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LADY “O”

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LIFE IN BALANCE

LIFE IN BALANCE

“How would you feel if someone treated you the way you treated them? How would you react? ”

poor boundaries, don’t apologize, absence of gratitude, taking each other for granted, entitlement mentality, dullness, competition, cheating, fear, no prayer life??????

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3. ASK YOURSELF: How would you feel if someone treated you the way you treated them? How would you react? You see at this point you want to validate the hurt of your spouse. You may not utter it, but admit it to yourself. Yes, they may not be reacting the way you’d want them to, but they have the right to feel hurt and display their disappointment any which way they please.

As they get mature in God and emotionally sound, they can practice working on how to react healthily, but for now, this is who they are and that’s what you’ve got in your hands. Deal with it. Yes, deal with it. Accept it. Validate it. This is not the time to be politically correct. This is the time to really listen and take in all the details in which brought you guys to where you are today(hurting, wanting out of the marriage, etc.).

4. PENCIL TIME: Now that you have accepted that your actions haven’t been too pleasing, write down what you have brought to the table. You see, when you whip yourself, you must wipe your tears as well. You’ve already admitted to yourself all the hurts and offenses you caused your spouse. Now, what good did you do for your spouse? You showed up. You loved them. You cared. You made love to them whenever they wanted. You bought gifts. You prayed for them. You picked up the kids from school everyday. You called to say, “I love you.” You were home every night. You never cheated. You never lied. You didn’t steal. You were loyal and faithful. You apologized A LOT. You got along with their family. Write down what you brought to the table. This would soothe your heart and ease your mind.

5. PEN TIME: Now write down what more you can do to make this marriage work. You can 1. Discuss money and handle financial issues better. Get a financial advisor if you may 2. You can build a business together with advice. 3. You can go for joint professional therapy. 4. You can place your marriage and yourselves in monthly accountability classes. 5. You can go out on dates. 6. You can have more family time. 7. Listen to each other more. 8. Read marriage books. 9. Attend workshops. 10. Help other couples. 11. Go on vacation. 12. Soak yourself in and with marriage material, 13. Have individual therapy to be healed of your own individual wounds so you are not spilling blood on each other(that’s how you got here in the first place). Both of you had or have wounds that caused you both to handle things terribly. 13. Practice giving. Giving is not just monetary, it is offering a listening ear, being intentional and empathic. Having sex and not making excuses. Praying for and with your spouse. Putting their needs as top priority. Why go learn these virtues with someone else when the person you really owe it to is your spouse? You didn’t marry your spouse as a practice tool, you married your spouse to build and grow together. Can you truly say you tried everything you could to save your marriage? Mmmmmm

6. DON’T MARRY SOMEONE ELSE:

Marrying someone else wouldn’t heal those wounds. You could end up with a defeatist mentality. You never know. Don’t set yourself up. Many people don’t realize the impact of their decisions until they’ve done it. Imagine throwing yourself off the cliff, only to realize that you cannot stop yourself from landing on hard concrete. In fact you could end up with a stronger complex and a tag of “Second-Hand, Good Will, Thrift Mentality. Not everybody in a second marriage is happy. There is a syndrome that comes with 2nd marriages. Not to all, but to some. Don’t be fooled. Again, I mentioned there are exceptions, and I’m getting to that.

******RESERVATIONS******

Now when do you give up? When your life is in danger. When your life is at risk. You are being beaten. You are being neglected on every level. Cheating (However, there are couples who still work through this because many at times cheating is a symptom of a problem. Once that difficulty is solved, most times the symptoms go away). But if your life is at danger(STDs, Unsafe, Threats, etc.), LEAVE!!! More reasons? You are being affected, and you have tried every means and every measure to make the marriage work. When I say every means, this would mean you have done everything right, and you wouldn’t be found wanting. This would mean you cannot be accused of the very reason in why you’d want to leave. For

“If you have ever been married or are still married, what you read here today may resonate with you. Love in marriage is very different from love out of marriage or love in a relationship.”

example: If you are leaving because your spouse cheated, the question would be, “Did you cheat”? If you want to leave because your spouse is selfish or nagging, the question would be, “Did you give? Did you listen to the words in the nag?” Nagging is a way of talking, there are words in it. Did you listen and act on what you listened to? That would be self-righteous for you to leave when you didn’t try so hard. It will give the impression that you are lazy and tired of trying, not necessarily tired. Big difference.

