Tag: relationships

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Marriage

Dealing with Difficult People: Is it Me?

Last month, I wrote a post on dealing with difficult people, about how we should have more understanding toward those people. We’re so quick to attack, judge, and cut them out of our lives that we don’t think about the positives that those people bring to our lives. Eventually with this series, I will discuss how to specifically deal with these people that frustrate us and make our blood boil. For now, I want to talk about you.

As much as we hate to admit it, we may have a part to play in our difficult relationships. Relationships are always a two-way street, and very few of us can say that we have perfectly handled a situation. Just like we hate to hear it, I hate to be the one to tell you that you may be at least partly responsible for the conflict. I’ve totally been there, the proudest person in the bunch telling you to own your mistakes. But sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes you need to look within before you cast the blame on someone else.

Paul tells us in the book of Romans to live at peace with everyone as long as it depends on you (12:18). I praise God that we have the ability to control ourselves. One of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. However, that implies that we cannot control those around us. We are only responsible for ourselves. We can’t control if a family member treats us poorly, but we can control how we react. I can’t control a cutting remark from my friend, but I can control whether or not I retaliate with a cutting remark.

Think of a difficult relationship in your life, whether it’s at work, home, school, or in your family. God has given us people to sharpen us, but the sharpening process definitely hurts sometimes! But think of the last conflict you two have had, maybe even the reason why you’re so upset with him/her. This time, don’t focus on the bad that she did to you. Focus on your actions. You may not have instigated her insults (or maybe you did), but maybe you reacted in a way that wasn’t exactly holy.

The other aspect of the phrase as long as it depends on you means that you have to give it everything you’ve got to save the relationship. Obviously, if she’s toxic, you need to create some distance, but don’t make excuses and claim that you’ve done everything you can. If you need to apologize, apologize. If you need to show more love, show more love. Do whatever it takes on your end to make it right. The rest is up to her.

On the other hand, even if you start to see things from her perspective and see where you’ve also messed up, don’t excuse her behavior. Mental and emotional disorders are becoming more common these days, especially because they’re easier to diagnose now. The difficult people in your life may not be hurting you maliciously (as in, with the intent of hurting you), but if they hurt you, you still have a right to be upset. She may have suffered abuse as a child or may be carrying the weight of narcissism or OCD or ADD as an adult, but even if her disorder caused you pain, you cannot continue to tolerate the behavior. Metaphorically speaking, whether she hit you with a baseball bat because she was trying to swat a fly or because she was trying to hurt you, it hurt you! Deal with the pain, and help her by explaining your boundaries (I’ll talk more about this Wednesday).

Remember what I said about self-control? Well, I have great news for you. Your marriage does not have to suffer because of your difficult relationships. You have the choice to let that difficult person drag down your marriage. I don’t know why you’d want to let it drag down your relationship, but if you do, and it does, it’s your responsibility now. That would be your fault, not hers (the difficult person).

You and your spouse are both adults, so you get to decide what you bring into your marriage. Your parents don’t decide for you. Your teachers, college professors, bosses, whatever, don’t get to decide what you bring into your marriage. If your difficult person is a work relationship, you don’t have to bring him home. You can drive and pray and sort through your feelings before you make it back to your spouse. You don’t have to take out your anger on your spouse.

Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash

Categories
Marriage

The Beauty of Letting Go

Why do we have so many fights with our spouses? Why do we keep having the same arguments over and over again?

Because we don’t want to let it go.

I could stop right there. But I don’t want to let it go. I want to hold on to my anger, my hurt, my rightness. My husband can’t get away with saying something like that to me! After all the times I have been so nice to him, how could he speak that way to me?

Oh, right…I haven’t been very nice to him.

I thank God that He lets my sins go. As far as the east is from the west does he remove our sins from us (Psalm 103:12). Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross gave us grace, which means that God does not hold our sins against us anymore. Praise be to God!

Since God forgave me, why is it so difficult to forgive my husband?

