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The children are asleep and we are alone again. Alone to talk or to choose to pretend like the other doesn’t exist. I wish I could just disappear. It’s my coping mechanism when I don’t want to face the deep pain in my life. Lord, I know I am not all right on this, but I know I am not all wrong either. Help me, please! It is time to have the conversation-again.
The core problem is always the same. I feel controlled, he doesn’t feel respected. I want my independence, he wants more submission. Neither of us feels accepted by the other person. Each of us has different expectations. And so the conversation goes again and again.
There is some truth to what each of us is saying, yet, there is also a level of saying whatever is needed for self-preservation. A need to protect ourselves from being hurt any further and so we try to defend our position any way we can. I would really like to run away, just disappear from my life. It is a coping mechanism that I developed a long time ago to protect myself from any perceived pain in my life. The pain of being in a relationship and being vulnerable with this other person feels like more than I can handle sometimes. But, God tells us he won’t give is more than we can bear.
Does he love me? Yes. Has he done everything right? No. Do I love him? Yes. Have I done everything right? Not at all! How are we to make sense of all this? He has hurts, I have hurts. Can we learn to trust God and trust each other? Can we submit, respect and love one another? The bible tells us that this is what is right, what God has outlined as the best for us.
We have had many of these sorrowful conversations and I am sure there are many more to come. But, life isn’t perfect. We live in a sinful, fallen world that tells me only my own feelings matter, that I should have whatever I want. Our culture has convinced me that I should be treated better that I am. I am not even sure what that looks like, but it makes me mad when I think I am not getting it. When I am hurt, angry, or fearful I retreat and do the best I can to take care of myself since I figure no one else is going to do it. In doing so, I not only hurt myself, but I hurt those around me.
I have learned the hard way: isolation is not good. It leads to stagnation and depression. We need others. God has created us to be in relationship with the people he has put around us. We need to have deep and meaningful conversations with our spouses, with our family and with our friends. We all have hurts. The worst thing we can do is to bottle them up inside, live in our heads and avoid each other.
I need to have more meaningful, risk-taking conversations. With God, he already knows, but I need to tell him all about my pain and my fears and allow Him to take control over them. I need to slow down and listen to what He is telling me.
I need to talk with my husband (again) in a healthy way and tell him that I will continue to work at our relationship, that even when I disagree I will do so more respectfully, and will ask him to do the same with me.
A chat with my mentor, who has a wealth of information on weathering the storms of life, is always a good idea. None of this will shock her. She has probably experienced something similar in her life and will have some wonderful, godly words of wisdom for me. I need to share this with my best friend who is a wonderful encourager of God’s truth perfectly mixed with love for me. Face to face conversations can be scary, but the dividends of taking the risk with safe people can be helpful, wonderful, freeing.
Thank you, Lord for putting people in my life that I can talk with and for speaking through them to help me understand what kind of woman you want me to be. Reach out and have a face to face conversation with someone you know today.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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