As we celebrate Independence Day, I’ve found myself thinking about something a little different this year.
Not the fireworks or the parades—but the Constitutional Convention.
Fifty-five delegates gathered in Philadelphia with wildly different opinions, competing priorities, and strong personalities. They didn’t all agree. In fact, they argued passionately. Yet somehow, they built something that could hold their differences and move the country forward.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that’s exactly what healthy marriages require.
Every couple has differences. We come into marriage with different desires, different communication styles, different expectations, and different needs for intimacy. The question isn’t, “Who’s right?” The better question is, “What can we build together that honors both of us?”
In this episode, I explore what the Constitutional Convention can teach us about creating a “more perfect union” in marriage. We’ll talk about why collaboration is more powerful than compromise, how to create conversations where both spouses feel heard, and why building the right structure is often more important than winning the argument.
My hope is that this episode inspires you to approach your marriage with a little more humility, a little more creativity, and a renewed commitment to building something beautiful together.
After all, a great marriage isn’t a perfect union—it’s one that’s continually becoming a more perfect union.
If you’d like help collaborating on that union, check out our program and how it has helped hundreds of other couples.
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
“A More Perfect Union”: What America’s 250th Can Teach Us About Marriage and Intimacy
Dan [00:00:00]: So what does the United States Senate have to do with your s*x life? Probably more than you think. Now, stay with me here. As we celebrate America’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the founding of our country. Now, not just the fireworks and the flags and the parades and the patriotic music or the big political divide [00:01:00] we see played out in social media and on television.
This is not about politics. But instead, I’ve been thinking a lot about how our Constitution came to be. I’m specifically thinking about the hot, uncomfortable, stuffy room in Philadelphia in the summer of seventeen eighty-seven. Fifty-five men representing different states, different backgrounds, different interests, different economies, different ideologies gathered to solve a problem.
The country was young. The Articles of Confederation weren’t working well. The states were loosely connected, but the Union was fragile. And these delegates came together with a task to solve a really hard question: What kind of government could actually hold us together? And here’s what fascinates me.
They did not all agree, not even close. But stay with me here. I’ll show you how this ties into your marriage in just a second. Not all people agreed. They argued. They debated. They had competing interests. The larger states wanted one [00:02:00] thing, the smaller states wanted another. Some delegates wanted a stronger national government, and others were deeply suspicious of too much centralized power and wanted that back in the States.
And somehow, out of all this disagreement came the United States Constitution. And almost every country in the world today has adopted a constitution similar in structure to the United States since. It’s that big of a deal. And this came together not because everyone thought the same way, not because everyone got exactly what they wanted, but because they were willing to keep showing up, keep talking, keep listening, keep wrestling, keep searching for a structure that could hold their differences And the phrase from the preamble of the Constitution keeps echoing in my mind, “To form a more perfect union.”
Not a perfect union, but a more perfect union. And today, I wanna talk about what that has to do with marriage, especially the intimate side of your [00:03:00] marriage. Because if you’re married, you already know where I’m going here. Husbands and wives don’t always come to the marriage with the same desires, the same expectations, the same comfort levels, the same timing, the same emotional needs, or the same s*xual preferences.
One of you may crave more physical connection, the other may need more emotional connection first. One of you might really delight in being more spontaneous, and the other really wants things to be predictable. One of you might wanna spend more money, the other might wanna save more money. One of you might want to talk through things, The other person might feel overwhelmed with too many words. You get the picture. One of you may feel rejected, the other feels pressured. And it is easy in marriage to turn these differences that are just natural part of marrying someone different than you into a battle. And so who is right, who is wrong, whose needs matter more, who needs to change?
But what if instead the question of how do I get my spouse to agree with me, what if the better question [00:04:00] is, what kind of union can hold our differences that we have? What, what kind of union can hold both of us? And that is what I wanna explore today I want you to go back in time with me.
It’s May of seventeen eighty-seven, and delegates gathered in Philadelphia for what we now call the Constitutional Convention. They had a few rules. They met behind closed doors. They took secrecy seriously. They agreed to not talk publicly about the proceedings, no running to the press, no public campaigning, no stirring up outside pressure.
They met six days a week, often from late morning until the afternoon, in a room that could get hot and stuffy. This is long before air conditioning was invented, right? Windows were often closed to preserve privacy, which kind of made things hotter sometimes, and tempers rose, too. But they also created these rules.
you had to show up. If you were in town, you were expected to attend. States had to be present to vote. Each state had one vote. [00:05:00] Decisions were made through and agreed upon a very specific process. Now, why does all this matter? Because before they could create a constitution, they had to create the conditions where an honest collaboration could happen in their discussions, and that’s important.
