Helping Marriage Survive the Tradition Trap

October 31, 1985. Tradition has been defined as the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, etc. from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice. I think we often create tradition traps in marriage. A tradition trap might be simply defined as the insistence that marriage today must be exactly as it has been in the past.

Before you think I am against motherhood, baseball, the American flag, and apple pie, I must say I am not. There is much from the past that is worthwhile. The Bible admonishes us to “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1^st Thessalonians 5:21). Allow me, however, to give some examples of the disruption of tradition in my own marriage.

If you were to visit our house on Christmas Eve the first few years of our marriage, you would have found an interesting situation. Particularly after we had our children. Susan and I discovered we differed in how to celebrate this traditional holiday. In my family we always opened our gifts from family members on Christmas Eve. I fondly remember exchanging the personal gifts on the night before Christmas and then opening the presents from Santa on Christmas morning. It seemed like the sensible thing to do.

But in Susan’s family it was different. Only holiday heretics would supposedly open gifts before Christmas Day. (She never said that publicly, but that was how she felt.) True believers would save all their gifts to be opened on Christmas morning.

Christmas gifts should not become a major marital issue. We did, however, have many discussions about this particular tradition. When our children became old enough to sense the difference of opinion between their parents, they played on my wife’s sympathy by begging to open a present or two on Christmas Eve. They cited Dad’s family tradition as the rationale. Luckily our marriage has survived this collision of family traditions.

Another seemingly trivial tradition came with cookie baking. When I was a young boy my mother used to bake chocolate chip cookies every Saturday. Not only that, but she put plump raisins into them to spice them up a bit. I still become nostalgic, even tearful, when I reminisce about my mother’s chocolate chip cookies with raisins.

The first summer we were married Susan decided one day that she was going to bake some cookies. She asked what kind I liked, and I replied chocolate chip. Later that afternoon she proudly displayed her first batch of chocolate chip cookies. Guess what? I was naïve enough to ask, “Where are the raisins?” Then, to add insult to injury, I stated, “That’s how my mother used to bake them.”

Susan is not a violent person. She has never struck me, nor I her. But that afternoon she picked up a ripe grape from the table and threw it at me. She is a good shot. The grape hit me right on the forehead. It was a subtle, non-verbal communication. Never again have I mentioned my mother’s chocolate chip cookies . . . with raisins. And what’s more I didn’t get any kind of cookies for a long time after that incident.

Opening gifts at Christmas and chocolate chip cookies with or without raisins are but two examples how tradition in marriage can produce problems. But we become caught in the tradition trap only when we insist that marriage must be as it has been in the past. Or, worse yet, we become caught in the trap when we insist or demand that our marriage must be exactly like that of our parents.