Let’s say you’re a 42 year old person, in pretty good shape. You exercise several times a week, eat okay, and outside of the occasional cold, are healthy. You’ve been married for over 15 years, have a couple of kids, nice house, and a good job.
One morning you wake up to find that you can no longer move your right arm. Everything else in your body feels fine, you even have feeling in your arm, you just can’t move it.
What would you do?
If you’re like most people, you’d schedule an appointment with your family doctor as soon as possible. You may even immediately head to the Emergency Room. You also would probably be fine going to several visits with various specialists in order to find out what’s going on with your arm.
You’d sit through tests, scans, waiting rooms, and be willing to take whatever prescribed medication the doctor’s recommend. You’d be willing to go to physical therapy several times per week until your arm was working properly.
The point is, you’d be willing to do almost whatever it took to have your body working well.
Now, answer me this: Why don’t many people treat their marriage the same way?
If you wake up one morning and discover a problem (or finally admit to a problem’s existence), would you seek out help right away or hope the problem simply goes away on its own?
It seems many people hope for the latter.
Don’t believe me?
Research continues to show that couples wait an average of 6 years after a problem has become a problem before seeking out professional help. That’s 6 YEARS!
Imagine if we treated our bodies the same.
Imagine if we said to ourselves, “Oh well, I really don’t use my right arm all that much. Perhaps it will begin working again soon. I’ll just wait and see. In the meantime, honey, can you cut up my dinner for me?”
Marital problems and struggles are common to us all. But they don’t have to be the end of the relationship, and you definitely don’t have to go through them on your own.
Seek out a marriage and family therapist. This is your best option. I’ve even written some posts to help (part one, part two)
If you don’t want to do that, open up to a close friend. Preferably as a couple to another couple, or if it’s just you, share your troubles with a good friend of the same gender.
Life is so much better when shared with others. Including our struggles.
And most of the time, when you share a struggle with a friend, you find out that they’ve experienced it as well. Plus, you get the burden lifted off your own shoulders a little.
Thanks to the technology of today’s world, you can find help regardless of where you live.
One last point: being brutally honest with you.
Seeking out professional help or opening up to friends around you is a whole lot cheaper than divorce.
10 sessions with a therapist= $1,200 (ish)
An online class like Blow Up My Marriage= $275
Talking to a good friend= Free, unless you pay for dinner or the coffee
Marriage books= $18 for A Simple Marriage (or there are countless others that will help)
Divorce= $??????? but a whole lot more than all the above options combined.
(photo source)
Corey, your correct. We wait to long in and ignore… Sometimes it is just best to divorce, there are circumstances… Sometimes a spouse does not listen, and sometimes both do not listen because the changes which NEED to be made are painful… They deal with children, specially when the children are Stepchildren, the arm you speak of here can be that as well in a marriage…
I was in this position. WE both ignored, the screams were there for the arm not working… Pain of getting it fixed ignored… Equaled in the end… Divorce…
Corey -
Way to put things in perspective for folks. Of course (hopefully) we wouldn’t treat our bodies in the same cavalier way that we treat our marriages. And you showing the costs really make the point! Well done.
Having been married for 38 years, I’d have to say it’s a matter of pride. In all honesty, we know when things are “off”. Making them right is the hard part. Saying “I’m sorry” is a difficult thing for many people. It was and still is for me. As a woman, our emotions and our tongues often get the best of us.
Recently, my husband was under a lot of stress. He was behaving in a way that was annoying to me and I scolded him for it. Rather than leaving it alone, I added fuel to the fire. It was he who ended up apologizing. I apologized in turn for not considering his own personal situation. Once that was done, we were fine.
Situations like this are far and few between for us, but nonetheless, the whole thing still boils down to pride and self-control. As long as two human beings live together, there will always be some kind of conflict. It’s all a matter of finding out how to resolve it early.
One more thing. Apologizing when you’re not at fault goes a long way.
Great post – good use of the metaphor, too. Really puts it into perspective!
I have to agree with everyone – this is a great post. I agree that people do wait to long. We need to take care of our relationships and that means taking care of yourself too. I was reading a guest post you had on another site and it talked about what you can do for your marriage and one of those was keeping the passion in terms of what makes you happy, what you are passionate about, etc. I have to say that has been a key for my marriage which has had its ups and downs. One thing I have found was to do things for myself that I am passionate about but I had found myself really lost in my marriage at that time. I did some searching online and found a great resource for myself and also might be a for other women. I found myself drawn to a blog called Unleash Your Sparkle (http://www.unleashyoursparkle.com/blog/) with Sherri Nickols. She helps motivate and empower women who have lost their spark and want to get back in touch with their feminine. Just another way to keep things alive I think. I really enjoyed your outlook on marriage and think you have a great way of putting it in perspective. Thank you!
Wow! You make a great point, a divorce is a lot more costly in many ways – not just financial.
So true! I agree, this is a great metaphor. Just like our bodies, our relationships need nurturing, exercise, and attention.
hey,what if you have awoman that is so beautiful that you become very jealous hearted? What do i do next,backup,stop with the hangin so close with each other? are just go with the flow of it,are pretend am not jealous and keep it like it is let it get stronger than what it is.