Two friends confided in me within the same week. Both planned to leave their husbands.
I was devastated.
Both of their marriages had endured circumstances known to break down relationships. Both faced an uphill battle to hold on to their love and to each other.
Our marriage falls under a similar category. We face a daily load of stress, disasters and medical dramas that quickly erode any lingering honeymoon lovey-dovey feelings.
We face the same temptations too. The thoughts that maybe it’s not our circumstances making marriage challenging; maybe it was the wrong choice – at the start. Maybe we married the wrong PERSON.
I think all of us struggle with those thoughts at times, or during certain seasons. (If you haven’t, I want to know your secret – or whether you’ve been married for more than a day!)
The question is where we go with those questions.
I realised through my own journey that I had to flip the lens through which I saw life. I have an amazing husband. He has stood by US (not just me as an individual) but US as a unit and a family. He is there helping to clean up vomit. He is there at hospital losing sleep, helping me with Cayden. He is there bringing me medicine if I have become unwell. He is there, holding both his sons, giving them cuddles and taking them for bike rides.
Instead of seeing the issues in our relationship, I needed to see what an amazing man I had married. To appreciate his faithfulness, commitment, provision and care through his acts of service. Maybe acts of service isn’t my love language (See Gary Chapman’s “Five Love Languages” book) but… did that make our relationship any less valuable? Just because acts of service didn’t resonate for me as something fuelling my love tank, did that devalue the effort and love my husband was seeking to demonstrate?
I may not have received those gestures as beautiful expressions of love but actually – how is that his fault? His *intention* was to show love and care towards me. If in that season in hospital he had spent time giving me a hug and giving me time to decompress and verbalise my extreme stress, I would have felt emotionally comforted and able to calm down. That sort of expression would have drawn me to my husband despite the stress. But I assumed something was wrong in our relationship because that did not feature in that season. Too much of that period was staring at each other through the corridors of hospitals lined with extreme illness and anxiety.
But I had to mature through this season of pain and look beyond how I received things to how he was *intending* things.
When the stress of your world starts to feel overwhelming and to cloud your judgement, it’s important to realise it may be another of those… seasons.
I’ll openly confess to hating that. I would far rather everything be rosy and beautiful all of the time.
But that’s not reality, is it?
To get us through some of the toughest seasons we could have imagined, I had to rely on all that I learnt in my psychology degree at university. Those that reported low levels of marital satisfaction that STAYED with their partner – reported far higher levels of happiness five years later. Something about sticking together gave their relationship a foundation of faithfulness that nurtured their ongoing connection.
I also learnt about taking a “long view”. If you can persevere through a season that has you blind to the qualities you initially loved in your partner – if you can weather the storm and wait to come out the other side for greater visibility and more clarity of mind – you will be able to breathe and actually have more perspective.
It’s a little like flying in a plane. When you encounter a strong storm and you’re in the midst of turbulence – it is not the time to pull the emergency eject button and exit the plane. That jeopardises all of you. Rather my advice would be to hang tight through the storm – strap everything down you can, know that your stress levels are really high, and give yourself time to come out the other side before you reassess.
Stress is a killer. Fighting for the life of someone you love; when you live each day to the next not knowing if your child will live; when you spend moments subconsciously holding your own breath because you’re counting the breaths of another – the stress and fear can eat you up from the inside out. When you are internally coiled so tight your muscles feel like concrete it is almost impossible to find the right tone to reach your partner (who is also experiencing extreme stress).
When the stress of our situation threatened to consume me, I imagined what life looked like months down the track if I chose to separate. I considered the undeserved hurt my partner would feel. I imagined the confusion my children would feel. I thought about the awkwardness of maintaining a connection with someone who used to be your lover and friend but with whom you were now fighting custody battles.
I thought about the struggles to provide a stable home on a single mother’s income. I considered how I would have even less time to devote to my children and would be even MORE stressed in that scenario.
How did that separation scenario benefit… anyone?
Surely it was better to find ways to improve our relationship and GROW through this season of stress? (Or simply just survive it?)
It is impossible to make sane decisions when your emotions are haywire, you’re sleep deprived or you are struggling under any kind of load that is too heavy. That’s when you have to back off, recognise the situation for what it is, and give it time.
Those are the moments it takes grit to survive. It takes grit to stay together and say, “Tomorrow may actually not be any better. One day it might be. But I’m going to stay – ANYWAY.”
It takes tenacity to look at your partner, recognise the strain you are both under, and realise they are not your enemy. Your circumstances or your stressors are what is placing your relationship under incredible strain. Experiencing stress does not mean it is time to leave your partner.
It means it is time to reach out for help. If no help comes – reach out again. Find a counsellor. Talk to family and friends. Listen to podcasts. Go to your library and get out books on how to sustain your marriage. Reach out to a pastor. There are options for those willing to look for them.
(Please note I am not talking about situations of abuse, adultery or other scenarios like addiction. I am talking about your average marriage that comes under significant strain.)
Life isn’t just about our happiness. It is not about taking what we want, without seeing the consequences in the lives and families of others.
It is about looking at the cost of the decisions we make on our children. It is looking at our legacy and where our choices in the moment could lead us.
There is power in our choices.
When the chips are down, we have a choice to weather the season. We can take a “long view” – choose to look beyond the stress of the moment (or day, or week, or month, or year) and picture where our relationship could be years from now if we have invested in staying together and seeing it flourish. That sort of choice sows into our marriage and future by demonstrating commitment and perseverance.
Maybe in some seasons it’s not all joy and happy moments. Maybe it’s about doing battle in the trenches; keeping our marriages and faith intact while assaulted from all sides.
Maybe it’s not always the bright, glowing smiles between husband and wife sitting across from each other at a romantic candlelight dinner – instead it’s the hands that are weathered and worn, clasped tight and still… holding on.
That’s a legacy worth fighting for and that’s a commitment worth celebrating.
Navigating Life's Curveballs 