Building Healthy Marriage: Where are you? (Part 2 of 4)
One of the best ways to build a healthy marriage is to understand where you are at and to let your spouse also know where you are. Sure, in the middle of the day, you can each text each other and share where you are when it comes to your work, where you are eating, or maybe test how your day is going. And this is all good.
But once you get home, and the two of you are in your place, what if your spouse were to ask you, where are you relationally, how would you answer this question? Could you be open and share how you are feeling? Or would you just tell your spouse what you want them to hear?
For the sake of description, let’s say you had a rough day. And let’s say you are not an expressive person. So maybe if your spouse asks you this question, perhaps your answer is FINE. Many spouses use this word because they do not want to talk or share where they are at. So they say FINE just to appeal their spouse.
When you say FINE, you probably are feeling disconnected or there is low trust in the marriage. Maybe you feel isolated or disconnected from your spouse so you hide how you are doing by just saying FINE. You feel stressed from work, you are tired and overwhelmed and you just want to tell your spouse you are FINE.
But the reality is that you are not FINE. You use this word to avoid sharing of yourself. You prefer to be alone and isolate yourself with ESPN, Face Book, your smartphone, games and so forth. You want to escape the pain and be alone to numb your pain through isolation. So you say FINE.
But when you withdraw from your spouse and go into isolation, you are hiding from your spouse. You do not trust that your spouse wants to listen or care about how you are felling. You feel that you are independent and prefer to do things on your own, so hiding and saying you are FINE is to fix your pain all by yourself. Life is difficult and you want to fix your stress on your own.
So I challenge you to ask yourself this question: Are you telling your spouse you are FINE because you want to avoid or not share with your spouse? And how is that going? Is this the strategy you do want to keep as a way to not trust your spouse and hide? Is fixing your pain working? Where have you felt additional pain from your spouse when you have shared, and now you want to avoid him or her? Is this true? When will you be ready to address your mistrust and learn how to be honest with your spouse?
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