“It’s hard to treat him like a grown man when he doesn’t act like a grown man!” The words rattled around in my head while alarm bells went off for a minute as I was listening to a client. Being a coach, I of course walk the line of discerning toxic thinking and feeling tremendous compassion for a client’s frustration and disappointment. There was a lot of ‘retuning’ that needed to happen in her own thought process and heart.
Uggha, marriage is hard! Being a newlywed is hard. Being an oldy wed is hard too. Leaning into the fact that marriage is not what Hollywood and Disney make romance out to be is hard, but many of us have bought into that vision and our bubbles are being popped! Speaking with another newlywed recently, she said marriage was a ‘shock’ to her system. Marriage is not at all what she expected. She expected it to be fair. She expected there would be an equal division of labor, that domestic chores would be equally split. She expected that he would care about the house and put as much attention into the details of how he did the chores as she does. That he would rinse the sink of the toothpaste he just spit out and not leave a nasty mess to dry for her to later clean up. And for heaven’s sake, pick up the dirty clothes. Turns out, her husband is more into physical intimacy before, during or after dinner and maybe not as fastidious about cleanliness and organization as she is. Wanting home to feel clean and cozy, she is more concerned about the i’s of the household being dotted and the t’s being crossed before she can relax, think about and enjoy intimacy. She doesn’t want to be his mom, but doesn’t, at the same time, feel like he deserves to be treated like a man. A true conundrum. She’s not alone. And this is so typical. This description draws from many couples I’ve talked to.
So what do you do when you find yourself as a ‘newly’ or ‘oldy’ wed and your spouse and marriage aren’t all that you had expected them to be? You could bail. Many, if not most, do. Or….you could learn to work through it, work it out and grow. You could learn how to actually love, sans Hollywood and Disney examples. There is a little paragraph in 1 Corinthians 13 that describes true, biblical love-the Greek word, agape. And when you read it, there are no ‘or’s’ in that paragraph between descriptors. One could read it and assume there are ‘and’s’ in between the descriptors. When you read it, read that scripture with the understanding that each of those descriptors is linked and love, agape, is the impossible, (apart from God), standard at all times. So take a deep breath and let’s dive in. Love is patient AND love is kind, AND doesn’t envy, AND doesn’t boast, AND isn’t proud, AND doesn’t dishonor others, AND isn’t self-seeking, AND isn’t easily angered, AND doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, AND doesn’t delight in evil, but instead rejoices in the truth, AND it always protects AND always trusts, AND always hopes AND always perseveres……AND LOVE NEVER FAILS. Haha, I just took a deep breath and tried to read that out loud without taking a breath before finishing the sentence. One needs to take a very deep breath before diving into love!
Writing this out, has inspired me to peel this onion called love and write a series of blog posts on each of the aspects of love…..because there is so much that can be said about each aspect of love. What does it look like to not be proud at street level in our marriages? What does it look like to not keep a record of wrongs in relationships? How do we not become easily angered? How do we walk out being patient or having a kind response when we don’t feel like being kind-and he doesn’t deserve it? Why would God give us this impossible benchmark in the first place? What was He thinking when he created marriage? What does it look like to honor others? What does He mean by self-seeking?
Can God do the impossible in us, in our spouses, in our marriages? I not only say, ‘Yes.’, but a very enthusiastic, ‘YES!’. He can and does do more than we can think, or hope or imagine.
He has in mine, and He can in yours….
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