We all have excuses about why we say the things we do. We don’t mean to hurt our loved ones, and yet the wrong words come out all the time. From a women’s perspective, I admit that I use more excuses than my husband because I tend to have more times of the month that I’m irritable. But finally, after nearly two years of marriage, I’ve learned to shut my mouth long enough to listen to my husband. He’ll tell me he had a long day of work, and then he’ll say something totally rude to me about an hour later. He’ll tell me that he didn’t get enough sleep last night, and then a few minutes later he’ll give me an attitude. No, he doesn’t usually come out and say, “Sorry, honey, I just had a long day at work and I’m having a hard time controlling my tongue” (because who actually says that when they’re so tired they can’t even make sense of reality?). But I’ve learned that his insults are out of character for him, so I can make an assumption that he’s probably just having an off day.

Although he doesn’t have the same excuses as me about why he’s irritable, he has every right to be tired, hungry, or upset. I can’t expect my husband to be happy all the time, even though he’s happy most of the time. When he’s not at his best, my response is to let it go.

Through devotionals and YouTube videos we’ve been watching online, we’ve learned the importance of letting go. When we hold on to grudges, they can actually put up a wall between us. We may have decided we will never separate, but even if we are together on paper, we can be separate emotionally. On a daily basis, we strive to remove any obstacle from between us so that we can thrive in our marriage and maintain our closeness.

It’s important to let it go. I want to be right, but I would rather be united with my husband, physically and emotionally, than right. Obviously, if the negative comments and insults become continuous, we would have to have a conversation about it. However, if I know he’s having a bad day and he hurts me, I can let it go.

I make it sound so easy. It’s only not easy because we have complicated it. We live in an age of entitlement, when everybody has a right to be right. We all want to be rewarded for our actions and opinions. I have a hard time letting to when I want to prove my husband wrong, but most of all, when I want to protect myself.

If you find yourself in this place, remember that the Lord is our defender. God is our strength and shield. You don’t need to prove yourself in order to be protected. When Jesus was about to be crucified, he had multiple opportunities to prove himself. He even said that he could call a legion of angels to save him (Matthew 26:53). However, he chose to trust in God. No matter what you face, big or small, it is not as big as what Jesus endured for us. We have nothing to prove; we can show love to those around us without having to protect ourselves.

Photo by Raul Varzar on Unsplash

Categories
anxiety

The Blessing of Difficult People

On this past Marriage Monday, I discussed the first step in dealing with difficult people, and that is to develop sympathy toward them, because they are human. Since then, I’ve thought about how my life would be different if I didn’t have difficult people in my life. When I read my journal from a couple of years ago, I remembered meeting a handful of people that rubbed me the wrong way and attacked my character. Looking back, I realized how they actually helped me more than hurt me.

Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Think about that visual! Although the people who love us help us to mature, those who are different from us allow us to grow as well. Those people who “rub us the wrong way” are inadvertently rubbing off our mess and making us more like Jesus.

They help you gain a new perspective, which makes you question everything. I specifically had one person who I had kept at arm’s length. When I read my journal a few days ago, the memories flooded back to me about my experiences with her. One thing that she consistently did, unknowingly I’m sure, was give false testimony about me. Those who know me know that I am joyful and childlike (not childish), and I always prefer to look at the positive side. One day, I wrote in my journal that she had told me I complained too much, which is not true. She also told me one day that my joy made her depressed because she could never have what I have, which is also not true. However, although she attacked the very core of my being, instead of crumbling, I examined my heart to reflect on what I was portraying to others. Sure, I thought I was joyful, but maybe to her I complained. Maybe I desired to be childlike, but I was more rigid than I thought. Was my joy annoying? Her attacks made my reflect on my actions and attitude, which is a Biblical practice that God wants us to do on a regular basis.

They keep you humble. Difficult people remind you that you are not perfect. None of us are perfect. You want to be around the people that sing your praises all day, but trust me when I say that you also want to be around those who think you have plenty of room for improvement. At one point, this person called me out on my pride. I had a lot of pride, and I honestly still do. She helped me to see what I needed to change about my life. She also consistently reminded me how much I need Jesus, as her threats and accusations constantly kept me on my knees in prayer.

