Episode #19 of the Wise Guy Gal Wednesday series features Joy Bennett, a “writer, mother, wife, amateur cardiologist by necessity, bereaved parent, walking by faith, still in process.”
I first connected with Joy on Twitter via the exclusive #coffeeclub (not for the faint of heart) and you will be glad to have “met” her here. Joy writes from the heart and with an authenticity that makes you feel like your sitting with an old friend.
Different is Good… Really!
My husband and I will celebrate our thirteenth anniversary in a few weeks. We’ve crammed a lot into those 13 years – the births of four children, countless vehicle purchases and sales, two children’s medical crises, six open-heart surgeries (all on kids), emergency hospital admissions, the death of a child, depression, changing churches, the death of a church, and the usual everyday irritations of rubbing shoulders with the same people day after day.
When we were engaged, I remember people telling us that marriage is hard work. After the wedding, I decided they were washed-up jaded cynics. We loved being married. Even after a few years, in the midst of life-threatening illness and major decisions, even though it wasn’t easy, I still didn’t see what all the nay-saying was about.
The three years since our daughter died showed me what they meant. Our challenges didn’t come directly from her death or from the grieving process (though circumstances did serve as catalysts). They came from a completely unexpected source – change.
Many couples discover how different they are shortly after they marry and work hard to find harmony. In our case, we started out very similar, and as life (and death) have happened, we’ve grown more different, particularly in our faith. My grief led me into depression and a major spiritual crisis. My nearly-fatal mistake was keeping my spiritual questions and rapidly-changing answers to myself, thinking it would create less friction.
I was wrong. My secret strained our relationship because it wasn’t really a secret – my husband knew something was going on. He just didn’t know exactly what. Our entire family was walking on eggshells, afraid to speak, afraid of the next explosion. I finally realized I had only two choices – stay, confront the situation, and rebuild a stronger relationship, or run away and leave our family in wreckage.
For us, the choice was already made. Even though we weren’t doing well, one thing never changed – our commitment to each other. We were going to work.
We had to learn how to talk about our faith and our struggles, listen to things we didn’t like hearing, and love each other in those hard places. I had to trust my husband with those things I had feared revealing. He had to learn to listen, even when he didn’t like what I was saying, and we had to give each other time to work through our reactions.
Staying on the same page, or as my husband likes to say, “staying calibrated” doesn’t mean being identical. It means not hiding that we are changing. It requires us to acknowledge and accept two things: change is inevitable, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll change the same way. My husband and I are growing in our faith and we’re maturing (I think!) as individuals, but we’re in different places.
A couple that won’t let each other be different will break apart. I began learning this when our daughter died. The best advice I read at the time was to accept that my husband would grieve differently than I did. Allowing him to grieve his way, and me mine kept our grief from dividing us. What I’ve discovered is that this applies to everything, not just the loss of a child.
We are learning to allow each other to become the individuals God is making us to be – to be in process and not be there yet. We will change in ways impossible to predict ahead of time – in faith, priorities, preferences, maybe even our politics (gasp). This isn’t all bad either; it’s just different. When we accept and embrace change in ourselves and our spouse, we display the same kind of patient and unconditional love God shows each of us.
How has change changed your relationship?
What helped you through it?
You can find Joy on Twitter or via her blog.
Her professional page is pretty impressive as well.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. The wife and I are dealing with change right now, 3 girls in the house, some financial issues and other smaller issues.
Boy do you lay out some solid groundwork we are on our way to using.
Thanks much!
I am so glad that you found this helpful. We also found that setting aside 10-15 minutes each day, or on a regular basis each week, to just talk about how we’re doing. Us personally, not about the kids. It’s been tough sometimes, but really good practice.
Joy’s post showed up on my Twitter feed just as K.C.’s did. I clicked on both because they both looked good and how ironic that they were connected.
I think the first thing that any engaged couple needs to commit to is that divorce is not an option. That was something my husband and I said from day 1 and 22 years later, we still stand by it. I think that engaged couples have no idea how much work a relationship is. It’s not all those warm-fuzzy feelings that they’re having on the onset of the relationship. Like anything worthwhile, it involves a lot of work. That includes spending time together talking and planning and laughing and crying. This is the person you’re going to be living with after the kids are gone and if you don’t have anything in common, it’s going to be uncomfortable. Great post, Joy! It was something that I passed on to a friend, who needed to hear what you’re saying.
Yes, there comes a point in every relationship where you will think about divorce, even if it’s more like “This is the point where most couple probably start thinking about leaving.”
I’m with you Joy … I also (quietly) laughed at the “marriage is hard work” line for the first few years of our marriage.
