On Growing Old Together

Today, Bernie and I are celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. As I've been thinking about and reflecting on our marriage, I remembered an interview I saw years ago with an actress on a morning show. She was asked about the secret to her long (and seemingly happy) marriage. I’ve never forgotten her reply.
 
“Well, If we want to grow old together, most of us are going to have to persevere through some hard years.”
 
Sometimes I hesitate to share posts like this, because I am mindful of those who have gone (or are going) through a separation or divorce. I’m mindful of those who have lost their spouse and the opportunity to grow old together. I'm thinking of those who are in very difficult marriages, feeling little hope that things will get better. And I’m especially mindful of those who may be in a an abusive marriage, because I don’t believe we are called to persevere through abuse in marriage. If this is you, please seek help and wise counsel so you can determine your next steps (1-800-799-SAFE (7233). If you are grieving the loss of your marriage, I pray for God’s comfort and peace. And if, for any reason, these thoughts and reflections are not helpful or do not resonate with you, that's OK, too. 
 
While I'm sensitive to those who are hurting, I choose to share this because I know there are SO many of us in those “in-between” years--somewhere between “newly married” and “growing old together”. We are establishing households, starting families, raising and launching kids, or maybe blending families from previous marriages. We are building and re-inventing careers, doing ministry together, taking care of aging parents, navigating losses and financial stress and illnesses and all the hard stuff life throws at us, and we are doing it all from our limited, flawed, human conditions. We are living with varying degrees of brokenness: carrying past hurts into our present relationships, struggling with hang-ups, perpetuating poor communication patterns, choosing unhealthy (and often times, costly) coping mechanisms, and repeating destructive habits. Many of us will absolutely go through some really hard seasons in our marriages. We will have moments where we think, “This is where most people walk away. This is where most people call it quits.” We will grow weary and be tempted to grow bitter as our hearts harden toward the one we promised to love and cherish “till death do us part”.
 
If this describes you, can I encourage you to keep going? To not give up? Researchers have found that two-thirds of unhappy adults who stayed together were happy five years later. They also found that those who divorced were no happier, on average, than those who stayed together. This is astounding data, and it makes me wonder why we don't hear more about persevering through the hard seasons in marriage. 

Generations before us thought it noble to "stay together for the sake of the kids," and I understand some of the reasons we've moved away from this in our current culture. For example, I've heard some of the 'kids' from these families (who are now adults) say they wish their parents had just divorced because their home environment was so toxic and miserable, When I encourage you to keep going, I don't mean to keep running on a broken leg. I'm not saying to keep operating in dysfunction to the detriment of you and everyone around you. 

However, I don't think the shift we've made is much better. The marriage pendulum seems to have swung all the way to the other side, with personal happiness being the highest value, and when one person (or both) in the marriage feels it's no longer serving them, they opt out. There is this pervasive message that if you've fallen out of love, if you've grown apart, if you no longer feel satisfied with the person you made vows to, a better, easier life awaits you on the other side of divorce. Yet, the second finding in that study was that "those who divorced were no happier, on average, than those who stayed together."  

I recently had a conversation with a young twenty-something adult who is unsatisfied with their job situation. They've worked a few different jobs over the last couple of years, and there always seems to be something out there that looks more promising, When I suggested they stay in their current job for awhile, establish some seniority, and grow through the challenges, their reply was eye-opening for me. "Wow. I guess I never thought about sticking it out and staying with something that's not great right now to see if it may get better."

I would propose that "staying together for the sake of the kids" isn't enough. It's not what any of us really want, is it? But growing together? Learning together? Allowing God to transform us together as he heals and shapes us, as he empowers us to change and become more loving people? As He shows us His plan and design for marriage? This is where perseverance can make all the difference.

Perseverance can include endurance, but it goes further:

• Endurance: the ability to withstand hardship or adversity.
• Perseverance: the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition.

If we just coast along in our marriages, toughing it out but staying miserable, hoping things will get better on their own, they probably won’t. If we continue to sweep things under the rug, ignore problems, react defensively, enable destructive behavior, and pretend like the brokenness in our relationships and in our lives isn’t real, then we will not heal. We will continue to be stuck in the unhealthy patterns we keep repeating, and we will feel powerless to change.
 
The truth is, we are always moving in one of two directions: towards perpetuating our brokenness or towards healing. The choice is ours, every single day.
 
Perseverance is about actively moving toward healing and change. It's about trying again, and maybe trying something different than the last thing that didn't work. It’s about seeking to understand what each of us is contributing to the breakdown in our relationships. And I don’t think we can--or were created to--do this on our own!

Here are some ideas (taking into account the resources available to you) for moving toward healing as you grow old together. See if one or two resonate and then move forward with it!

• Start with working on yourself. Get individual help to work on individual growth: therapy, growth groups, recovery programs, and grief support, to name a few. We may want to point our finger at our spouses, thinking they are the problem, but if we will get really honest with ourselves and prayerfully consider where we need to change, heal, and grow, we can show up healthier in our marriages. 