They help you to show Christ’s love. Jesus commands us to love our enemies. It is easy to love those who love us back, but what about those who don’t? (see Matthew 5:43-48). When I’m around difficult people, I close myself off and don’t want to show love to them. However, that’s not the way God calls me to live. Instead, I need to be honest with God and accept His help. God knows our hearts; He knows when we don’t love those around us. When we’re honest with Him, He equips us to love them through His everlasting, unfailing love. His love puts my love to shame.

Without those difficult people in my life, I would have never grown, at least in the ways that I have. I’ve had people criticize my writing, attack my joy, and call me out for my pride. I can’t believe that years later, I’m still thinking of the people that have hurt me, and the ways they have blessed my life. My experience with difficult people from my past also help me with the people I have in my life now. These people that I’ve lost contact with did their worst to me, and yet I’m still here and I’m still thriving. If I was able to learn to love those difficult people in my life, if I was able to “survive” every attack they threw at me, I am able to love and endure the people who surround me now. No matter how condescending, negative, and criticizing some people are in my life now, I can be confident that God is my defender and that He will grow me even through these difficult people.

If you have difficult people in your life, pray about how God can use them to grow you. Now, please understand that difficult is not abusive. If someone is being abusive to you, run. Do not endure his/her toxicity. However, difficult people are more annoying than hurtful. Allow God to reveal His love through you as you deal with these people that get under your skin.

Photo by Victor Benard on Unsplash

Categories
Marriage

Love is…

The internet has fallen in love with those cute comics that describe what love is. Too often I find one on social media and instantly share it with my husband with the message, “This is SO us!” What these comics have taught me is that love can be defined by various actions, feelings, and circumstances.

Love may look different in my marriage from the way it looks in yours. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it means that we cannot compare our levels of love with our displays of love. Your husband may show love to you by surprising you with flowers, but I shouldn’t say my husband doesn’t love me because he doesn’t buy me flowers. My husband shows love to me by crafting the perfect date night for us.

Lately, I’ve discovered that love is defined differently not only in each couple, but also in each season of marriage. Here is a tribute to my 22 months of marriage using the “love is…” phrases that have described each season we’ve spent together:

When we started dating
Love is telling me that I make everything better
Love is buying me a smoothie when I have my wisdom teeth pulled
Love is walking around Burns Park
Love is unintentionally matching when we both decide to wear orange
Love is sitting and talking in Starbucks until the manager kicks us out at closing
Love is surprising each other with the perfect date night
Love is saying everything through our kisses
Love is being comfortable enough to completely and totally be myself with you

When we got engaged
Love is in the simple things
Love is juggling our time with each side of the family
Love is racing to my side when I tell you I feel like I’m going to throw up
Love is sitting with me and holding me through a panic attack
Love is counting down the hours until I see you again
Love is getting over my ginormous fear of flying when you needed me the most
Love is letting you cry on my shoulder when you hear the news that Papa died
Love is working on our future marriage together

Our first year of marriage
Love is holding your hand and praying on our wedding day
Love is seeing you at the other end of the aisle waiting for me
Love is being surrounded by people but only having eyes for you
Love is forgetting every guy who has ever hurt me, because only you matter now
Love is making room for discomfort
Love is becoming one
Love is cooking dinner together
Love is holding nothing back
Love is listening to me complain
Love is showing me off to your friends
Love is counting down the hours until we can go home from work and be together again

Our second year of marriage
Love is providing for me
Love is making my priorities your priorities
Love is letting me vent and express myself
Love is working overtime so we can take a vacation next year
Love is respecting me and listening to me, even if it doesn’t make sense to you
Love is encouraging me to pursue my dreams
Love is building the foundation for our future together
Love is working toward goals that we have established as a couple

In conclusion, it would be unwise to compare how Lenny shows me love now to how he showed it to me when we first started dating. Ultimately, his feelings for me haven’t changed, and our love is truly based on providing for one another’s needs and helping each other be more of who God wants us to be. We have both grown tremendously, and we’ve learned how to love in different ways.

