Relationships are kind of like playing catch. Impersonal relationships could be like playing catch with baseballs, and personal relationships with water balloons. The closer two people are to each other, the easier time they'll have completing their tosses. Talking face to face might be like standing five feet away, on the phone like 10 feet, and written communication might be like standing 20 or 30 feet away.
A baseball that gets dropped is unfortunate, but it can be recovered with varying degrees of difficulty. It hurts to get hit by a baseball you don't see coming, but the stakes go up exponentially when tossing water balloons because they're messy when dropped, and, in a certain sense, the game has to start over with a new balloon.
Emails loaded with emotion can be like white water balloons printed with a red stitching pattern resembling a baseball. Not a good idea to throw them unless your partner knows exactly what you're throwing. Eye-contact and verbal signals are simply a must, as well as certainty of your partner's willingness and ability to catch.
Marriage is kind of like playing catch with a newborn baby. This one can’t be dropped—at least not without tragic results. In order to minimize that baby’s airtime, those partners/parents need to stand as close as possible. Cushioned gloves might be a wise investment.
In fact, isn't it true that the baby should never leave the hands of at least one parent? Shouldn't those parents be close enough that they can simply hand the baby off to one another, back and forth? What if the parents were so close that they both held the baby at the same time, all the time?
At that point, I think the term "playing catch" takes on a new meaning. No longer a mere game, marriage is an guarantee that might be stated like this: "If you ever start to let go of this baby, I'll be right here to catch her. If this baby ever starts to slip from my hands, I know that you will be holding on and that you will already have caught her. Let's not be afraid, because together we will never let this baby drop."
Many of the weddings I've attended have referenced Ecclesiastes 4:12b, a familiar nugget of wisdom saying that "a cord of three strands is not quickly broken" (NIV). I've generally heard that verse interpreted to mean that the third strand in a marriage is God, and that He'll keep a couple together as long as they remember to include Him on their list of priorities.
I think another, equally Christian way to understand that analogy is in terms of the synergy generated by two people committed to a common goal, a goal whose sum is equal to more than the total of its parts. A marriage is not simply two people who happen to be doing life together. A marriage is a separate entity to whose success both spouses must be wholly committed.
A truly healthy marriage, then, is one in which husband and wife are more interested in the health of the baby than anything else. More than who brings home the bacon, who cooks it, who does the dishes, and who holds the remote control. More than personal autonomy or freedom to leave. More than the baseballs and water balloons constantly flying around as a parts of other, ongoing games of catch. Those things can be dropped.
The baby above all must be caught because that baby, when she grows up healthy and strong, will be capable of amazing things beyond their imagination. She will more closely resemble God than either of her parents. And there may come a time that they realize they have not fallen because she has been the one to catch them.