Monday, September 05, 2005

Marriage: The best of times, the worst of times.

Doing marriage is hard work sometimes. Really hard.


This summer was hard on our marriage. Emotional exhaustion, miscommunication, household changes, and crossing the "married 20 years" marker all seem to have had their effect on us. We had a couple of doosies of fights last month. Like we haven't had in years.


Those fights feel like you are on a driverless train screaming through the night on tracks that will lead you to your destruction and there seems to be nothing you can do to direct it elsewhere. They make me sick in the pit of my stomach.


But, blindness or stubbornness, or just emotional immaturity seem to immobilize you, make you unknowing of the truth, or the way back to life. And you suffer in pain, causing more pain, wishing like everything that the train would stop. But it doesn't. At least not yet. 


And more and more as children we grow up without any sense of what an emotionally healthy mother or father should look like. We take those experiences into our adulthood, which make our relationships all the more difficult. How do we become healthy adults if we've not known any in our lives? 


This isn't one of those posts that has a nice easy answer at the end. Mainly because I don't think there is an easy answer that would fit all the situations.


But as for herself and I, we decided long ago to stick it out. So far that has never been in question, I think. We've talked with others about our occasional struggles, older more experienced others usually. And that has helped. Talking with professionals has been something we've tried too, to mixed reviews I admit, but it can be a good option, depending on the degree of difficulty.   


Then there is this quote by Max Lucado (I believe)


"Relationships don't thrive because the guilty are punished but because the innocent are merciful."


Amen amen amen. If these things called marriages are ever going to make it past 10 or 20 years, with any amount of health, we're going to have to learn to live out that statement.


To learn the rhythms of grace and mercy, and to learn to live there. ah, there's the rub.


 


Hang in there you all ok?

7 comments:

  1. Over the years we've talked quite a bit about marriage, what makes it work, what makes it fail. We've upset one or two as well, when they've talked to us and wanted us to agree with them, but ho hum.



    For us, although neither are perfect (despite what you might believe from my blog ;-) the alternative to remaining married is too horrific to contemplate. But we've had those times, just like you describe.



    To err is human, but to REALLY foul things up is a uniquely male talent.



    Or so I'm told ;-)

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  2. Well said things on a topic which too often gets "air brushed" in many Christian circles.



    Reminds me a a quote (I forget the source) - If you want to be more useful to our Lord, stay single; if you want to become more like our Lord, get married.

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  3. Growing up is hard to do....and we're still working on it after 37 years! We could probably write a book on "How to Survive the Blast"!

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  4. Excellent post. Love isn't always like the Hollywood version. There've been some too-heated discussions at our home lately, usually but not always out of earshot of the kids, sometimes over silly stuff. Then today I found out that a good friend's wife has moved out. Lord have mercy.

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  5. My dear wife and I had a marital trainwreck a year in, when she moved out. We spent most of the next year and a half apart--and then, because neither of us could bear the thought of being apart forever--decided to give it one more go.



    Fourteen years, much gray hair, and three kids later, we have never looked back. We've still had our moments, but the memory of those first days is still burned in my mind, and brings us back to forgiveness and mercy. They were, in some ways, a blessing.



    Still, we sometimes take each other for granted and have some ugly arguments. We are "divine and felonious" creatures, one of my favorite writers has said; and the ugly side comes out in these fights.



    Hang in there.

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  6. appreciated that randall







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  7. Thanks for the post and the comments! Gives hope in a struggling time.

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