Simple Marriage #4 - Stuck
Recently, David and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary! Woo hoo! When I think back to May 30th, 1992, I laugh. We were mere babies and knew so little about marriage or what it took to stay married, but we knew we loved each other. We find ourselves on this 28th anniversary in a good place - loving one another deeply and enjoying our friendship. But it hasn’t always been this way. Like in every marriage, we’ve gone through our really hard seasons, where we were stuck like a boot in the mud - where we remained in it because we had made a vow to Jesus and not necessarily because we liked the other person at the time. (Maybe a couple people out there can identify with that!) I wrote this prayer a few years back during one of our stuck-in-the-mud seasons:
(Written as a prayer when marriage is hard)
This is the difficult season
Where rain pours
And mud abounds
Gone is any sure footing
Only the slip and slide of slick mud
We trudge along
Getting stuck in the viscous earth
A footstep sinks deep in the sludge
And boot remains stuck
Making movement impossible
This is the difficult season
Where rain pours
And mud abounds
Gone is the snowy blanket
Uncovering an ugly, monotonous brown
It is bleak and bitterly cold
Even the birds know the weather is unfriendly
But it is the time to do the hard work
Of digging, getting dirty, planting in faith
What will not grow until a new term
This is the difficult season
Where rain pours
And mud abounds
Gone are illusions of heroics
The only trophies are muddy footprints left on the floor
Help us, Lord
During this bout of mud-walking marriage
To seek what we already have
Looking past all the muck and debris
To a wildly faithful Creator
Who brings forth new life from the mud
For my part, I know that our most difficult and stuck times in marriage came when I forgot to remember David with fondness and admiration. In his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman writes, “Fondness and admiration can be fragile unless you remain aware of how crucial they are to the friendship that is at the core of any good marriage….Search for the small, everyday moments. Catch your partner doing some little thing right and then then offer a genuine appreciation.”
Admiration Starters:
Need some words to get you started in this journey of fondness and admiration?
“I’m proud of you.”
“I’m attracted to you.”
“I’m impressed by you.”
“I like you.”
And specifically:
“Im proud of the way you ________.”
“I’m attracted to your ___________ (inside and out!!!).”
“I am impressed that you __________.”
“I like how you __________.”
You can do a bit deeper with this exercise here.
Fun Starter:
How about taking a trip? OK...a virtual trip, to some place you might always have wanted to visit? Although many places are closed during the coronavirus outbreak, some places have free virtual tours to explore from the comfort of your sofa.
Watch an aquarium’s live feed of fascinating marine life.
