My Saving Grace: Marriage Advice after Twenty Years from a Child of Divorce
4 minute read
This is a guest post by Sandra Howlett, she has given us permission to share her work on the blog.
For most of my life as an adult child of divorce, I could never imagine being married. I was terrified of divorce and always wanted to know why marriages didn’t last. But also, deep down, I didn’t think I was the marrying type. Those feelings were not unique to me but something many children of divorce feel because of our wounds. I have now been married 20 years and if it was possible for us, two very broken people, it’s possible for you.
In the Catholic faith, we talk a lot about vocations, the primary way you live your life in connection to others, whether it be as a single person, married, or in religious life. Marriage is a vocation and a sacrament in the church and leads to holiness by nurturing the virtues of love, patience, selflessness, perseverance, and forgiveness. Treating marriage as a vocation was my saving grace.
Don’t Settle for a Mediocre Marriage
My fear of divorce helped early on but later became an obstacle to having a better marriage. When I was freed from those fears by contemplating what divorce might look like and choosing to stay married, I was able to live my marriage more intentionally, setting the bar higher than simply not getting divorced.
Speak the Truth With Love
Like many children of divorce, I had a hard time with conflict. When a Catholic friend told me our job as married couples is to bring our spouses to holiness it struck a chord with me. I summoned the courage to speak the truth with love, and for the first time felt my husband really heard me without getting defensive or casting blame. It was hard to feel that love in the middle of conflict. It required faith and trust in God, faith and trust in my husband, forgiveness for past behaviors, hopefulness, and the belief that our troubled marriage could be saved.
Don’t Let Resentments Build Up
The little resentments we allow to build up over time kill marriages faster than fighting. Even though we fear conflict and rejection which can make us avoid fights or difficult discussions, suppressing our feelings is even more damaging and dishonest. Resentments build up when we don’t express our needs or truly forgive our spouses.
Resentment Kills Sex
Sometimes we want to forgive our spouse (or think we have) but our hearts tell us otherwise. Whatever the root of resentment—pride, power, fear of rejection—it’s important to identify it. One of the ways to measure it is by your willingness and desire for intimacy. Sex is an important part of the marriage bond and is very difficult to do if you are harboring resentment. That’s not to say that all sex issues in marriage are due to resentment. There are very real differences in men and women’s sexual desires that couples have to navigate which takes meeting each other in the middle and respecting each other’s sexuality.
Forgiveness
Learning how to fully forgive your spouse is a virtue that is not only important to the health of your marriage but will make you a better person. When I had trouble with this, I read multiple books on forgiveness. One of them was Seventy Times Seven by Johann Arnold, in which he wrote, “Nothing withers the soul more than an unforgiving spirit—the poisonous product of pain and pride that craves revenge under the guise of justice.” We need to forgive our spouses on a daily basis, multiple times a day for the little hurts in order to have a healthy marriage and to be at peace with ourselves.
Eliminate Anger
Many children of divorce have anger problems whether they are aware of them or not. Everyone knew me to be a cheerful, fun-loving, and happy person. But when I was struggling in my marriage, I started to realize the depth of my anger, some of it from unresolved conflicts in our relationship and some from my parents’ divorce. Only I knew how dark my thoughts were. Watch for excessive anger in your life and in your marriage by being mindful of your thoughts and separating your past hurts from the current situation. Though anger sometimes makes us feel powerful and righteous, it is ultimately destructive in our lives and marriages, and usually hurts us more than the person we are angry at.
Never Count the Cost of Love
True love the way Christ loves is radical, never counting the cost or expecting anything in return. Our society is always concerned with not appearing foolish, and asking “what’s in it for me?” Love doesn’t operate that way. You must be a fool in love, loving when it seems hopeless, loving beyond all human reason, loving the way God loves. Never give up on love.
Give Your Spouse the Benefit of the Doubt
When there is ongoing conflict in our relationships, we tend to view every offensive behavior as a willful attack against us. Since we can’t fully know people’s motives or thoughts, we must give them the benefit of the doubt. Assume they have the best intentions unless proven otherwise.
Focus on the Good
It’s natural and easy to focus on what we don’t like about our spouses but takes discipline to focus on the good. Focusing on the bad can lead to a loss of love, a victim mentality, and resentment. Give thanks daily for all the good in your spouse and your marriage, even finding the good in their less desirable traits. Marriage leads us to holiness, so when you are experiencing hard times in your marriage, thank God for the opportunity he is providing you to grow in virtue.
Be More Concerned with Holiness than Happiness
Our society places a lot of emphasis on personal happiness, and that carries over into our marriages. Marriage is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It can be joyful, satisfying, and rewarding—and also extremely frustrating. We certainly should have moments of happiness in our marriages, but happiness is overrated and is based on emotions that are ever-changing. Pursue holiness and true love seeking the good of the other, over happiness, and be assured that some of our greatest joys are born from our deepest grief.