How do you show love in this season? Is it different from how you were when you were dating or in another season of your relationship?

Photo by Elena Taranenko on Unsplash

Categories
anxiety

How to Speak Clearly and Effectively

Well, I said I’d do it. So here it is, a blog post on how to speak clearly and effectively with others.

Speaking clearly is difficult for me. I’m afraid of how the other person will react, so I usually cover it up with side comments, filler words, and half-truths. I’m not very clear because I want to protect the person in front of me. Little do I know that I’m setting myself up for failure when I have to hurt both of us by eventually telling her the truth.

Being clear is important for those of us who suffer with anxiety because when we have anxiety, we tend to have a problem figuring out what’s going on inside of us. We usually don’t know how to communicate what we’re feeling, what happened, or what symptoms we’re experiencing. Then, when we finally figure out our triggers, it is difficult for us to communicate with those who’ve hurt us, if necessary.

Now, before I discuss how to speak more clearly, it is worth mentioning that communication is a two-way street. There have been times when I’ve said all that I’ve needed to say in as eloquent a matter as possible, only to be met with two blank eyes staring back at me. When listening, here are some things to consider:

  • Be present : Just because you are hearing does not mean you are listening. Instead of getting distracted, be intentional about giving the speaker your full, undivided attention.
  • Don’t listen to respond; listen to understand : You may have a lot to say about what the speaker is telling you, whether to defend yourself or to contribute to the conversation. However, the speaker may have some valuable information that can be helpful or interesting to you.
  • Repeat for comprehension : To make sure you are on the same page, you might want to repeat what you’ve heard. Ask, “Are you saying that…?”
  • Be patient : Let the person speak. It is difficult to communicate from the heart, and if he has to do that, give him some time. Don’t be quick to judge or defend, but truly seek out a healthy relationship.

For the speakers, here is how to speak more clearly and be understood:

  • Write down/rehearse : Especially if you are anxious, write down your thoughts. It’ll help clear your head and find the main idea. For your own benefit, you can write down what you need to communicate and the feelings behind that message. If someone hurt you, why did it hurt you? If you have something important to say to your boss, why is it important to you?
  • Stick to the main idea : It is possible to talk a lot and yet communicate nothing. Remember the point and stick to it.
  • Line your words up with your actions : If you communicate your desires, your boundaries, or your feelings, make sure you follow through with your actions. Parents know this better than anyone. When you take the time to effectively communicate to your children why you are not letting them have dessert because of how they misbehaved, but they give you the teary eyes and you cave and let them have dessert anyway, you are not communicating clearly.
  • Be patient : The listener may not understand right away, but keep trying. Be patient with yourself as well as the listener. Your message is worth saying, and worth hearing.

The Bible speaks against giving a false testimony to your neighbor, so it is highly valuable to communicate as truthfully as possible without sugar coating anything. Overall, be patient with one another. Even if you both speak the same language, you have two different mindsets. Effective communication takes time to learn; that’s why it’s called a skill.

Photo by Trung Thanh on Unsplash

Categories
Book Update Marriage

Make Your Own Dream

When you first get married, you think that you will always agree with your husband. Let’s pop that bubble right now: You’re going to disagree, and it will probably be messy.

I can only speak from a woman’s perspective, but I was taught that my wedding day would be the greatest day of my life, where all my dreams will come true. But it wasn’t. Why? Because my dream wasn’t my husband’s dream. We both had a say in our wedding, so we mixed both my vision of what the perfect wedding would look like, and his, and formed our own special day. That vision required compromise from both of us.

As a couple, you will have to make a ton of decisions together. When are we getting married? Where are we going to live? When are we having kids? How are we going to raise our kids? Whether long-term or short-term, you will have to work together to make decisions on a regular basis.