They didn’t just say, “Let’s all get together and see what happens.” They had a process. They had rules, boundaries, a shared purpose, and they had enough respect for the work that they were engaged in to protect the room. That alone is a powerful lesson for any marriage because many couples try to solve intimate issues without first creating, you know, rules or a safe enough room for the conversation.
They try to talk about s*x when they’re exhausted, or they bring up their hurts when they’re tired and depleted, or they make jabs and jokes or use sarcasm with sharp edges, or they complain to friends or, in-laws. They silently build a case against each other. They have the same arguments again and again, but without any [00:06:00] shared rules of how the talk is going, without any ways to listen and repair or make decisions, they kind of spin in circles, and then they wonder why their conversations don’t go well.
But what if your marriage needs its own little convention? Not like a constitutional convention, but a marital one. You know, a protected space where both spouses can agree, “Look, we’re gonna talk about this. This is our goal. We’re not here to win or to shame or to blame.
We’re not here to gather evidence against each other, but we’re here to form a more perfect union.” One of the most famous debates in the Constitutional Convention centered on representation, and there is a film, it’s, like, made in the ’80s, my family watches it once in a while around this time of year, called A More Perfect Union, and I love the drama that’s played out around this central question in the film, and this is what I want to share with you here.
And great thanks to James Madison, who, took painstaking notes and minutes throughout [00:07:00] the entire Constitutional Convention, and it’s to him we owe a lot of this insight as to what really went on behind closed doors as we look back on history. At this critical and pivotal point in the convention, the large states wanted representation in the federal government based on population, which made sense to them.
If your state had more people, shouldn’t you have more say? After all, isn’t it we the people of the United States? The small states saw it differently. They worried that if representation was based only on population, the large states would dominate them. They wanted equal representation in the federal government for each state.
Now pause for a moment and put yourself in that room. Both sides have a point. The large states weren’t crazy. Population mattered. And the small states weren’t crazy either. They didn’t want to be swallowed up or ignored. This was not a simple disagreement between a right side and a wrong side. It was a conflict between [00:08:00] two legitimate concerns.
That’s exactly what happens in marriage, especially when it comes to intimacy. A husband might say, “I want to feel desired. I want to have a passionate marriage, and I don’t want to feel like s*x is always an obligation or an afterthought,” which is a legitimate concern. And the wife might say, “I want to feel emotionally safe.
I don’t want to feel pressured. I want my body and my pace to matter. I want affection that doesn’t always have an agenda,” which is also a legitimate concern. Or we can reverse the genders. It can go either way. One spouse might be saying, “I need more connection.” The other might be saying, “I need more safety.”
One might say, “I feel lonely.” The other is saying, “I feel overwhelmed.” One says, “I want more passion.” The other says, “I want less pressure.” And when couples are stuck, they often assume they only have two options. Either you meet my needs or I meet yours. Either we do it your way or we do it my way. Either I lose or you lose.
But the great compromise from [00:09:00] the Constitutional Convention teaches us something profound. The breakthrough was not, “Okay, large states win,” and it wasn’t, “Okay, the small states get their way .” The breakthrough was a new structure. It was a legislature that had two houses, which is a novel idea. The House of Representatives would reflect population.
The Senate would give equal representation to each state Was it perfect? No. Was everyone thrilled with every detail of this? No. But it created a structure that could hold competing concerns. And this is where I think the lesson for marriage is so powerful. Sometimes the answer is not for one spouse to surrender and the other spouse to win.
Sometimes the answer is to create a new structure that honors both. For example, maybe one spouse wants more s*xual connection and the other spouse wants less pressure. The new structure might be weekly intimacy check-in, where s*x is not demanded, but desire, [00:10:00] affection, and emotional closeness are talked about really more openly.
Or maybe one spouse wants more spontaneity, and the other, you know, really wants time to transition and really likes routine. The new structure might be planned intimacy, where a lot of the time it’s gonna be routine, but once in a while you plan for something else. That’s that s*xploration. That’s where we’ll create more room for playfulness inside of that plan.
Maybe one spouse wants the other to initiate more, but, the other fears rejection. So the new structure might be a simple signal system where either spouse can express openness, interest, or a, “Not tonight, but I love you and I want to connect some other time. Maybe tomorrow.” Whatever it is, you do is you create this container where it’s like a both/and.
It’s how can we collaborate together and create a structure where we’re both gonna really build a better union together? Now, you may not be thrilled with all of the outcome, but at [00:11:00] least this is something we can work with together. And all this to say, the point isn’t to copy someone else’s marriage.
The point is you want a structure where it helps both of you feel represented. What agreement could you make that helps both of you feel valued and safe, and what would help you become more united, not more compliant?
There’s one more thing about the historical aspect we learn from the minds of the delegates as they’re going into trying to form this more perfect union, and it is this: They had pre-decided that regardless of what the actual compromise would be, they will compromise, and that, that is a key distinction.
