Marital Health and We-ness

By John Daum
March 6, 2018

Marital health has a variety of implications- financial, legal, and… grammatical. Pardon my background as an English teacher, but the grammar of marriage fascinates me. Any marriage counselor will tell you that they pay close attention to the pronouns they hear in the office. The pronouns of marriage have important implications, as well as some lessons, if we are are willing to brush up on our grammar.

When two people are dating, there is a “Me” and a “You”. If all goes well, and both “You” and “Me” are willing to say, “I do,” the new pronoun that matters is “We.” This “We” signals the wonderful reality that two separate individuals have formed something beautiful that never existed before. Two have become one. And now words like “We” and “Us” become charged with a significance that takes a lifetime to explore and enjoy.

My wife Monica and I took to calling our We, “Team Daum.”

(Feel free to come up with your own, much more creative name.) We would often say to each other, “It’s Team Daum against the world.” It was a reminder that we had a relationship that we both needed to cultivate and protect. It isn’t always easy. “Me” comes much more naturally. Each of us had to commit to do the work to move past our “Me” and get to “We.”

As our children came along, they were added to the team. And as parents, we were making decisions on behalf of a “We” that included all seven of us. We would sometimes huddle up like we were about to play a big game and put our hands together and cheer “One, two, three – GO TEAM DAUM!” Now, our kids grew out of that real quick, but when they were little, it was a fun way to visualize that the family “We” was bigger than any individual “Me.”

There are times in every marriage when “I” is in direct conflict with “We.”

The health of your marriage and your family is going to hinge on which pronoun wins. In any team sport, when an individual player puts their own agenda ahead of what is best for the team, the team will suffer.

What does the grammar of your marital health look like? Is it all “Me,” “My,” and “Mine?” Are there a lot of accusations of “you always” or “you never?” Are you cultivating and protecting the “We” that was created on your wedding day? All the best stuff in my family has happened when there was no “I” in “Team Daum.”

***If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, contact the National Hotline for Domestic Abuse. At this link, you can access a private chat with someone who can help you 24/7. If you fear your computer or device is being monitored, call the hotline 24/7 at: 1−800−799−7233. For a clear understanding of what defines an abusive relationship, click here.***

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