Have you ever ordered something from a restaurant and they messed up the order? How did you react when you didn’t get what you expected? Did you roll over and take it or did you send it back? Are there restaurants you won’t go back to because they didn’t live up to your expectations? When our expectations aren’t met, there are real consequences.

So what do you expect out of marriage? How you answer that will go a long way to defining your success in marriage. Too often we fall victim to a cultural expectation of marriage that far exceeds anything God ever created it to be. We look to marriage to be the end all of happiness and purpose in life. We expect our spouse to be ‘the One,’ to be completely perfect, put together, to completely submit their needs and wants to ours, to assist us in the achievement of our goals, all the while filling us with the love, purpose, and fulfillment we have yet to be able to find. We expect our spouses to give us what only Christ himself can give us.

The myth about marriage is that it’s all about happiness. And if you’re not happy, if your expectations aren’t being met, if your marriage isn’t what you signed up for, then there will be an incredible temptation to hit the return button and try again with someone else.

But when you read Paul’s teaching on marriage in Ephesians 5:21-27, you’ll discover that Paul talks a lot more about holiness than he does about happiness. That’s because when God designed marriage, he designed it to be a lot more about holiness than happiness. If you pursue the myth that marriage is designed to make you happy, you’ll be sorely disappointed, because only Jesus can give you the deep-seated joy that you crave. And your spouse isn’t Jesus.

When you pursue marriage as a way to become holy, to learn how to submit, to sacrifice, to respect, to depend on God, you’ll gain not only a successful marriage, but along the way you’ll discover the joy and fulfillment you’ve been searching for all along.