Julia

When we are in a place of marital distress, there are several natural responses that may be working against us.  One of those responses is to spend every waking (and every dreaming) moment trying to figure out how to improve our marriage.  It is understandable. We are worried about our future, or very unhappy, or sick of our situation, and/or pretty darn angry. 

What this response looks like is arguing with your spouse in your head, obsessing about how little your spouse has changed, thinking about how unhappy you are, critiquing your spouses every move, strategizing about how you can compel them to change, and many more possibilities.

My next blog will be for the “Avoider” of conflict, but this blog is for the “Pursuer”.  The Pursuer is the one who normally tries to fix the relationship, the one who can talk about the marriage for hours on end, the wife who can list her husband’s faults in alphabetical order, for the husband who calls his wife 20 times a day.  I think you know who you are.  

Sometimes, our most natural and instinctual reactions are the ones most capable of hurting our spouse.  They are also the ones we need to pay attention to the most.  If you are the “Pursuer” in your relationship, but you don’t feel like your chasing is helping your relationship, I suggest the following beginning step:  Think less about your spouse.  Stop trying to change them.  Spend more time and energy thinking about what you can do to be a better spouse.  Find some ways to have more fun in your life.  Go out with some friends. Take an art class.  Join a Bible Study.  Think about going after the goals and dreams that you are putting off until you feel better in your marriage. Give your spouse a little space.  Back off a little bit, and who knows, maybe that space you create will be exactly what is needed.

Laura 

It is almost as if I can see the walls between some couples when they come in for the first session.   I can actually feel not only the distance, but a self-protective, impenetrable barrier.   The difficult thing is that walls have a purpose; they protect.  They protect from disappointment, rejection, shame, conflict, and being ignored.  We all have self-protective mechanisms that are activated when a threat is perceived.  It is a natural, instinctual response…only it keeps us from fully loving and being loved.   

Walls serve a purpose to reduce the pain that we feel from our spouse, yet walls and barriers perpetuate the lack of connection, expression of tenderness, feeling of love, and giving of oneself that is essential in healthy relationships.   

At some point, it is important for couples to realize that the pain of maintaining the indestructible barrier hurts more than the vulnerability of no defenses.   We have several choices when dealing with a wall in our marriage.  First, we can keep it up, protect ourselves, and perhaps even make it stronger by distancing ourselves, giving less of ourselves, and accepting less of our partner’s love. Our second option is to take it down, brick by brick.  This is done carefully over a long period of time.   It is done through deliberately allowing more and more connection without the need to attack.  Thirdly, we have the option to plow through the wall.  This one is my favorite, and by far the scariest.    

Couples usually come to counseling to be close again. To love and be loved.  To connect, experience joy, and affirm the uniqueness and beauty of one another once again.  So, as I say to some couples, “Do you want to plow through the wall?  I will help you.  I will run right beside you?”   AND, more importantly, Jesus can break down the walls with you.  Breaking through walls is one of the ways to participate in the redemptive story of God.  Yes, it is scary, but remember this…

Jesus is a wall-breaking Savior, and he can give you the strength to break down the walls around you!

Ephesians 2:13,14

^“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility….”

Laura 

I read this quote recently by a woman named, Evelyn Underhill, who is a great female scholar of mysticism, and it got me thinking about a few things.  It goes as follows:

"The spiritual life of individuals has to be extended both vertically to God and horizontally to other souls; and the more it grows in both directions, the less merely individual and therefore the more truly personal it will be."

When speaking of merely individual, she is referring to what affects us as an individual.  When speaking of truly personal she is referring to what not only affects us as an individual, but those around us.  

Much of the time in counseling we are focusing on self.  The wrongs done toward us, the wrongs done against us, and hopefully moving toward the wrongs we have done towards others.  When we reach the point in counseling when we are able to take responsibility for our actions that have affected those around us, potentially because of the actions done to us, we are moving forward.  That is personal. When we are able to move out of our own personal pain and see the pain of others, growth is happening in the human soul.  To always be in a space where we are concerned only with self is not only selfish, it is not spiritual.  Emotional growth can't go beyond spiritual growth and vice versa.  They work in conjunction with one another.  And when both are occurring, we are able to relate to others, have an impact on others, and love others well.  That is spiritual.  And that is personal.

Melissa