Yesterday on my Facebook, I asked people what they thought it takes to stay married. In a time when the divorce rate is 50%, it makes me wonder what is different between the two halves.
In my quest for various perspectives on this question, I found what I expected. People talked about communication being the key. You must talk to each other about everything. Never go to bed angry. Keep the Lord first in your marriage and keep a strong personal relationship with him. There was also a conversation about intimacy and how important it is to keep the spark alive. One lady spoke of complacency and how it is a threat to marital bliss. Still others spoke of friendship and how important it is to be best friends with your mate. How vital it is to truly love the other person with an unselfish, sacrificial love. I LOVED all of these responses and I agreed with them wholeheartedly. And I feel like through the years, my husband and I have implemented all of these in an attempt to make sure we keep our marriage exciting and permanent. However...in this blog, I want to go in a different direction. No, not murder.
Before I go on, let me say that I know that everything I am about to say does not necessarily work for every marriage. Whenever there is infidelity or abuse, that is a whole other animal. Then you are dealing with a very wounded marriage and it may take greater strides in order to keep it going. I am a big advocate for counseling (which is a good thing considering my imminent career!) and think that having an unbiased third party give you an objective perspective can be very helpful. I also feel it prudent to say that I do not know everything. Surprised? Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I am so completely flawed and imperfect and if you don't believe me, ask my husband. I am sure he'll be happy to fill you in!! However, I just want to share some practical things that have worked for me.
First of all...who can I change? Let me tell you this, I cannot change HIM. I have tried and I have failed! He is immovable!! It dawned on me several years ago, I can only change me. I can't change the things he does that drive me crazy but I can control the way I react to those things. Even though we are both Christians and love the Lord and are on the same plane in so many areas, when I find myself always waiting on him, it is easy to forget my spiritual values and much easier to get mad at him. When I learned this trick a few years ago, it really was a huge relief for me. And I learned some tricks, like when I make plans, I automatically give him twenty extra minutes. Sneaky, yes. Does it work? Yes. Does it make things more peaceful? Yes. Fabulous, problem solved!
Another area that I struggle with is letting things build up. We do communicate, boy do we communicate. We both like to talk so there is rarely a quiet moment around here. However, I don't like conflict or fighting and I never wanted to be a nag. So when he would do things I did not like, I try to just keep my mouth shut and let it go. Well sometimes, after weeks and weeks of things just building up, I wake up one day and just want to smack him. Yes, I know, it's horrible and awful and you will probably just stop reading because you've discovered my dark side! But it's true. It's real life! So I realize that suddenly I have all of this frustration built up and I feel like I would be happier by myself. I might even daydream about having that big ol' bed all to myself...then I realize how ridiculous I am being. The grass is never greener on the other side...it just depends on which way the light is shining. Sometimes you need to change your perspective. When I find myself feeling very negative about my husband, I start listing all the things about him that are good. It's not that difficult, everyone has good aspects, although, admittedly, sometimes you have to dig!! Once I start listing his attributes, I start thinking of other things I like about him, then eventually the things I love about him. When you are really upset, it might help to actually write these things on paper! Makes them more real.
Another thing that helps me is simple kindness. A couple of weeks ago, I was in the "put a pillow over his face while he's sleeping" phase. I don't really like myself when I get like that and one evening I started to do something nice for him, just something simple that I do all the time, and I made the conscious choice to NOT do it. He never even realized one way or the other but I did. I knew what I had done and it tortured my soul. Sometimes in marriage, we get so used to the other person being there. Sometimes we're kinder to people we don't even know than we are to our own spouse. The next day I made a point to do at least one nice, unexpected thing for him. When I do this, it makes him smile and I love it when he smiles and when he's happy. It in turn makes me want to do more things for him that will elicit the same reaction. Before I know it, the negative feelings have all but faded away.
We decided 22 years ago when we got married, that this was forever; good or bad, we were in it for the long haul. Over those years, I've always said to myself "you're going to be with him forever, you can be happy or you can be miserable!" There can't be an out, there can't be an exit clause. It is a commitment, a promise, a covenant. We always said we would never even use the word divorce. My husband honored that promise, I, on the other hand, have on occasion thrown it out there. But my husband, who is a great man, always immediately said "we don't say that...it's not an option!" And he's right...it can NEVER be an option.
You will notice, not one of these strategies have anything to do with what he needs to do or what I need from him. I can only control myself. But I am here to tell you, if we work on ourselves and we become the best spouse we can become, we will likely find what we are missing. There are so many other things I could tell you, so many thoughts and feelings I have on this subject and maybe, I'll revisit this topic. For right now, this is really long and my little chickens need to get their chores done and get in bed and for some reason I have never understood, when I'm sitting on my booty, they think they should be sitting on their booty!! Time to crack the whip!! (Metaphorically...calm down!) :)
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