 

• Find a good marriage therapist and invest in your relationship. (If the first therapist you see isn’t a good fit, try another one!  And if your spouse won't go, start going on your own.) 

 

• Look for a church that is grounded in God’s Word and has a thriving marriage ministry. Look for people who are real, who are willing to open up and be honest. Then get involved.

 

• Join a couples’ small group. And here's the key: when you start sharing about your lives, be vulnerable and go first. Everyone thinks everyone else has it all together until someone bravely says, "Actually, we're not doing so great." The moment you open up about your struggles, others in the group will likely follow. Vulnerability can take your group from surface-level to deep connection. 

 

• Seek help and recovery for addictions, past trauma, codependency, mental and emotional health concerns, grief, any hurts and hang-ups that are affecting your marriage. (Check out Celebrate Recovery, Alcoholics Anonymous or addiction-specific groups, Al-Anon, Grief Share near you.)

 

• Go on dates. Get out together and do something you both enjoy! And get it on the calendar. When our kids were little, it was difficult to find sitters. We started a co-op with some friends and had Friday night date nights: we rotated houses and took turns watching the kids while the other couples went out to dinner. It was a win for everyone!

 

• Have fun together! What kinds of things did you used to enjoy doing together? Revisit some of those activities, and try something new! 

 

• Learn how to create safety in communication so you can talk about the hard stuff. This is not easy but so, so important! You can't feel close to someone if you don't feel safe to open up. Marriage expert John Gottman has identified The Four Horsemen in conflict which, according to his research, are destructive to relationships. You can read about how Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling may be impacting your marriage and, more importantly, how to eliminate and replace them with healthy, productive communication patterns.

 

• Challenge and expose faulty thinking and theology. Becoming aware of distortions in our thinking (click here to read about 7 cognitive distortions and how they impact relationships), as well as challenging false beliefs is good, hard work. Bernie and I were raised in very similar church backgrounds, and over the course of our marriage we have identified several false beliefs that have been detrimental to the health of our marriage stemming from: Scriptures taken out of context; certain verses given more weight or importance over others; one person's needs considered more important than the other's; over-generalized gender roles; unreasonable expectations; entitlement; and enabling selfish and immature attitudes and behaviors.                                                                                        Paul wrote several letters to the early church teaching mutual love, respect, honor, and submission in marriage. He emphasized consideration of other's needs and not only our own, speaking the truth in love, and love that is not proud, arrogant, self-seeking, easily angered, or demanding its own way. Our example is Jesus, who laid down his life for us. (See these for reference: Colossians 3:12-14, 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, Ephesians 4:25, Ephesians 5:21-33, and Philippians 2:4.) 

 

• Find a mentor couple with whom you can open up and share what is really going on. Bernie and I have sat on both sides of the table with this, and these relationships are a treasure! Do you know a couple whom you respect and admire, who is further along in their marriage journey than you are and seems to have a solid relationship? Ask if they'd be willing to get together from time to time. Again, get real with safe people.

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• Humble yourself. Cry out to God. Surrender to Him, and ask Him to make a way through for you and your spouse.
  

• Soften your heart. If your heart has grown hard, ask God to soften it. The two best ways we've found to soften hard hearts is through affirmation and ownership. Appreciating (and verbalizing) the good in your spouse and taking ownership for your mistakes can help us move away from criticism, pride, and resentment. This can sound like: "Something I love about you is . . ." and "I'm sorry for . . . " Doing these two things daily can transform your marriage. 

• Learn how to listen to understand, and not just to respond. Ask, "Is there more you'd like to tell me about that?" Practice saying, "Help me understand . . ." and "Well that's a different way to look at it" instead of "You're wrong!"
  

• Go after your spouse's heart. Learn how to love your spouse like they’ve never been loved before - like you’ve never loved someone before. With God's help, there is SO much we can do before we ever get to a place where we feel we’ve exhausted all resources and come to a dead end.

 
This is our marriage story--30 years, a handful of them really hard, but more and more of them really good. Bernie and I just launched our youngest to college, are recent empty nesters, and this summer we moved back to my home state of Michigan. Through all of these changes, I can't express enough the gratitude we feel that we are doing this season of our life together. There was a time I didn't know if we'd get here. We are (and always will be) works in progress, AND I am beyond grateful for what God has done for us and in us.

We are definitely growing old (no question about that!), and we are doing it together. We wouldn’t be here without God’s grace. Without Him making a way for us through what seemed like irreconcilable differences. Without our marriage counselor and medical professionals, without our former church’s marriage ministry—where we experienced so much healing and learned skills that transformed how we communicate—and our Tribe of people who have walked us through and prayed us through those hard seasons. Without our friends and family who are walking us through this season right now. And without our kids who have given us three good reasons every day to keep going.

​Truly, to God be the glory.