Thoughts become clear in my head sometimes as I drive along. I'm not even aware that I am thinking or formulating anything until it comes clear and then the words begin to flow.
That happened to me on Thurs night as I was approaching home after an almost 5 hr drive in traffic getting out of DC. It takes two to tango.
I was thinking that in relationship to my marriage to Pat. She is enduring separation from me and me from her during this time of transition in our lives. It is difficult but we are equally sharing the load. My wife isn't crying like a baby and making it all about her. It is about both of us...and so is our marriage.
As a pastor there was a time in my serving that I was dealing with 5 women who were in difficult marriage situations, in some cases leading up to divorce. The men were absent. With the exception of one of the husbands, none of them wanted to work with the challenges of their marriages and get help. With the one who did want help I'm afraid to say that I didn't offer him much. I blew that one.
I have often said that Pat and I didn't end up statistics because of the grace of God. In His graciousness He always provided the help we needed when we cried out for it.
But I would be remiss if I didn't mention another element of what made and continues to make it work. That's the exercise of our wills. We have and have had free choice in our marriage. We have both reached crossroads in our relationship when, had we exercised our free wills, could have parted company and gone our separate ways.
However, we made a vow when we married. For better or worse. In sickness and health. For richer or poorer. I emphasize the "WE". I didn't make that vow alone and neither did Pat. We both made that vow and we didn't expect the other one to carry all the weight of that commitment.
When young couples ask how we have lasted so long I start with commitment. We made the commitment to each other that we would work it out. That's been hard. There have been so many times that we were at our wits end. There seemed to be no solutions or help in sorting out the conflicts we were experiencing. We cried out to God...and we got on the phone, asked our friends and sought counsel anywhere we could look. Until we found what God was offering. The commitment was there. We were going to make it work no matter what.
I wasn't always a willing participant to that commitment. In fact, and I redden when I think of this, when Pat first suggested that we needed counseling I offered to help her because I didn't have a problem. Yes, that is arrogance (and ignorance) at its best. I was brought to reality when she said that I was the problem. How's that reflect on your credentials?
So I had to yield to the fact from the one who was committed to me that I had a problem that needed some outside intervention. I had to exercise my will and put aside my self-protection and dive into my brokenness.
That brings up another point. We committed to communication. That's another hard one. I was good at communicating (or running off at the mouth). Pat was shut down by that exercise on my part. I had to learn to give her time to formulate her thoughts and express them to me. That's for another blog. We had to have a neutral zone where we could communicate safely what was really bothering us without taking offense in what was said.
Lastly, we've had to share equally in the responsibilities of our relationship. The scales haven't always been balanced. Sometimes I have yielded and carried the weight of our relationship while Pat was working through something. And far more times she has carried the weight while I worked through something. But it has evened out over the course of 40 years.
And that's where I come to with "It takes two to tango." If you don't have a partner who is willing to work through the difficulties of your relationship is there hope? There is always hope but the practical facts are that sometimes one of the partners in the relationship doesn't think they have a problem and refuses to get help. There's not much you can do about that. You can't make them face their issues. You can't drag them to get help. They have to exercise their own free will, lay down their selfish focus and come willingly to the table to get help. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. More often than not the struggling partner replies like I did that I didn't (and they don't) have a problem.
It comes down to this point--Do you want to make your relationship work? If so, can you lay aside your self-preservation and admit you need some resources you don't have? Can you yield to your partner and join the dance of working out the steps so that you don't continue to step on each other toes?
We all need grace in our relationships but we also need the exercise of our wills to make it happen. It takes two...
