Refinement in Marriage 

My husband and I are having a tough time in our marriage right now. You would think that after 14 years of being married, we would have this whole marriage thing figured out, right? Well, we don’t.

I think that one of the biggest lies the world tells us, is that we are supposed to ALWAYS be happy, and so when trials within our relationships occur, we tend to panic. At least, that’s what I do. I worry that we are not going to make it through this time. I worry that my deepest inner desires of being both an independent woman and a devoted wife cannot possibly work. I worry that our marriage is always going to be hard and I should just throw in the towel now.

Since I have made the commitment this year to try new things, I decided that I must also approach my thinking about this difficult time in our marriage in a new way. It is, after all, THE most important relationship here on earth that I have. It deserves my most honest and earnest attention.

I have decided to practice a whole new level of surrendering – not the giving up kind of surrendering. I am talking about the type of surrender to ‘flow with’ instead of being in resistance. The type of surrender that empowers a relationship instead of destroys. A surrender that allows space for understanding, healing and growth instead of my need to be right. A surrender that gives my husband and I time to rediscover each other. Raising 4 children and a few life changing events has changed us and we must honor this.

I have been practicing this surrender approach – some days are harder than others – for the last 3 months. What I realized today is that there is nothing that I should be panicking about. This season of our marriage is an opportunity for our relationship to be refined – a process of removing impurities and unwanted elements. My role is to give our marriage time and space for this refinement to occur.

I am choosing to see this struggle in our marriage as a gift, an opportunity for 2 people who have changed and grown in the last 14 years. We have both decided that there are some ways of communicating and operating that need to be removed/adjusted/refined to better our marriage, to make us stronger.

WHOA! So much frustration, anger and resentment lifted off me in choosing to see this as a time of refinement instead of a time of unhappiness. Now this certainly does not mean that everything just fixes itself, but it does mean that I have taken away my need to be right about how to work on our marriage. We continue to be deeply engaged in morning prayer together asking God for His guidance, we are seeking counsel from others who have been down the same road, and we are choosing to listen and be patient. This time, I am willing to create more space for healing instead of thinking everything needs to get fixed right now.

I know we are going to be ok – and this time I think we are going to be even better than ok. I trust that this time of refinement is exactly what happens to two people who are committed to working on their marriage over and over and over. I also believe that this time of refinement is giving us an opportunity to honor each other in a way that gives space to a deeper intimacy in our marriage and in our faith.

No one said refinement would be easy, but I know enough to know that it is worth it.