Keeping Score in Your Marriage

   The world is full of score keeping. It seems almost everything we try our hand at there is a way to be ranked. What is your child's math score? How many AR points have they earned? Who runs the fastest? Who runs the farthest? Who runs the farthest fastest? If an activity isn't an official competition it can be turned into one. When my children were younger and I spent more time on field trips and in the classroom helping, I would overhear parents comparing their children to other children sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes not too subtlety. I referred to it as the sport of competitive parenting. I occasionally joined in, if I thought I had a winning position, but it never felt right or satisfying.

   Competition is fine in sports and when everyone knows what, if anything, is at stake. Usually it is only bragging rights and if carried with good cheer and accompanied by the humility of knowing that this is not a measure of a persons worth but just a fleeting moment of good fun, competition is fun.

   Where I see competition at it's worst is between spouses. Many people keep score within their marriage. Some keep score for years. Who does more house work, who remembers birthdays and anniversaries, whose parents are the most irritating, who failed to take the trash out or pay the electric bill or get up with the baby. I've known married people who can recite, with great martyred sighs, how much more their spouses hobby costs than their own hobby. I know couples who keep a strict accounting of how many times each has stayed home with a sick child, how many times each has gone out with friends, how many times the check book balance was not correct. (In reporting the spouses many faults no one admits that they may have dropped the ball once or twice).

   This is not fun competition. This is competition that decays a relationship. This is an underhanded way of  saying to your spouse that they do not measure up, that they are not good enough. This is an attempt to shame the person you most love and are most committed to in this world. What is worse is that so often  this is not a conversation held only within the marriage; this is a conversation broadcast to whomever will listen. It is destructive. There is no good to come from it.

   Love doesn't keep count. To keep count is a very human and very sinful way to live. It is easy to fall into counting. It immediately leads to bickering, bitterness, self pity and self righteousness. It is unpleasant for everyone and of course it teaches children a terrible lesson. The lesson is that love is currency; that you only have to do as much as the other person does. This is true if you have a contract to buy a car, but this is not true of love. The love defined in the bible and the love that God showers on us is not a score card kind of love. It is a "no matter what" kind of love.  That is the kind of love we should all strive for with our spouse, our children and the world. Even isn't always fair and fair is not always even. Marriage is neither even or fair, after all it is between to people riddled with faults.

   Keeping score is for basketball and tennis. Keeping score is not for life long, loving relationships. Throw away the score card and just love without counting.