Then we had 3 boys and our parenting styles are different. (of course, I’m right and he’s wrong
Then we were business partners for about 12 years (bad plan)
Sold the business and planned to live happily ever after (was wonderful for 6 months)
Happily ever after was disrupted when I almost died in an accident 3,000 miles from home. (not our plan)
Then I blamed him for the accident (not his fault)
And I had to learn how to live life with pain, limitations and a deformed leg. (ugh)
Then we both found/find ourselves in the middle of a faith crisis. (can you say changes!)
So needless to say … there have been changes in our marriage. With the help of counselors, we made it through the roughest spots (to date) and we’re learning to allow each other to be who he/she is, not who we wish they would be.
Changes in our spouse or ourselves doesn’t have to mean the end of the marriage … and it’s not always bad, but as you said “it’s different.” We’ve traveled down many paths I never thought we would and I assume there will more in the future … so I stay flexible.
I love how you trace different things that were (a) bad plans or (b) not your plans at all. SO much of life is like that, isn’t it? Doesn’t go according to plan at all. We have to learn how to go forward in those not-on-the-agenda moments.
KC, thank you for featuring Joy today. Joy thank you for sharing a this slice of your life. There is so much wisdom in your post. Life is hard and marriage takes work. Neither are easy, but both worth it, for they teach us — if we’re willing — what it really means to love one another deeply from the heart, to forgive as Christ forgives, to grant one another space and time to process all this life holds, to grow and mature in our faith — however that looks, however long that takes, and sometimes to simply be still and know that He is God. May God continue to bless others through your words and your beautiful heart for Him. Grace and Peace!
Since marrying the woman of my dreams just over 15 years ago, a lot has happened. Besides two wonderful kids, a few moves, and some other changes, we have dealt with changes induced by my wife’s diagnosis of bi-polar disorder. This has brought numerous challenges into our world, but it has also opened the doors to many new things as well. We’ve grown closer to each other. We’ve developed a deeper passion for each other. And we’ve grown in compassion for families dealing with mental illness and other health problems. I wouldn’t say it was expected or desired, but I can honestly see God working ALL things for good.
Jon…have you written any posts specifically about the challenges to your marriage with regard to mental illness?
Jon, I’m so glad that you shared. Mental illness is such a difficult road to walk — we know so little that is really helpful about it. It’s so encouraging to hear you write about your commitment to each other in spite of those challenges.
10 years of marriage has taught me that no one really prepared me for how much work really goes into marriage. Loving is easy, it’s being committed that takes effort. It’s making the choice every day to keep choosing the one you chose to spend your life with, working with, loving with. Everything around us is subject to change, and those changes effect us. Sometimes my husband and I have been united, standing side by side on issues, other times we’ve had to take turns supporting the other. We’ve even been divided on occasion. We are still committed to one another.
I think that’s the hardest tightrope to walk — being committed to one another while being divided on an issue. It’s especially challenging when it’s one of those issues that dives deep and has ripple effects on your entire life. We’re still learning that balance.
Joy, thanks for sharing your story. I appreciate your transparency. In a little over 6 years of marriage, my wife and I have had a lot of change (whether it’s jobs, where we’ve lived, health scares, financial stuff)… I think what you said about an unwavering commitment is key – that, along with a shared faith in God, has to be paramount to all else.
I’m always still torn on the “hard work” part of marriage. I don’t disagree that it’s work (!!!!), but I sometimes think that the hard part is much more connected to our willingness to put in SOME work every day. I’m in the process of cleaning out my sons’ closet. It is hard work because it probably hasn’t been cleaned in like 2 years. But once we’re done, if we put a little bit of effort in every day, we can eliminate a lot of the really hard, gross stuff.
I think that applies to marriage. The times when things have required HARD work has been when we’ve neglected little stuff, like listening to each other, being honest about small annoyances, giving more energy to other projects than to each other, etc. When that builds up, we have to work harder to get back to the “happy” place.
So I’m hesitant to say marriage is hard work, but rather that marriage is DAILY work.
Our big changes were the year before Jason was diagnosed with bipolar and when he deconverted. In both cases, if we hadn’t been putting in regular work to love one another, they could have destroyed us. For us, the most important thing is to be able to be honest about our emotional responses to change. When we try to spare the other, it ends up being so much worse. Honesty when it’s still small and manageable is significantly better than when it’s become all-consuming!
This is good insight, Alise. I think you’re right — if you do the daily work and build good relationship habis, it isn’t a burden at all. But if you slack off and think you can just coast for awhile, that’s when you find yourself in a world of hurt. It was certainly the case for me.
Isn’t it amazing how the huge things aren’t the things that break us apart, but it’s the little by little growing different, growing apart? Thank you for reliving some of your pain in order to share with us, your readers.
