me explain:
When getting married, we may take this verse as,” I will leave my parents and become one with my spouse.” We may think about this during the wedding ceremony when the dad gives his daughter to the groom, and then we may never think about it again. The actual physical leaving of our parents is really a very small part in what this verse is telling us to do.
We leave our parents physically, yes, but we also are to give up our dependence upon them and become more focused on our spouse and new family both financially and emotionally. Even our spiritual fellowship will (should) become more about leading our own home versus depending on our parents to give all the spiritual guidance. I believe the emotional dependence on parents is the area that sneaks into our marriage trying to steal and rob us from truly becoming one.
Let me give you some examples of what how that may look.
We may still be emotionally dependant on our parents if:
- We run to our parents if we are hurt, especially by our spouse.
- We seek their opinion and approval in big or small decisions we are making.
- We” jump: when our parents tell us to.
- We allow our parents to influence our daily life with our spouse.
- We have hurts from unmet needs by our parents that we are still looking for them to meet.
- We try to please our parents before pleasing our spouse.
- Each of these can be taken to extreme where the parents are a higher priority than our spouse
These are just a few but I hope you hear what I am trying to say, “Emotional dependence on our parents prevents us from leaving father and mother and cleaving to our spouse.”
So how do we leave our parents emotionally?
We choose to allow God and our spouse to now meet the needs we have.
We give God our hurts from unmet needs from our childhood and look to Him and our spouse to meet them now.
We may need to grieve the fact that we didn’t receive certain needs from our parents, but we are not to look to our parents any longer to meet our needs. We can give our spouse the opportunity to know what needs we have and choose to meet them.
We need to come to the place where we have forgiven our parents or others from our home of origin for how they may have left us alone or hurt us just as Christ has forgiven us for the wrong we’ve done.
After we have said “I do”…let us then move forward!
Look to your spouse to meet your needs.
Allow God to heal unmet needs left in your heart by your parents.
Turn away from having to have your parents approval and look to your spouse and his/her opinion.
Make your own traditions with your spouse.
Make your own decisions with your spouse and don’t allow parents to have the final say when you and your spouse have prayerfully reached a decision of your own.
Talk to your spouse when you are hurting allowing him/her to give you comfort and counsel.
We are not advocating ignoring or dishonoring your parents, but we are asking you to consider ways to transfer to your spouse the emotional, spiritual, and financial interdependence God allows in a relationship.
Honoring your father and mother may be best done by not making the same relational mistakes or allowing home of origin dysfunction to control your marriage and family. Most parents, if not all, would be much more honored by us if they saw us trusting God primarily and building healthy interdependence with our spouse to provide leadership in our home. I think you would agree that it seems much more likely to have a positive impact on our children, if we have them, when they watch mom and dad grow in our marriage to love each other better and lead the home to dependence on God’s power and Word. When children see grandparents coming between parents and causing tension in the home, that is not a healthy atmosphere nor is it honoring to our mother and father.
We must look to our spouse instead of our parents. He/She is the one that loves you and is making a life with you. Let your spouse build you up, meet your needs and be your best friend. We believe this is more in keeping with God’s design for the home.