This week, I am learning about marriage. I should say I am relearning about marriage, since I've gone through counseling twice before now. Does that mean I am so stupid that counseling didn't take the first two times?! I am Teflon-coated when it comes to marriage counseling, I guess. Anyway, here's three points that have been rattling around in my head since last week, my first session. Let's hope my body doesn't reject this newest attempt at attitude transplant!
Point 1: None of us "deserve" diddly squat.
The premise is one I have heard before, but never embraced—it was too "Baptist" for me. It's just this: marriage is supposed to mirror Jesus' relationship to us, His church-bride. It had never occurred to me, before hearing Francis Chan speak last Saturday, that Jesus loves me despite the fact that I don't deserve it, and that's how I am supposed to love Stacy. I usually just resent her for “getting” me (the absolute treat that being with me is, no doubt!), but not "deserving" me. I have always been fully aware that I am pretty severely flawed and all, and that I don't deserve everything that I have in my life, but it is really hitting home, this time. I mean, none of us technically deserve more than a punch in the eye. Thinking that my job is to be graceful to Stacy helps keep me from being so freaking resentful whenever she is grumpy.
Point two: "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (apologies to Gandhi).
I have heard this idea so often before that I began to believe that I made it up, myself! We cannot change our spouses, but CAN change ourselves. It’s almost cliché to include this point, but like all clichés, there is a subtle truth to it: I know that, at different moments in my marriage, I have been waiting for Stacy to change—to mellow, or to learn to appreciate our life together, rather than always criticizing it all. Maybe my focus should always have been to work on myself and to purify the ways I deal with her and with everything.
Point three: Problems of the heart.
Evidently, marriage problems are, at their core, problems of the individuals’ hearts brought into the marriage. Since our marriage problems live in Stacy’s heart and in my own, and I cannot change Stacy’s heart, my only choice is to look within my own heart and find the darkness there that needs to be released. In counseling last week I learned that I am “addicted” to approval and regard, which I mistake for Love. When I don’t get Stacy’s approval, I feel rejected and resentful, and I turn to whomever I can feel regard and appreciation from…. I crave connection and approval. When I don’t feel connection with Stacy, the people I do feel connection with, whose approval I get naturally, seem all the more attractive to me. Though I don't generally pursue other people, it's pretty crappy of me to freely give attention and energy to others while resentfully shutting down around my bride.
