(Miss the beginning of this series? Check out the other posts!)
Though I may not have been confident about everything in my future, before I married, I was quite confident that I was going to be good at marriage. After all, I studied marriage, I read books about marriage, and I wanted to help other people have good marriages. My life pretty much revolved around marriage – my future marriage and others’ marriages.
And I found Eric. He also wanted to help couples with their relationships. He had a realistic (as much as he knew back then) picture of what marriage would be. So, we were fairly confident in our understanding of marriage.
Therefore, premarital counseling was interesting. I mean, what could they teach us that we didn’t already know? After all, we were both “marriage people.” We went to the premarital program our then-current church offered because we wanted to experience premarital counseling from another perspective before we actually led it ourselves; but, we were both extremely comfortable tying the knot. Intellectually, I knew that marriage wasn’t all rainbows and smiles, but I had yet to realize how hard it is to mesh two completely different worlds together.
{Eric’s note: Though we are very thankful for the effort put out by those who facilitated our premarital program and think a lot of them personally, I strongly encourage couples to find a program where the facilitators are actually trained as counselors so that it is truly a premarital counseling process and not just a premarital education or question facilitation process. Additionally, with what we know now and our experience with couples, we strongly encourage couples to go through pre-engagement counseling – before the engagement is set!}
Eric is from California. He grew up with a different set of rules about life and relationships, partially because of his parents and partially because of the norms from that area of the United States. I am from North Carolina. Being impolite to strangers ranks just below the unpardonable sin in a Southerner’s upbringing. The ways of life in the East US and West US are very different. And that was just one set of issues we would have to look forward to without knowing it.
Eric and I have completely (and I mean, completely) different personalities. On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, we could not be more opposite. In addition to our cultural and personality differences, we have different interests and talents. My sweetie and I are simply different, and I will not lie, it has not been an easy road. There are some days we both just want the other to “get it” without having to explain our point of view… repeatedly.
On the day we got married, I could just picture God smiling from Heaven thinking, “Just wait, this is going to be one sanctifying experience.” I know I can’t know the mind of God, but I do know that our marriage has been a refining process. We are both stronger people now, but it’s not because of our differences, it’s because of God’s grace, and our determination to work through our problems even when it would have been easier to sweep them under the rug and move on with our lives.
Suffice it to say that Eric and I were not concerned about a visit from any of the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse before we got married. We both abhorred hearing women nag and disrespect their husbands. We both hated seeing men strong-arm their wives and children. We had witnessed many marriage-killer traps we were determined to avoid and we had seen several good marital examples we wanted to follow. We had a lot of theories, but after being married a while, it became clear that theories were not enough to keep a marriage out of the dumpster. All takes sometimes is one long, exhausting day at work to send us spiraling from criticism, to contempt, to defensiveness, and then to stonewalling.
However, it’s important to note that it’s not the individual presence of these four horsemen in a relationship that automatically predicts divorce with a 91% success rate; rather, it’s the consistent appearance of these four horsemen that brings relational destruction.
God has been good. There have been days that His grace (and His grace alone) has brought us from a low relational place back to reconciliation. But I will say this: humble pie is not tasty. If you are in a relationship and you think there is no way your relationship could ever fail, I would advise you to think again. My wish for your marriage or future marriage is that you will be blessed and that you and your spouse will live for Christ; but, I’m begging you from my own experience, not to be so sure of your relationship’s strength that you don’t guard against those ugly intruders.
Be on guard. Pray daily for wisdom and NEVER allow important issues to go unresolved. Be willing to work through disagreements and if you are dating someone who is not willing to put forth effort to communicate well, let the relationship go. The issues may seem small now, but the longer you are together, the bigger your issues will get (children, in-laws, financial disagreements, etc.); and, if he or she is not willing to put forth effort in your relationship now, he or she is not likely to suddenly have a change of heart and want to work through issues later.
My marriage has not been easy, but it has been worth it. It hasn’t been perfect, but it has been awesome. Honestly, I love being married. Nothing has challenged me more. There isn’t a professor alive who has challenged me like Eric has challenged me. There is not an assignment anywhere in my past that has taught me more than my husband has taught me. He makes me laugh. He protects me and he is an incredible provider.
Marriage is like a garden. It is meant to be beautiful, but if you don’t take the time necessary to keep the plants watered and the weeds pulled, what’s meant to be full of life will eventually wither and die. Be vigilant and send the four horsemen packing.
Have you and your boyfriend/girlfriend considered pre-engagement counseling? We would love to work with you!