It’s easy to feel entitled to certain rights and benefits from our marriages. That entitlement always seems to be there but is never helpful in creating a great marriage. Take hope though,  there is a better way - it's called sacrifice.

Gary Thomas’ book “Sacred Marriage” speaks to this when he asks the question, 'What if marriage was more about making you holy than making you happy'? He confronts the idea that we think marriage should make us all goo-goo ga-ga happy but instead we run smack into our own humanity, and our own sin.

The beauty of marriage is that is in an opportunity to have these ugly things brought to light and then work on putting them out of our lives and thereby experiencing transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit in our marriage.

So let’s take a look at entitlement and how this can damage our marriage, then, how to, instead, move towards giving sacrificially to one another. Our premise is, that at the end of the day, giving sacrificially benefits both myself and my spouse and also my marriage as a whole.

The Problem of Entitlement in Marriage

Very simply, entitlement is about what I think I deserve from others. It’s about my expectations.

In a marriage, entitlement really stinks because marriage is supposed to be about an entity called “us” and yet entitlement is about the entity called “me”. Yet, the irony of it is, in marriage the intensity of entitlement feelings is unique and amplified compared to other relationships.

Tolmacz looked at this and noted that couple relationships have two very specific dynamics that make them prone to unique issues around entitlement:

Couple relationships have a high level of intimacy

Couple relationships generate wants, needs, and expectations.

He found evidence from clinical settings and practice shows that entitlement influences the quality of our marriages, and the level of satisfaction we each experience in our marriages.[i]

Caleb has found the same thing – when helping distressed marriages heal and recover, there is always some unhealthy entitlement in the mix that has caused the distress.

What is particularly interesting about this study from Tolmacz is that he found that gender is a huge factor in the issue of relational entitlement and that women are especially affected. This relates to the identity roles we bring to our marriages as men and women where women are socialized to be concerned about meeting the needs of others. This is a great trait but leads to the depreciation of their own wishes, needs, and self-worth and consequently, they are more prone to being on the receiving end of the entitlement problem.

This gets more serious though as this same researcher found that entitlement contributes to desire for a divorce, and does more so among men and women in making the divorce decision. Generally speaking, is entitlement was a weapon, men are holding it, and women are on the receiving end of its brutality.

It gets even more severe too. There are numerous studies linking entitlement with violence in intimate partner relationships. Abusive men use a sense of entitlement to give an excuse for their violence towards women. Not only that but men who feel entitled to their wife’s body act more violently than other men.

So, realize, that while we experience and express entitlement at some pretty basic and relatively innocent levels, it also has this really dark, dark side to it. For that reason, even if you are not anywhere near that severe end of the spectrum, we’re asking you to take it very seriously. Husbands, this is a challenge primarily for you - Make sure you get the worksheet.

For the part of our audience that shares our Christian faith – let’s look at Ephesians 5 for a moment. This is a chapter which abusive men who like to use the Bible like a stick – which is not how it was ever intended to be used – will emphasize to their wives that they must submit and get them in a big tizzy over what it...