It means I have already pre-decided that I am going to work with you. I’ve pre-decided that I want to have a better outcome, and I’m gonna listen, and I will come up with a great [00:12:00] solution with you. That is a very different mentality than I’m going into this holding onto my cards, and I’m strict. I know what’s best for me, and I’m not gonna give in.
I’m not gonna budge. It’s this … It’s almost like a spirit of humility. It’s a, it’s a willingness to pre-decide, openness. Now, when it comes to intimacy in marriage, what if you approach your differences that way? It’s the idea that I have pre-decided that no matter what, as we come together to, uh, work on our differences, I’m going to be willing to be flexible here.
I’m gonna be willing to listen. I’m gonna be willing to see if maybe my assumptions aren’t completely correct and that your point has some validity in it. I’m gonna bring my creativity, my very best to this situation, so maybe we’ll both through our discussions invent something new and different we each haven’t thought of separately, but together with our individual strengths, we [00:13:00] build something new and better for both of us. There’s a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the end of the Constitutional Convention that I absolutely love.
Franklin was an elderly man by then. I think he was the oldest man in the room. He had seen a lot of life, and he knew the Constitution was not perfect. But near the close of the Constitution, he said, in essence, that he consented to the Constitution because he expected no better, because he was not sure it was not the best.
That’s a really humble statement. Let me say it again. He consented to the Constitution because he expected no better and because he was not sure it was not the best There’s another line that he says that I think also belongs in every marriage. Right before they’re taking the final vote, he stood up and invited all the delegates there to please doubt a little of your own infallibility.
Doubt a little of your own infallibility. Isn’t that good? What if every husband and [00:14:00] wife brought that spirit into their intimate conversations? What if before you made your case, you paused and thought, “Maybe I don’t see the full picture. Maybe my spouse’s experience makes more sense than I realize.
Maybe my assumptions are not completely accurate. Maybe the story I’ve been telling myself is missing something. Maybe I can be honest about my needs without making my spouse the villain.” That kind of humility changes everything because defensiveness says, “I already know.” Humility says, “Help me understand.”
Defensiveness says, “You’re the problem.” Humility says, “We have a problem, and I want to face it with you as a teammate.” Defensiveness says, “I need to win ’cause if you win, I lose.” Humility says, “I want us to win.” That’s the spirit that forms a more perfect union. So let’s make this practical. What would it look like to hold a little marriage convention?
Not a big formal thing, of course. You don’t [00:15:00] need powdered wigs. You don’t need parchment. You don’t need to meet in Philadelphia in July with the windows closed. Don’t do that. But you might need a protected conversation and give yourself some rules. Here are some examples. Number one, protect the room.
Make it an environment where you can feel calm, respectful, and be really present. That might mean put away your phones. Don’t do this late at night or when you’re already depleted, when you’re half asleep, or when you’re rushing out the door or already upset or feeling concerned. That’s not gonna be, a great place .
You want some emotional safety too. Maybe some other rules. No sarcasm. No contempt. No mocking. No bringing up 10 years of grievances all at once. Be really specific. Don’t use your spouse’s weaknesses or vulnerability against them later. A protected room is a place where truth can be spoken about without fear of punishment.
Another rule you might decide is to show up. The congressional delegates had to show up to the meeting. [00:16:00] Marriage requires that we show up too. Avoiding an intimate issue doesn’t usually make it go away. It just sends it underground where it rots the foundation of your marriage. So when issues go underground, they come back and they look like resentment, distance, shutdown, being walled off or pressure or passive aggressiveness, you know, jokes that actually have a little sting to it or quiet loneliness Showing up doesn’t mean you solve everything in one conversation all at once, but it does say, “This matters.
We matter. I’m willing to stay engaged. I want a more perfect union between us.” That alone can be healing. Another rule, you want fair representation for both sides. In the Constitutional Convention, the large states and small states needed representation.
In your marriage, your needs and your spouse’s needs both need fair representation. It’s not just the louder spouse gets their way, the more articulate spouse gets their way. It’s not that [00:17:00] the higher desire spouse or the lower desire spouse gets their way. It’s not that the spouse who feels hurt or most defensive gets their way.
It’s not that. Both needs have equal representation in this marriage. So a good question to ask is, what do I need you to understand about me? And what do I need to understand about you? You might ask, “What feels good in connecting to you? And what feels hurt, pressured, or scary, or disconnecting?”
You might ask, “What are you longing for? What do you really want? What’s your end goal?” And, “What are you protecting yourself from? What are you really afraid of?” And, When does this fear come up the most?” These are powerful questions because beneath many intimate disagreements are two good desires that have gotten tangled up.
