When was the last time you took your wife away for a weekend just to be together? No children. No job. No nothing. Just the two of you. Talking, loving, sharing, just being “one.”
In marriage, a sense of “oneness” is vital. Without it, marriage can becomes a continual armed conflict. Worse, it can end in divorce. Notice the price the man who wrote the following letter ended up paying because he was just too stubborn and hardheaded to change:
“I met her in New York in August, 1952. She was tall, attractive, and well-dressed in a gray tailored suit that showed off her beautiful legs. We talked of Los Angeles, both of us having returned from there. She wrote down her phone number on a cardboard.
“I called, we dated, I met her family, and in October, 1953, we married. Oh, how happy I was.
“It went along well for a number of years. Our love was deep and wondrous. But I was unable to say that. Something wouldn’t let me. I tried to show it in many ways. Gifts, a desire to please in all ways, and lovemaking in which I tried to let her know that all of me was hers. Still, I couldn’t get out the words. I thought she understood that it was difficult for me, and that my actions would suffice.
“In 1954, we moved to Los Angeles, still very much in love, and were blessed with a daughter. Then, it started to go wrong. We couldn’t seem to communicate, or agree. We had our good times, our bad times, but always inside me was that strong undying love that I didn’t express, but that seemed to hold us together.
“In 1956, another daughter was born, and in 1959, another. Yet we seemed to be coming apart. Why? How could it happen? Why were two people so much in love with each other, so much in need of one another, destroying one another? I wish I’d known then what I know now.
“Years passed, each of us trying to hurt the other more, each trying to top the other in retaliation. Yet, the love was still there, trying to break through the wall each of us had built as a defense mechanism around ourselves.
“Finally, it happened. In June 1983, she mentioned divorce. Not really seriously, but only a thought, perhaps, to open my eyes. At that, I decided to show her who was boss, who was strongest, who needed who the most. I filed for divorce.
“She asked me many times to call it off, but my false pride would not allow it. My stupid obstinacy, my great machismo would not let me back down. I would look weak and small in her eyes. After all, I was the strong one, the tough one who couldn’t speak of love.
“I would go through with it. Life would be wonderful. I would really live it up, have many dates, and never have to say ‘I love you.’
“Well, the divorce is final. She’s in another city. There is no more pride, no more stubbornness, no more macho, and for me–no more happiness. I am devastated, lonely, miserable. There are no fancy women, no good times, just sadness to live with because I have thrown away the only one in the world who means anything to me, the one who made it all worthwhile. If she’d give me the chance once more to say ‘I love you,’ I’d never stop telling her that. After more than 30 years of having all that a man could ask for, in my own foolishness I have thrown it away and become a tired, beaten, unhappy, lonely old man. I guess you could say I loved not wisely, and certainly not too well.
“I say, if you love each other, say it, time and time again. Don’t lose what I did. Fight to save it. It’s worthwhile.”1
Amen!
Divorce is never the answer.
Neither is continual armed conflict. I say “armed” conflict because the husband and the wife each has a weapon which they use to try to gain power or dominion over the other. In any contest between men and women, men often use money, while women often use sex. Many times this recourse to weapons is the result of influence from the parents whose treatment of their offspring exercises a power over them even after they have married and moved out on their own.
Ray and Meredith are an example of such a couple. She wrote me about their situation:
“My father-in-law was always the minister’s best buddy. He dragged his ten-year-old son down the aisle by the ear because he was ‘embarrassed’ that boy hadn’t made a ‘decision.’ In his spare time, he jumped from job to job and town to town, tended to use a ball bat on his kids when he was upset, and literally terrorized his wife into a breakdown. When my husband was in his teens, his moth- er finally got a divorce. As the only child left at home, he assumed responsibility for her.
“When we married, Ray was in his middle twenties, and I was just over twenty-one. He was still supporting his mother. I came from a mother-dominated family, and had taken a job away from home just to get away. We were both shy, insecure, emotional ‘basket-cases’–and we had known each other only a short time before marrying. It wasn’t long until we had serious problems.
“Ray was very deliberate, super-sensitive to criticism, stubborn and very much under the influence of his pastor. When we had a family decision to make, he would discuss it with his pastor, then come home and tell me how it was going to be. I was used to the women running the house- hold, impulsive emotionally, quick at decisions, just as stubborn, and not about to take orders.
“Ray had become a Christian and this pastor had drummed ‘head of the household’ into him to the where he supervised the amount of water for my shower, and rearranged my kitchen cabinets. I thought that sub- mission was only for women who weren’t smart enough to learn their own way and stand up for themselves.
“I also made more than Ray, and bitterly resented turn- ing over my check with no say in how it was spent. In two years, we were on the verge of divorce. I think we were too stubborn to admit defeat.
“Thanks to some timely Christian counseling, we stayed together. Things limped along for several years, with Ray’s outbursts of sarcasm alternating with days of sulks, and my sobbing fits interspersed with equally stinging comments. I felt that I couldn’t do anything to please him, and he thought I was defying him, which made him push harder.
“We had children, bought a house–but still were miss- ing the real closeness that we both wanted.
“Then when Ray told me one night he was going to one of your meetings, Mr. Cole, I was unhappy, because I thought it would be just one more thing that he wouldn’t share with me. Thank God, I kept my mouth closed and agreed to his going. He came home a different man.
“He told me he was sorry for hurting me–the first time in seven years. He sat down and really talked to me. He told me he was proud of me and grateful that I had quit teaching to be a full-time mother. Suddenly it was easy to ‘submit.’ I knew that I could trust him, and I began look- ing for ways to support him rather than fight him.
“We began talking and praying together about our big and little decisions. We also began to pray for each other before he left for work. Today, we are one. We are still dif- ferent personalities, but now we appreciate and compliment each other rather than colliding and getting wounded.
“I am so proud of my husband. He has become an out- standing leader and priest in our home, and he is a terrific father to our children. His gentleness, love and support brighten each day for me.”
The influence of both parents almost ruined Ray and Meredith’s marriage. Ray used his authority with money to hold power, and Meredith tried to use her sex. They were both losers, destroying their marriage and family, until Ray admitted he needed to change–and did something about it. His change allowed Meredith to change.
When Ray began to communicate–talking with his wife, showing by gesture that he
meant what he said, and proving it in his spirit with repentance and forgiveness–it changed their lives.
Praying together produced an intimacy that had been missing in their marriage relationship.
Some men wait too late to say, “I love you.” Some never say it at all.
Some men wait too late to change. Some never do change.
If you want to save your marriage and your family, don’t take a chance on waiting too late.
Today is the day. Now is the time. Whatever you need to say, say it! Whatever you need to do, do it!
Author: Edwin Louis Cole
Communicatikn,Sex& Money