I think we are caught by surprise so often because it is such a gradual growing apart. We don’t see it until the change is huge and the work is hard to bring things back together.
My husband and I have always had excellent communication (thanks to him) and that helps us weather the storms. Our biggest struggle is to stay faithful and strong and not get bogged down by the small things in life.
Joy – thanks for the great article! I relate to SO MUCH of what you’ve written! We’ve been married 30 years (September 5th) and you are right – it’s the things we keep inside and don’t share that can tear a marriage apart. I did the same thing. If you’re not willing to share and allow each other to grow and change – you’re dead in the water. It’s a relationship KILLER – not a healthy way to build. Differences are good – if you allow your partner to change and grow differently than yourself and be okay with that. When you stop listening and wanting to be okay with that – is when the trouble happens and you find other people who will listen to you and be okay with your growth. It’s a slippery slope to emotional infidelity and death of a marriage. I had stopped sharing what was inside of me – not wanting to be “shut down” but in the end I found out that there really was a safe place to land in putting my efforts back into the man I married – not easy – but well worth it!
This is exactly it — I was afraid of his response to what was going on inside. I didn’t want to be shut down or condescended to or minimized. I was also afraid to trust him with it, to be brutally honest. I had no reason to distrust, but I struggled anyway — probably because it was such a deep personal part of me. Letting him work through his own response and watching him maintain his commitment in spite of that has solidified our relationship so much. But I had to step forward and trust him that first time.
We’ve been married for 11 years now and it has definitely been a rocky road (in large part due to the fact that we married so young). In so many ways we are exactly the same (like sense of humor), which makes us great best friends. But in other ways we’re so different, and finding the balance of that has definitely been a learning experience.
One of my hubby’s strengths is his ability to find the humor in situations. When we can laugh and go easier on each other in those times where we’re struggling to find balance, it helps a lot. I wish you the best!
What a pleasure to read you Joy. Terrific post. I loved that you have said what I’ve been sharing for years. If marrying someone that is exactly like you that would be soooooooo boring. My wife and I are so different and so incompatible, but it makes life work. We have so many adventures, laughs, fights, and we love it all. It’s part of a terrific package.
This is so good, Moe — life is so much more interesting with someone who is different.
I found this article helpful. Thanks, Joy! I can apply this to my family relationships right now. Accepting the changes is a tangible way to show God’s unconditional love.
Oh, amen. Change – which is, of course, inevitable – is what brings the push-pull in any relationship. Times 10 for a marriage.
Near the 25 year mark, we were shifting in so many ways, and not communicating well at all. We did a couple of years of therapy together and I did some on my own, because my personal transitions required some pretty major mind-shifts for me and that had an impact on our relationship.
I was moving in the same directions that I sense you are – re-thinking the long-taught view on women in both marriage and ministry, re-thinking how I approached the Bible. We learned a lot from the counseling, the primary thing being a willingness to speak honestly about what was happening inside each of us.
Now, 20 years after that time, I can honestly say that my husband is my biggest booster and I am his. We are very, very different people – from each other and from the people we were when we married. And we argue/get stony with each other/need space/roll our eyes.
At times.
And that is okay with us – because it leads us eventually to speaking the truth about where we are, asking for and offering forgiveness, laughing loudly about how silly we can sometimes be and finding adventures to share along the way. Marriage is a journey like no other. Kudos to you both for hanging in there with each other – is is so worth it.
This is a great interpretation of what so many couples are experiencing, but dont’ know how to articulate. I think one of the greatest challenges of marriage is that change is constant. You think it’s gonna be the same way it was when you were dating-that love really is enough. Well, guess what? Love is the icing on the cake. The commitment is what will keep you together-and, the help of God, of course.
Hubs and I have endured more change than I care to recount. In recent years, adding 3 boys to the mix has greatly magnified our differences. If there is one tip I would give to folks in the dating game, it’s this: marry someone you would want to work with. Once you start parenting together, it’s a whole different ballgame, and there is just so much TO DO.
My prayer for the past few years is that God would show us how to allow our differences to be a strength in our marriage.
Thanks for having Joy here, KC. And, the honest comments here are so very encouraging.
Powerful story, Joy! I’m so glad that you guys have stayed together and grown together through all that change. It’s encouraging for me as I get ready to begin life together with my future wife.
I’m in the process of change; from single guy to married man. We’re not even married and the changes have been dramatic. I’m learning how to share my heart and most personal thoughts with someone. I’m learning to trust more deeply than ever. It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time!
Beautiful post! Thanks for sharing your story. Marriage is hard, but I’m glad you’re putting in the work it takes.