Currently, our next major decision is buying a house. We still have a couple of months before we can afford a down payment, but we’re taking the time we’re waiting to figure out what we want before we buy the first house we see. We’re finding that our ideas of a dream house are both totally different. For example, I want a big backyard with a ton of lawn space, while Lenny wants to cover our front yard and backyard with cement and pavers! I grew up with a big backyard, so I’ve always imagined our kids running around a safe grassy space (Barefoot, probably, because who doesn’t love the feeling of grass on their bare feet?). Lenny, on the other hand, wants a lot of cars, so he wants to have enough driveway space for his possessions. I’m not saying my way is right and his way is wrong, or vice versa, but that we obviously have a different way of looking at our space.

How are we going to make this decision? Well, like every other decision, here is what we’ve committed to do as a couple:

  • Be clear. I could write a blog post alone about how to be clear. But before you could decide what you both want together, you have to decide what you both want individually. Like my example of finding our dream house, I generally want a space big enough for our future family, but specifically, I know that I want a big backyard, hardwood floors, and an open concept to our house. That’s pretty clear. And Lenny can work with that.
  • Make a list. I love lists! They help to make things even more clear, and they provide a visual. Write down everything you want in your dream house. I recommend making your lists in separate locations (you sitting on your couch and your husband sitting at your dining room table, for example) so you don’t influence each other’s preferences.
  • Circle similarities. Find a common ground. We both want a safe neighborhood and a good school district. We both have the same housing budget. We both have the same location desires. Those are our starting points. Those are non-negotiable. Everything else will have to be discussed.
  • Discuss everything else on the list. For whatever else is on your list, you both need to decide how necessary the other items are. How important is it for me to have a big backyard? If there is a park nearby, can I take my kids there to play instead of using our backyard space? What about for Lenny? If the current driveway is big enough, maybe we won’t need to completely get rid of the grass in the front yard. Regardless, you must talk about each point with your spouse and see how necessary it is.

If you can’t agree, don’t make a decision yet. We need to wait. Circumstances may change our mind over time. Maybe our kids will be allergic to grass, for example. Keep praying and wait it out. Don’t compromise your marriage for any decision. Whatever you do, make sure you put God first, your marriage second, your kids third, and everything and everyone else, last. You can disagree with me, but then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Photo by Andre Revilo on Unsplash

Categories
Marriage

Check Out My Guest Blog on Inspire Your Marriage

Happy Labor Day to all my fellow workers! I have been blessed these past couple of weeks to have my articles featured on other blogs. This one is on a marriage blog. John Thomas interviewed me about some communication issues I was having with Lenny in the beginning of our marriage. Communication is an ongoing skill that we always have to improve. I thank God that we’ve gotten much better at it. I feel like we are on the same page, and we love each other more deeply through our understanding of each other. Check out Inspire Your Marriage for our story and for more marriage advice:

https://www.inspireyourmarriage.com/2018/08/27/life-example-conflict-in-marriage-by-talking-too-soon/

It’s always nice hearing another perspective on marriage. Tune in next week for more content of how God is working in my marriage with Lenny. Have a great day!

Categories
Marriage

My Husband, My Accountability Partner

This week, my husband further helped me to be the person that God wants me to be. God has gifted my husband to see things about myself that I could not even if I looked in my bathroom mirror (that lighting exposes everything!). After a little over three years (of being together), my husband can already see my limits and knows how far he could push me beyond them.

I didn’t want to have my first panic attack in front of Lenny until we had been engaged. At least. But how long was that honestly supposed to last? Really? I had my first panic attack in front of him the week after we made it official. I lasted one week without having a panic attack. Looking back, that’s pretty impressive, but that panic attack definitely wasn’t the classy lady that my boyfriend (at the time) expected me to be. God has shown me that He did not allow me to hide my anxiety from Lenny because He wanted to use Lenny to help me find healing. There is healing in community, when we bring our brokenness to one another and allow them to pray for us and meet our needs. Lenny started doing that for me after a week of dating.

