"After All, We'll Never Be the Right One Either": Stonestreet on "The Right One" Fairy Tale

The myth of "the one."  I believe that this myth is one of the greatest dangers to marriage, and our understanding of it, today. In a recent blog/podcast, John Stonestreet raises this issue and rightly notes some of the dangers of "the right one" myth.  Many enter relationships looking for "the one" obviously reflecting our culture's influence on their understanding of dating and relationships. Every Disney cartoon has promoted this view (The Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Cinderella, just to name three very clear ones) and every chick flick and romance novel promotes it.  Yet it is a myth. 

Marriage does not mean we find the one, but that we become the one.  In other words, God uses marriage to conform us into the image of His Son.  Marriage either makes us better or bitter (to quote Mark Driscoll). It teaches us patience, love, service, and sacrifice -- all of which are characteristics of our Savior.  But the myth of "the one" suggests that a perfect person is out there and fate will bring us together. It implies that marriage is about me or that the other person is here to serve me.  We will just magically get along, always be in agreement, and live happily ever after.  This myth confuses love with lust or at the very least infatuation. It turns us into dreamy adolescence, not sober adults.

This myth also encourages serial divorce and fear of commitment.  After all, what if you married the wrong person? What if you rushed fate? What if your in a relationship and they're not "the one?" In our effort to find contentment, peace, joy, and love in another sinner, we continue to chase our tails of idolatry.  Marriage will never deliver only what the Eternal Father can and does give.

Stonestreet writes:

Working with young adults, I’ve heard it too: the millions of excuses why a relationship ended, and why the other person wasn’t “the one for them.” But as Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City wrote in The Meaning of Marriage, you never marry the right person. No two people are compatible, Keller says, because marriage profoundly changes us. Whoever you do marry will be changed by marriage itself -- and that’s not a bad thing. Also, people aren’t compatible because any two people who marry are each fallen and sinful -- a fact that suddenly seems more obvious after marriage than before.

I know this contradicts the Disney princess paradigm of there being this magical love story that is easy and perfect, including the numerous attempts to Christianize it. But it’s true. So, while there are things that make a potential spouse “the wrong one,” we need to change how we look for “the right one.” After all, we’ll never be the right one either.

This last point is worth repeating.  A major folly with this myth is the belief that I am in no need to change. It camouflaged self-righteous.  The problem is never with me but with them.

The biblical model for marriage is far better than this.  Scripture begins with our justification which immediately leads to sanctification.  Justification forces us to cease looking to the self for fulfillment and in fact to crucify the self.  It calls on us to pick up our cross and follow Christ.  To live for Him and thereby to live for others.  We hand over our demands, our wants, our desires, our needs, or our expectations.  This has immense implications to marriage.  Marriage is the gospel on display in the home. It is daily the work of dying to ourselves and serving the other. We are to serve one another, not expect to be served. We love sacrificially, not just love selfishly. 

If marriage is to be saved, this then myth needs to be die. I love my wife, not because fate brought us together, but in God's providence He continues to sanctify me through His Spirit, and due to the justifying work of Christ on the cross by which I was, am, and will be saved I now know what it means to truly love the wife of my youth.

"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her." -The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5.


The Point (John Stonestreet) - Mr. and Mrs. Right


For more:
Blogizomai - Repost Friday | The Myth of "the One": Why We Should Reconsider the Fairy Tale View of Love & Marriage
Reviews - "Just Do Something" by Kevin DeYoung - in one part of his book, DeYoung deals with this issue and makes the same argument I make here.
Blogizomai - "Real Marriage" by Mark & Grace Driscoll
Blogizomai - Repost | Does the Ring Make All the Difference?: CT Interviews Glenn Stanton
Blogizomai - Repost | Ware on the Trinity & Relationships
Blogizomai - A Must Read:  Colson on the "Cohabitation Revolution"
Blogizomai - Repost | An Important Read: Premarital Sex and the Promises It Fails to Deliver
Blogizomai - Don't Be Naive, They're Having Sex: A Word to Parents, Students, and Pastors
Blogizomai - Repost Friday - Heteronormativity: Another Word for Heterophobi