You see, leaving is harder than you think. Will you really be able to live with a clear conscience when your anger dissipates, but you’ve already signed on that dotted line? It’s not about being a good person, it’s about being a good spouse, and that’s a choice.

You may remember how you flat out never came home for dinner. You may remember how you were dismissive, rude and manipulative. You may remember the guilt trips and the negligence, and how you never for one day tucked your kids in bed. This is why it is important to be still.

Your stillness will bring you to a certain degree of honesty. When your stillness cannot get you to tell the truth even to yourself, and to own up to it and long to fix it, then you are hardened, and this is not a good place to be. You should never be pushed to a place where you give up on an imperfect person when you weren’t perfect towards them. Do you still love this person? Then work hard on your marriage. Roll up your sleeves and make it work. There is so much you can both still work on. If you have the patience and the stamina, you can build your marriage so unbelievably beautiful. Don’t quit. Don’t give up.

As for me, I can live without my husband, but I DON’T WANT TO. I don’t want to build with someone else from scratch. My husband makes me laugh. He annoys me too, but I understand him, and it can suffice until the other gaps are filled. No matter how old you are or how much you’ve learned, building a life with another person will be starting from scratch because you’d have to learn a new person and give time to be enmeshed. That takes A LOT of time. If you gave that time to your present marriage, you’d be an Angel. I will rather CONTINUE to build with a friend I’ve already known for so long, provided we still have it in us to work hard. We owe it to US to stay and see the salvation of the Lord. We owe it to ourselves to try other ways to make our marriage work. As we submit to God and to humility, there will be a way, because we love each other. If we don’t love each other anymore, then the grind wouldn’t be necessary. Surely, you wouldn’t want to hijack someone’s life in the name of experimenting. Even at that, some people fall back in love with each other when the anger and bitterness has dissipated. That’s why I said “Be Still”. Give it time. Don’t make drastic decisions. The grass is not greener on the other side. It is NOT!!!! Water your grass. Cut your lawn. Buy all tools and apply all chemicals needed to harness your garden, you’ll see how rich and healthy it will grow. Divorcing because you are tired is simply not a reason, well, it’s a selfish one. If people gave up on you, will you be here today? Would you even be alive to say you’re tired? It is okay to be tired, but it is not okay to leave on the grounds of tiredness. You leave on the grounds of planting on the wrong soil. The soil can’t suddenly become wrong because you want it to be wrong. Fruitful soil is fruitful. Simple!!! However, if you choose not to plant on that soil, let it be that you decided not to plant on the soil because you DIDN’T want to plant on the soil. Don’t render the soil to be WRONG or USELESS, to soothe your decisions.

******IN CONCLUSION******

See how hard adulting is? You cannot lie to yourself. There was a day in the midst of quarrelling with my husband, he said, “THIS IS SO TOXIC.” Those words ANNOYED me to the core because we were quarreling about a TOXIC thing he did. I couldn’t believe he could only view the results without seeing the process and layout of events. I, too, have told him to stop yelling and while I’m telling him not to yell, I am actually yelling while saying it.

Getting off your high horse and stopping the self-righteous behavior will do you both some good. I have found that we hold on to self-righteousness to protect ourselves from admitting

“Human beings are a pile of feelings and emotions, and when triggered, we can say and do anything.”

deep-seated inadequacies we harbor in us. There’s no need to hide. Arrest yourself, go to God and seek therapy. With constant drinking of clean water, you’ll rid yourself off toxins.

At some point you’re going to have to be honest, and I hope you can live with your decisions. Your tiredness is granted, but if you give up on things EVERY TIME you get tired, then that says something about you that you may need to explore. Force yourself to treat your spouse with love and respect, and if you don’t know how to do that, then ask God. Nobody has ever graduated because they were tired. They tried harder. They tried many different learning methods until they passed. Get tired, but don’t throw in the towel, especially if it is a subject you like so much. Stay in school. You’ll finish soon.

Work on your marriage. Don’t allow someone else eat your harvest, your labor. Don’t give up on something you worked so hard on. Don’t give up on something you still have room to work harder on. That’s not fair to you and that’s not fair to your spouse. However, as I mentioned before, if the exceptions are life-threatening, then by all means, do the needful. But is it YOUR needful? Or is it THE needful? Read that again.

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