As we’ve gotten to know each other and have shared our hearts with one another, we’ve both pushed each other to be more of who God wants us to be. I’ve gotten to see the culmination of our accountability through this week. Our week started with Lenny encouraging me in my career, which led me to apply for a handful of freelance jobs and to write a couple of prompts on a website I’ve joined. Our week ended with Lenny comforting me on line for a water slide.

I hate waiting on stairs. I was totally fine while we waited on the ground, but once we got to the very middle of the stairs, I couldn’t breathe. I begged Lenny to take me off the line, but I knew he wasn’t going to do that. I could tell he was frustrated with me because I picked the worst time to have a panic attack. I don’t blame him. Although he’s great at calming me down, he’s still human. He was hot, thirsty, and impatient after baking in the sun waiting for a five-second ride. He was not about to hop off the line, so he calmed me down and helped me survive the rest of the trip up the stairs. (Spoiler alert: We made it!)

I’m speaking from my own experience, but I also help Lenny accomplish his goals. Over the years, I’ve encouraged Lenny to apply for his first job, walk for college graduation, and stand up for himself. He has told me on more than one occasion that he would not be who he is today without me.

We not only hold each other accountable as individuals, but also as a couple. We read the Bible together and pray that God would keep us united. The other night, we wrote down our goals we’d like to accomplish as a couple. We attend church together every week, and we attend a small group together during the school year. At our wedding, our pastor had told us that it is impossible for us to be apart when both of our eyes are fixed on Christ. When we have the same goal, to honor God in our marriage, that goal will draw us closer together.

Your spouse is your life partner, your life coach, your accountability partner. While your spouse shouldn’t be your only accountability partner, what better person to have help you grow than the one who knows what your morning breath smells like? Lenny knows pretty much everything about me, even things I don’t know about myself, and as we discover new things together, we learn how to deal with them in time.

Your marriage should improve you and your spouse as individuals and as a couple. If it does not, maybe you can have a conversation about what’s working and what’s not. Start by creating some goals that you would like to accomplish in your individual lives as well as in your marriage. Here are some prompts to get you thinking:
-Where do you see yourself (and your family) in 5 years?
-What would your dream job be, and is it something you want to strive to get?
-What are you going to do to improve your marriage on a regular basis? (eg, date night, joining a small group, praying in the morning, etc.)
-If you don’t have children, when do you want to start a family, and how many kids do you want?
-If you have children, what goals do you have in raising them?

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Categories
Marriage

Where is Hope Found?

In modern English, hope has become an empty word. For example, when one says, “I hope everything works out,” there is no substance behind those words. The hope is not based on facts, circumstances, or even prayers! Therefore, when Paul says Love always hopes, what does he mean?

I love learning other languages, so I’m thankful for the resources out there that can make Greek and Hebrew (the languages the Bible was originally written in) easy to understand! In Greek, the word hope is elpizó, which means “actively waiting for God’s fulfillment about the faith He has inbirted through the power of His love.” In this meaning, the hope has substance. Love always active waits for God to fulfill his promises.

We live in a culture that is generally negative. People always have a reason to complain, and they take every chance they can to voice their critical opinions to us. Hope is a rare commodity.

However, Biblical hope has even more substance than the positivity that we crave in our world. In Romans 8, Paul talks about Biblical hope. The same word elpizó is used in this text to describe our expectation of God fulfilling His promise to redeem the world:

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:22-24).

This entire chapter of Scripture has been viewed as a champion chapter for believers. We know through Romans 8 that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (v. 1). We know that God has adopted us as His children, removing our fear of man (v. 15). We know that God’s Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God (v. 16). We know that we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us (v. 37). We know that nothing can separate us from God’s love (v. 38-39).

If this doesn’t instill hope in believers, I don’t know what does!

Although this was a fun Bible lesson, this post is on marriage. How can we hope in marriage? In my opinion, when we have a heavenly perspective, nothing else matters. When we know that we already have the best future waiting for us in the next life, when we know that we can live fulfilled lives by walking with God’s Spirit and obeying His Word, when we know that we will all be united as one body at the resurrection, suddenly my problems don’t seem so big anymore. Suddenly, I don’t care about how much money  we have in the bank or in our retirement. Suddenly, I don’t care that my husband leaves his dirty dishes in the sink. Suddenly, I don’t care that I’ve been having trouble losing weight. Because in the end, everything will work out, in the most beautiful and glorious way that any of us could ever hope.

