Marriage Is a Team Sport (Pickleball)

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, KJV)

Solomon wrote that a long time before pickleball came along, but every time I step on the court with my wife Precious as my doubles partner, I understand what he meant a little more.

We did not start out playing pickleball. Precious and I first met playing tennis, and that was our sport in the early days. It was one of the things that brought us close. But life gets busy. Business and raising two kids took up most of our time, and tennis slowly faded away from our schedule. Some time back I picked up table tennis again on my own, hoping to feel that same spark. It was fun for me, but Precious never really enjoyed it the way she loved tennis. Something was still missing between us.

Then some friends invited us to try pickleball. From the first game, we both felt it. It reminded us of our old tennis days, the same footwork and back and forth rallies, but on a smaller court that made it easier to actually play together instead of just standing near each other. We got hooked fast. And somewhere in all those games, pickleball started teaching us something about marriage.

Marriage is not a game you play alone. It is doubles, not singles.

In singles, you cover the whole court by yourself. But in doubles, you and your partner move as one. You do not win by outplaying each other. You win by covering for each other. Paul writes about this kind of relationship in Ephesians 5:21, "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." Not one person doing all the work while the other watches. Both playing the same game, on the same side.

Here is a lesson pickleball taught me the hard way. Talking to each other wins points, and it saves marriages too.

Anyone who has played doubles knows about the ball that lands right in the middle, between both partners. Each one thinks the other will take it. More often than not, nobody moves and the ball just drops. Precious and I have lost more points than I want to admit because of this. She thought I had it, I thought she had it, and we both just watched it hit the ground.

The answer is not faster reflexes. It is speaking up every single time. "Mine" or "Yours," said early and said clearly. Once we started saying it out loud instead of assuming, our game got so much better.

Marriage has its own middle balls too. The bills neither of us paid because we each thought the other one handled it. The talk with the kids that both of us assumed the other would start. The need our spouse had that we expected them to just know about without saying a word. Proverbs 15:22 tells us, "Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellers they are established." Talking things through is not just a nice thing to have in marriage. It is what keeps the ball from hitting the ground.

Peter calls husbands and wives heirs together of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7). Not two people competing, not two people playing alone, but two people who share one inheritance. That is what Precious and I are learning again on the pickleball court every week. When we call out our shots, cover for each other, and stop assuming the other one has it, we do not just win points. We grow closer as a team.

So here is something for the men reading this. Find your own court. Find that space, whether it is a sport or a hobby or something you build together, where you and your wife can practice being one team again. And when the middle ball comes on the court of your marriage, do not let it drop. Call it out. Cover for her. Play like partners, because that is exactly what God made us to be.