‘TIL DEATH DO US PART

A perfect marriage is two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other.

“Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:7

Have you ever seen the television program “Bridezillas?”

It follows a couple as they plan their wedding, with a focus on the outrageous behavior of the bride-to-be.  The bride undoubtedly is prompted by the program’s producers to exaggerate her selfish, “it’s all about me” behavior.  Still, I sometimes wonder how much of that behavior really is an exaggeration.  Typically, the bride’s attitude is “I want what I want, and I get what I want, no matter what.”  She leaves her bridesmaids and others working with her hurt, humiliated, and quaking in their shoes.  The poor groom is usually silent, just shaking his head at his bride-to-be’s rude forcefulness and outlandish demands. 

Often there is a follow-up program of “Where Are They Now?”  Not surprisingly, those bridezillas and their grooms divorced only months after the wedding, stating they couldn’t get along.  Are we surprised??

I mention this “Bridezillas” program as an example of how not to begin a marriage.

It’s lovely to have a beautiful wedding to celebrate the coming together of two people in love and ready to commit themselves to one another for a lifetime.  A beautiful wedding is not necessary for a happy marriage, though.  Instead, what’s needed is a realistic understanding of what’s involved in being married for a lifetime.

Dr. Gary Chapman states in his book, “The Five Love Languages,” that a euphoric “in love” experience often happens at the beginning of a relationship.  We are romantically obsessed with one another and long to be together.  He says in our culture, “we have been led to believe that if we are really in love, it will last forever.  We will always have the wonderful feelings that we have at this moment.  Nothing will overcome our love for each other.”

The reality is the average lifespan of this romantic obsession is two years. 

Long-range studies of couples have shown that intense feelings fade, and reality returns.  At this point, many couples believe they have fallen out of love and give up on their marriage.  Dr. Chapman says they “either withdraw, separate, divorce, and set off in search of a new in-love experience—or they begin the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria of the in-love obsession.”

My husband and I experienced the euphoria when we met in college.

That in-love feeling is indeed glorious!  It propelled our relationship right along.  But because we were still in school, we waited a couple of years before getting married.  Even so, we got married really young by today’s standards.

Our love was strong, anchored in a relationship with Jesus, and we learned and grew throughout our years together.  We were married for 10 years before we had children, so we had time to get to know one another before the kids came along.

But after about 35 years of marriage, we ran into a very rough patch.

It wasn’t noticeable at first, but we began drifting apart.  What didn’t help was my husband lost his job, and the one he found to replace it had him working a late shift.  I worked full-time during the day, so we saw less and less of each other.  During our time together, he seemed tired, distant, and disinterested.  I used to tell him it was like he was in screensaver mode.  If I “moved the mouse,” he would come to life; otherwise, he zoned out and was disengaged.  I felt lonely and in need of companionship–a dangerous situation in which to find myself.  It seemed like our marriage was dying.

What made it worse was our son was getting married right around that time.  I saw the love shared between him and his wife-to-be, which increased my feelings of loneliness and loss. If I hadn’t been grounded in a relationship with Jesus Christ, things could have gone very badly.

I wanted to fall in love again with my husband.

After our son’s wedding, I told my husband something had to be done about our marriage.  He was surprised to learn that I felt our marriage was dying—that’s how disengaged he was.  I wanted to do something drastic, so I asked him to leave.  He wouldn’t leave.  And I certainly wasn’t going to leave.  So I insisted he move to the guest room until we could resolve things.

I felt so disillusioned and disappointed in my husband and our marriage that I felt helpless and hopeless.  How could this be fixed when he didn’t even realize anything was wrong?  Was it possible?  In desperation, I cried to God, “Help me to fall in love with my husband again!”  I wanted that in-love feeling for him again that I saw in my son and his new wife.

Previously, we had never allowed ourselves to mention divorce.

For the first time in our marriage, I allowed divorce to enter my mind.  Maybe we should get divorced.  I was strong; I could take care of myself.  But it felt terrible as I thought of our newly married son, his wife, and any children they would have.  Our family would be split up, and my husband and I would not be grandparents together.  It felt awful. 

As I thought about it further, I realized I did not want to be alone.  So, if we divorced, I’d probably seek out another relationship.  Then I realized that if I went into another relationship, I would have to work at it, just as I’d been working on our marriage relationship all these years.  That felt extremely awful, as I did not want to start all over again with a new relationship.  If I must work on a relationship, I might as well continue investing myself in the relationship I already had! 

Fortunately, my husband came to the same conclusion as he thought things through.  

Divorce was out of the question.  We would do whatever was necessary to restore our marriage.  It took close to a year of counseling and looking intently into what went wrong and how it went wrong.  It took learning to change thought patterns and think more about each other than ourselves.  And after a while, lo and behold!  I fell in love with my husband again!

We celebrated when my husband left the guest room and returned to the master bedroom.  And on our 50^th wedding anniversary, we renewed our vows and had a big party.  We are now married almost 54 years and are as happy as we’ve ever been!

Never give up!

The moral of my story is never give up on your marriage.  Of course, we know that if there is abuse in a marriage, that is a totally different situation.  But most of us don’t have that situation, so I say again—never give up on your marriage.  Dr. Chapman says, “Our most basic emotional need is to be genuinely loved by another, loved by someone who chooses to love us, who sees in us something worth loving.”  That is how God loves us and how He created us to be.  We’re happiest when we are living in the way He planned.