I know a few of my readers have experiences way worse than the ones I’ve mentioned, like trying to conceive or facing bankruptcy or dealing with affairs. I don’t want you to think that I’m downplaying your trials. However, I do believe more than anything else that God is bigger than any trial you may be facing. At the end of the day, when you place your life in His tender loving care, He will see you through your storm. Right now, I know, the pain is unbearable and the storms make everything so unclear. Yet, when you look back on your life, those difficult trials that you face together (Paul describes them as momentary afflictions in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18) will be like a bad hair day.

The hope that Christ offers us is an anchor for our souls (Hebrews 6:19). Anchor your marriage in the hope of Jesus Christ, and He will see you through every storm.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Categories
anxiety

Divorce (in Friendships) is Not an Option

My husband and I have a rule: divorce is not an option. We don’t joke about it, we don’t have it in our back pocket as a last resort, we don’t use the word at all. This makes it, admittedly, challenging to live together, because I can’t walk away from him. I can’t move in with my parents when we have a fight. I can’t even sleep on the couch! Since we’ve decided there’s no way out of our marriage, we’ve had to turn in and deal with our problems instead of running from them.

I wonder what it would be like if we treated our friendships like that, too.

As I confessed last week, it is tempting for me to cut people off. I have agoraphobia, which is the fear of being stuck. Even if I know I’ll never leave, or that the situation won’t be harmful for me, I like to know that I have an option to leave if need be. To be honest, marriage was very scary for me in the beginning because I couldn’t try to escape. However, with friends, it’s easy to leave if I don’t want to deal with conflict. I simply don’t return their texts and stop making eye contact with them in social settings.

That is not the way that God intended us to have friendships.

In Romans 12:18, Paul writes: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” The writer of Hebrews also echoes this thought: “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord” (12:14). What if we took this admonishment from the Bible to the extreme? What if we acted like we were stuck in a room with our friends and we had to resolve our conflicts instead of run away from them? How honest would we be with each other? What would we say? What secret sins that we’re hiding would be exposed? You see, there is healing in confession, and there is healing in conflict resolution.

As a result of last week’s post, I had a few people ask me, “How do I know if I should cut someone off?” My answer to that is, do everything in your power to keep the peace between you and that person. If you want to cut someone off, at least talk to him/her first. Make it clear why you are unhappy with the friendship, and see if there is any way you could work it out together. We make fun of people who break up with their significant others over text or “ghost” their significant others, but we think it’s totally normal to do that to our friends. I would only cut off the friendship if A) the friend has made it very clear he/she wants to end the friendship (by saying “I want to end the friendship”), despite your efforts, or B) the friend has abusive behavior that makes you uncomfortable, such as inappropriate touching, pressure to abuse substances, codependency, etc.

If you feel like you’re being abused and you’re not sure whether to confront the person or run away, seek out wise counsel. Abuse is a tricky subject, because you can think someone looking at you funny is abuse, but you can also think someone beating you to a pulp is not abuse. That’s why I recommend seeking wise counsel as soon as possible.

If you bring another person into the situation, be careful to express your feelings and not gossip. It’s tempting to use that opportunity to talk badly about someone that has hurt you. If you are a friend that wants to help, listen empathetically and remain as neutral as possible.

Since I can’t run from my husband, I’ve grown in ways I would have never done so on my own. I’m learning how to lay down my pride, admit my mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and extend forgiveness. Whether you are married or single, you can apply this same principle to your friendships. Lean into the relationship instead of running away. Practice the tips we discussed last week about how to deal with conflict. Learn from the experience, and trust God to reveal to you where you need to grow. And of course, as much as it depends on you, live at peace with one another.

Photo by Melisa Popanicic on Unsplash