When Marriage Isn’t Fun
Happily ever after, right? Marriage was supposed to be all rainbows, puppies, and roses. The two of you are going to wake up every morning at the same time, with great smelling breath and stare googly-eyed at each other. But marriage will go through seasons. Marriage is a man and woman who are broken in sin covenanting together to work through all the seasons together. It takes passionate grace and unconditional love to make it. There will be times, more than you think, that you will love each other deeply, but you might not really like each other. Marriage has times when it simply isn’t fun. It is stressful. It is scary. It is difficult. These seasons can be brought on by outside forces, such as people or occurrences. But many of these times are brought about by things inside of the marriage, such as your own behaviors. When marriage isn’t fun you can face the temptation of giving up. Giving up doesn’t always equal divorce, sometimes you become roommates sharing a bed. Marriage was never meant by God to be that. It is meant for so much more. Here are some things to remember when you find yourself in a not so fun season of marriage.
Evaluate Your Focus
It gets very easy in times of frustration, or difficulty to turn your attitude towards blame. When your marriage has struggles the first place to look is at yourself. Pressure is put on a marriage when one spouse begins looking at the other as somehow responsible for happiness. Evaluate your own focus first. Are you looking toward your spouse with a list of ten things, five things, or even one thing that he/she must do in order for you to feel good about things? Your spouse is likely to accomplish that more often than not, but the reality is that your spouse will fail you at some point. And when you tie your personal happiness to whether or not your spouse does those things well you are bound for disappointment. Evaluating your own focus allows you to take stock of whatever unspoken, and unmet expectations. The real question is what are YOU doing to encourage and show love to your spouse? What are YOU doing in the relationship to keep the spark alive? You can’t control what your spouse is doing. You can control how you react and respond. Look for how you can make things better and do it. And while you do that, expect nothing in return.
Stop trying to fix your spouse
Chances are your spouse has some annoying habits, qualities, or traits. It is hard to believe but once that honeymoon is over you start to realize that your spouse is a human being and not perfect. Yes, it happens to everyone. You aren’t perfect either. Very similar to above, you need to stop trying to fix your spouse. Quite trying to mold your spouse into your own image. Now, some things make total sense and need to be fixed. It was completely legitimate for my wife to expect me to put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket. There are real things that need to change. But fixing your spouse is often found in the things that are not necessarily simple habits. The two of you are different in many ways and that is the point. You complement each other. When you try and fix your spouse you are ignoring the things, ways, and traits that you can use to make things better. There are things about your spouse you will have to become okay with and even see how they can be endearing.
Dare to communicate
When marriage isn’t fun it could be entirely possible that your spouse doesn’t feel the same lack as you are. The feeling could be entirely one-sided. It is scary, but you must dare to communicate what you are feeling to your spouse. Don’t play the blame game. Don’t try to make it all about them. But share honestly what you are feeling and why. Great marriages have great communication and communication is key to walking through difficult times. If you are feeling disconnected, stalled, or something else with your spouse take the chance and bring it up. Don’t do it in a moment of frustration, anger, or another charged up emotion. Perhaps, even, intentionally set times over the course of the year that you get away and focus on communicating with each other. Don’t assume your spouse knows, or feels, the same things you are feeling. Dare to bring up hard topics and be willing to work through them. Recognize that daring to bring it up might also mean you will hear and need to face hard truths about your own self and behavior in the marriage. It will be hard, but well worth it.
Seek good help
Listen, your thrice divorced pal who has cheated in every relationship is not a good source of advice for how your marriage is going. Not even a little bit. This idea is not an immediate call to seek professional counseling. That might be necessary and very helpful, but seeking good help also means having a friend that you can have encouraging conversations with about what is happening. That friend should be more than willing to tell you that you are the one being stupid. And there should be some long-term proven reliability. Maybe there is an older married couple that could be mentors for you. A community within your church is vital. Good solid people around you to help in times of challenge is important when your marriage is having trouble. Good help will point and send you back to one another rather then pulling you away from each other.
Every married couple will face times when things are difficult. There will be times when it isn’t really fun and you are struggling to find common ground and you will feel disconnected at times. But you never have to stay in that place. A little bit of intentionality will go a long way towards making marriage last a lifetime.