Leaving and Cleaving

In this episode, we go back to Genesis 2 to explore God’s foundational design for marriage: leaving father and mother, holding fast to your spouse, and becoming one flesh. “Leaving” doesn’t mean abandoning or dishonoring your parents—it means recognizing that marriage creates a new family that should be prioritized. We can bring the good things we learned from our families of origin into our marriages, but we must build our own home together rather than simply continuing the traditions and expectations we grew up with.

And leaving and cleaving isn’t just a decision we make on our wedding day. Throughout every season of marriage, we have opportunities to choose our spouse, cling to one another, and keep other voices in their proper place. Wise counsel from parents and others can be a blessing, but ultimately our marriage belongs to us, our spouse, and God. Because marriage is meant to reflect Christ and His church, we are called to continually choose each other, protect our union, and hold fast to the one God has joined us to.

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Hello and welcome to Wifey Wednesdays, a podcast for women who are seeking to be the best wives they can be. I’m your host, Emily Hatfield, and this is the show where the plan is always to do things God’s way, especially our marriages.

On today’s episode, we are going to be looking at what it means to leave and cleave — as that is one of the very first and most fundamental aspects of marriage. But also, maybe don’t tune it out if you’ve been married a while, because I think leaving and cleaving isn’t necessarily a one time thing.

Alright, let’s head back in our Bibles to the book of Genesis. When God establishes the first home, He gives some guidance to this new couple. Guidance that really is more looking forward for them and not necessarily backward, as they don’t really have parents that they are going to leave and cleave. One day, their children are going to need to go out on their own, though, so we see this word of instruction given to Adam and Eve.

Let’s start reading in Genesis 2:20.

“The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept He took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh, and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

This is a beautiful scene, and really, it’s the last beautiful scene for a while, because the very next verse begins the fall of man.

So let’s examine what is happening here.

You have Adam, doing the job that God has given him to do in naming all of the animals. He’s seen a lot of animals at this point, no doubt, which I think is why as soon as he’s presented with Eve, he says - this is bone of MY bones, flesh of MY flesh. She is like me! Nothing else had been like Adam. So here was Eve, crafted from under Adam’s side. God took something delicate from within man and made a perfect complement for him. From their anatomy to their functionality and everything in between, Adam and Eve were complements for each other. Adam was not better than Eve, and Eve was not better than Adam. Once they had each other, everything was very good. Marriage is very good! It is a created thing, purposed in the mind of God, to bless the earth and to bless us individually. It is within this covenant relationship that He intends to bring all peoples into the world.

So fast forward to a command within the Ten Commandments — honor your father and mother. This is a huge command, right? Yet, the prior command is still in effect. Leave your father and mother. Hold fast to your wife. Doing those things is not in any way contrary to honoring father and mother. But in today’s world, we somehow act like it is. We act like boundaries are a bad thing. We act like keeping people at a distance is somehow unholy or off-putting.

Here’s the thing, though. God made us to cling to our spouse. He made us to be able to leave home. He made us to be able to form something new for ourselves — a new home, a new family. And you don’t quote - start a family - when you have a baby. You start a family when you get married. God starts your family. God joins you together. And in that day, in that choosing, you are choosing each other and also choosing to leave your family of origin.

Now, we don’t have to cut them off and completely lose contact. The command to honor father and mother is still going to be something important. But we do have to prioritize our marriage, which I think is becoming less and less of the norm.

It can be very easy to fall back into the things that you’ve always known, and what falls into the category of “always known” more than family of origin. The way we did things, the ways your parents acted, the tasks they did, the jobs they performed, the expectations that were there — these things can be something we revert back to when we don’t know what else to do. These can be things we don’t even think about, really. We just kind of have in our minds it’s so. And when we marry someone — a person who is completely their own individual with their own background — sometimes our differences can cause friction between the two of us. The temptation is to run back to your own family for validation that your way is the better and right way.

But that’s not marriage. Marriage isn’t about running back home when things are hard. Marriage isn’t about turning to your own parents for their views on your marriage. Marriage isn’t about using home as a safety net when things aren’t wonderful. Marriage is about leaving your family of origin and starting a new one, and choosing that one and prioritizing that one.

It’s gonna take a lot of intentionality initially. It’s going to take investing in your marriage and working things out for yourselves. And all of that, it’s gonna be messy. It’s gonna be hard. Some choices harder than others. It’s going to be humbling. It’s going to be heart-wrenching sometimes. But it’s also going to be a million times easier if you are both seeking God’s will above your own.

When my selfishness crops its head, making concessions within my marriage is hard. When I am bent on doing things my way, I am less likely to see the good in something that is not my idea, or was not the way I was raised. But when I am seeking God’s will above my own, I will bear with my husband - I will concede on things that don’t matter - I will give my opinions with gentleness and treat his varying opinions with respect.

Is this easy? Oh, definitely not. And guess what? It’s a continual thing. Because as you grow, as seasons change, you’re going to have to start making more and more of these decisions to cling to each other. When you become a parent, you might be tempted to run back to your own parents when things get messy. If you’re like me and you develop postpartum depression, the temptation to run is going to be a very real thing. But again, we must choose to cling to each other. We must choose to make our marriage the priority that God desires it to be. And God does not desire that I put my parents above my husband. God does not desire that I put my children above my husband. God does not desire that I put my job or my church family or my own feelings above my husband. My marriage is important to God — so actively seeking to cling to it, that’s a big, important piece.

Keep in mind that marriage was created to mirror the gospel. You have in Ephesians 5 a picture of a husband and wife, but really, Paul will say, it’s a picture of Christ and the church.

Should Christ cling to His church? Absolutely…aren’t we thankful He does?! And should the church cling to Christ? Absolutely! Then shouldn’t a husband and wife cling to each other? Well, seeing as it’s a command from God - obviously, but also, it’s a gift from Him that we have each other to cling to in the first place. So let’s choose each other. Let’s choose to cling to each other. Let’s choose to leave family of origin behind — and not become trapped by the rituals of that history. Can we both bring good things into our marriages that we learned from our homes growing up? Absolutely. But those must be agreed upon together. We cannot force something we think is best while refusing to hear the other side. We cannot simply choose to make something be one way because we value the way our parents did it instead of valuing our husband’s thoughts on the matter.

When Jesus speaks about this command in Matthew 19, He says, “So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

There are a lot of people who might try to break up your marriage. But here’s the thing, God has joined it together, which means we need to prioritize clinging to our spouse. If God has given us our husband’s to cling to, then let’s cling. Don’t let anyone separate you — don’t let anyone come between you. Not another person that might be a threat to the sanctity and purity of your marriage, but also not a family member whom you are prioritizing above your spouse.

We need the wisdom from previous generations to help us within our marriages. I have been extremely blessed with the wisdom of many women I have gotten to talk to through the years on or about this podcast. But receiving wisdom from others and implementing it as law within my marriage…that’s a dangerous thing. Parents have a way of wanting to impose, though. They have a way of wanting to insist upon their traditions being upheld around holiday times, or their parenting ideologies upheld within their grandchildren. But your marriage is ultimately between you and your husband and God. God’s voice is loudest, followed by yours and your husbands. Everyone else’s pails in comparison.

Does this mean we should never get outside help? Absolutely not. But when we are taking advice or receiving counsel from others, we still have to recognize that our spouse is the one we are clinging to. God is the One whose opinion on my marriage matters most. And His desire is that I should cling to my husband, unless I am unsafe or have been discarded through unfaithfulness. But otherwise — my job is to leave and cleave. My job is to cling tightly to my husband and to keep other voices at their proper volume and with their proper amount of influence.