It’s like the desire to be wanted, to be safe, to be close, to not be controlled, not … just to have our own autonomy, yet to be in a relationship with another person. It’s the desire [00:18:00] for passion and tenderness and freedom and reassurance. Both spouses need fair representation. Another rule for your marital convention could be you probably want a structure.
This is where I think a lot of couples get stuck. They talk about the problem, but they don’t create a structure that will help them move towards a resolution if a resolution is possible. They say, “We’ll just do better,” but do better isn’t structure. They say, “We need to be more intimate.” They might both agree, but what that actually means and how it’s carried out could be different for both people.
They might say, “You know, you need to initiate more,” or, “You need to stop pressuring me,” but those statements often create more defensiveness. So what you need is structure, which is specific. This is just examples. Of course, do it for your marriage. But you might say, “Hey, every Sunday night, let’s take 10 minutes and talk about our marriage, and let’s plan our upcoming week and how we’re gonna connect.
Let’s plan for connection.” That’s a structure. Or another e- example of [00:19:00] structure can be, “You know, we can create two kinds of affection, affection that is simply just affection for affection’s sake, and then there’s the other kind of affection, which is more deliberate s*xual initiation, and we’ll make room for both in our marriage.”
Or we agree that either spouse can say, “I want to be close tonight, but I’m not ready for s*x,” and that can be respected, and so on and so on. The right structure for your marriage will depend on your marriage, but the point is stop asking only which one of us is right, and instead start asking, “What can we build that honors both of us?”
That is how couples move quickly from gridlock to creativity. I want to be clear about something. Compromise in marriage is a little bit different than collaboration in marriage. Compromise often sounds like, uh, I can’t decide if I’m gonna wear a black shoe or a brown shoe with my suit, so I [00:20:00] decide to wear a black shoe on my right foot and a brown shoe on my left foot, and that compromise is way worse than wearing just black shoes or brown shoes.
there’s some things you can’t just do both on or go halfway on. It, it’s a lot worse. Compromise usually means we will both feel equally just as bad, and that’s how we know we reached compromise. I feel bad. You feel bad. We’re equally in pain. We’ve compromised. That’s not a great outcome. I, I le- prefer the word collaboration.
Collaboration means we’re each bringing our own creativity here, and we’re exploring and growing through this with the hope of creating a more perfect union between us, something we can both like. So good collaboration is not about ignoring pain. It doesn’t mean tolerating each other or doesn’t mean coercion.
It doesn’t mean one spouse can use certain language to pressure the other one into sex or things like that. Don’t do that. A more perfect union [00:21:00] isn’t built on force or just mere compromise. It’s collaboration. It’s built on consent, care, honesty, patience, and love. The kind of collaboration I’m talking about is not, “Fine. I’ll give in, so you’ll stop being upset.” That’s not real collaboration. That’s not real intimacy. That’s just folding into the other’s reality. That’s like more like the bad compromise. A healthy collaboration sounds more like, “Look, I care about you and your longing, and I need you to care about my limits, too,” or, “I want us to have a passionate marriage, and I want to feel safe for both of us,” or, “I don’t want to avoid this topic anymore, and I don’t want to fight about it either, so let’s work together to f- find a better way for us,” or, “I’m willing to doubt a little of my own infallibility,” as Benjamin Franklin said.
“I want to build something better with you.” That kind of collaboration is not weak. It’s mature, it’s [00:22:00] creative, and it’s deeply intimate So this weekend, as you enjoy fireworks, as we celebrate America’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, I hope you enjoy the fireworks both outside and inside the bedroom. I hope you have a fantastic meal.
I hope you have a lot of great, time with friends and, uh, you feel patriotic and all those wonderful things that come with this holiday. And also, I hope you take a moment to reflect on what it means to build a more perfect union in your intimate marriage. Doesn’t mean a perfect marriage, doesn’t mean a perfect s*x life or, you know, make your spouse become the perfect spouse that you expect them to be or idealize them to be.
What you want is a more perfect union, a union where both people matter, a union where differences are not treated as threats, but as realities we need to understand. You want a more perfect union where you don’t have to erase [00:23:00] yourself in order to feel like that’s the only way to love your spouse.
You don’t want that. You wanna feel like you can create a marriage where there’s room for both of you, a union where you don’t have to defeat your spouse to be heard, a union where you can actually sit down together and say, “Look, we’re on the same side here. Let’s build something that works for both of us.”
Maybe that’s the most patriotic thing you can do this weekend. Friends, thank you for listening to the Get Your Marriage On podcast. Remember, your marriage is worth fighting for, not fighting against each other for. Fight for that union. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just make it a little bit of a better union.
Fight for that connection. Fight for intimacy. It is absolutely worth fighting for. And if there’s anything I can do to help you with this in your marriage, help you facilitate these kinds of collaborative conversations, please check out my program at getyourmarriageon.com. And go get your marriage on and have a happy Independence [00:24:00] Day
