We Are Too A Fun Couple

For me one pain outranks all others.

Ginny and I have been at odds with eachother.

She feels threatened and upset by the prospect of loosing her job in the cutbacks her office announced last week.

I’m frustrated by hitting a dead end in publishing a book I’ve been working on for a long time.

This weekend, we each turned hostile against each other.

Over the 38 years we’ve been married, we’ve seen this happen on occasion. And it’s a recurring problem we never have learned how to handle. I wish there were some Christian magic bullet which would solve relationship problems, but if there is, we haven’t found it.

Normally, we maintain an Us Against The World mindset and that attitude has carried us through all sorts of external problems. But when we lose that and began to function in a Me Against You mode, things deteriorate between us rapidly.

How rapidly?

A single word, a single facial expression or a shrug of the shoulders triggers nuclear meltdown. I feel, Ah Ha! Now it comes out. She never did love me in the first place. All these years have been a charade. Now she’s showing her true colors. All our married life has been meaningless.

And all these feelings can hinge on a single word or even on a silence when I expected a word.

Pain overwhelms me. Mental anguish. Despair. I feel rejected, unloved, defensive.

I suspect she feels the same way.

I withdraw. I become an iceberg. A black, damp rock in the Antarctic Ocean. Untouchable. Barren. Hostile. Incapable of supporting life.

Ginny exhibits similar symptoms.

We are not a fun couple.

Perhaps the best thing we’ve got going for us is that over the years, we’ve come to recognize those symptoms and know that, eventually with much pain, we will survive them. We’ve learned that nobody loves anybody all the time. We know we’ll face interludes when love with hearts and flowers, just is not there – for the moment.

When we first got married, we drove a truck all over the country. For months at a time we lived three feet away from each other 24 hours a day. We learned to be honest with eachother without taking offence. We learned that sometimes all you can say is not “I love you” but “I tolerate you”. We learned that we each carry our own internal demons which have nothing to do with the other person.

For ages I’ve heard that communication is the most important thing in marriage – I don’t believe that.

No, the most important thing in marriage is assuming good will on the part of your partner.

And sometimes that’s hard to do.

But at least, we’ve come to realize that we are going to go through bleak periods like this every once in a while and that while such ghastly periods are truly horrible, they don’t last.

Not forever and ever, but for a passing time long or short.

Eventually one or the other of us makes overtures of reconciliation… Sometimes one or the other of us will apologize -- but most often not, because we each remained convinced that I was right about whatever the triggering disagreement was about. We are both proud individuals and can’t readily admit, “I was wrong” -- but what we can do is say, “I’m sorry that we are at odds and I don’t want to be at odds with you”.

I can’t think of a light note to end this posting. Ginny and I have been at odds most of the weekend. We made up yesterday. We are exhausted – but we’ve exhausted together.

Thanks be to God.