Ep. 148- 7 Reminders for Women in Struggling Marriages
As I prayed through this episode, I asked the Lord, “What do you want your ladies . . . the women in struggling marriages to know?” If you imagine God the Father is so good as he is, whether you know Him or not, whether you believe in Him or not, he’s still good and he still loves you, whether you acknowledge his presence or not. I imagine God the Father saying, “Come to me.”
He is calling us into his presence and saying, “I have some things that I want you to know. I know that your marriage is struggling right now. I know that you’re sad a lot. I know that you feel hopeless a lot. I know that you think that you’re never going to make it out of this. I know that you’re comparing your marriage to other people’s marriages and you’re scrolling through Instagram and looking at all the beautiful, happy couples and wondering why your marriage can’t be that way. I know you’re looking back at your wedding photos and wondering where everything went wrong.
I know that you cry at night and you think that nobody else hears you, nobody else sees you. Friend, I want you to know that there is a God in heaven who sees you and that no tear that you have ever cried is wasted. And maybe you don’t even know how to pray. Maybe you’ve given up on prayer. Maybe you don’t think prayer works. I’m going to encourage you today that God still sees you. And he sent me today to give you some reminders that while your marriage is struggling, you are not.
7 Things to Remember About Your Struggling Marriage
1. You are not alone.
If I had somebody to tell me this when I was in the throes of all of my marriage dysfunction, that would have meant the world to me because I felt alone. I felt like I was the only person that was going through this. I felt like I was the only person who had a crappy marriage. I felt like everybody else “got it,” and somehow we didn’t. And I felt alone in my own home.
There’s no worse feeling than when you’re married and feeling alone, feeling like the very person that you committed your life to is unreliable. The very man that you pledged your everything to, you can’t stand on him, you can’t support. He doesn’t support you. He’s not who you imagined that he would be. And that can be really hurtful. I want to tell you that you’re not alone. What do I mean by that? I mean that there are many women who are in your shoes. And unfortunately, because of this whole shame thing, which we’re going to talk about in just a second, we often don’t share our stories with one another.
A lot of times we go through marriage problems and life even alone, because we’re afraid to reach out, because we don’t want to be judged we don’t want people to look down on us. We feel like we should be farther ahead than we are. And so because we’re not reaching out and because other people are not reaching out to us, we believe that we’re alone. But I want to tell you that you are not alone.
2. You have nothing to be ashamed of.
When you are hurt by your husband for some reason, it’s like you take on that shame. If you’ve ever been cheated on, you’ve ever gone through infidelity, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You will take on the shame of what your husband did to you. If your husband is verbally or emotionally abusive to you, you will take on that shame of his choices and you will feel like you did something wrong even though you didn’t.
Now, I’m not saying that you’re a perfect wife and you don’t have your things to own, but what I am saying is that you have nothing to be ashamed of that is not yours. If you are not the one causing the marital distress, you do not need to be ashamed of the marital distress. We are way too often embarrassed by our husband’s choices, and you don’t need to feel like that anymore. What he is doing is his doing.
ALSO READ: How to Deal with Shame in Relationships
3. You are a better wife than you think you are.
We are so hard on ourselves, ladies. We are so idealistic. I think that sometimes gets us into trouble. It gets us into beating ourselves up because we feel like we should be doing more. We should love our kids more. We should love our husbands more. We should cook more, we should clean more, we should work more. We should be more successful. We should have more money. We should “bring more to the table.” We should always be doing more, more and more.
I have this little placard in my home office, and it says, You have enough. You do enough. You are enough. I look at that from time to time, because I can sometimes think, Dana, you could be doing more. You could be doing better. You could be doing it faster. You could be doing it greater, even in my marriage. I want you to know, Sis, that you’re a better wife than you think you are. I promise you, if you were to ask your friends and your children, they would tell you that you are a better wife than you think you are. So start giving yourself some credit here. Are you doing everything perfectly? No. Do you have issues? Yes. Are there things that you need to grow in? Absolutely. But even still, you are better than you think.
4. Your husband’s issues are not your issues.
I talked about this when in the previous point. Your husband’s problems are not your problems. Now, yes, because you’re married, you’re going to be affected by his issues or by his problems, but can I tell you that that man had problems before you all ever met. He had issues before you ever got married. And sometimes we end up taking on our husband’s shame, our husband’s problems, our husband’s issues, and we begin to make them our own. This is a huge boundary violation.
ALSO LISTEN TO: Episode 49 – 5 Boundaries Every Marriage Needs
I talk about boundaries so much because when you do not have boundaries in your relationship, it causes all kinds of dysfunction. It causes you to take on more responsibility than you should. Your husband’s problems. Let’s say your husband’s into porn and you’re like, oh, my gosh, I’m not pretty enough. I’m not sexy enough. I need to lose more weight. I need to gain more weight. I need to be more this, more that. He was probably doing porn before you ever knew him. So his issues are not your issues. So don’t take on his problems.
This doesn’t mean that we’re uncaring and uncompassionate, and we’re like, oh, well, that’s not my problem, buddy. Figure it out. That’s not what I’m saying. Pray for that man. Encourage him, and support him however you can, but do not allow his burden or his problem to be saddled upon you. So now you’re so overwhelmed because you’re taking on all this stuff that you were never intended to carry. One of my favorite scriptures in the Bible is where Jesus says to cast your cares on me because I care for you (I Peter 5:7). In Matthew, he says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).
Jesus is saying, I have a burden for you that’s easy and light. When we walk around so overwhelmed and pressed down and under so much stress, it’s because we are carrying a yoke or a burden that we were never intended to carry. And quite often, friends, it’s somebody else’s burden. It’s somebody else’s problem. In this case, most likely your husband’s issues. So kindly give those issues back to him. Let him own what is his, and you allow Jesus to give you a light and an easy burden.
5. Even if you’re the problem, you’re not the problem.
I want to tell you that even if you’re the problem, you are not your problem. You are not a problem. Are you causing problems? Quite possibly. Do you have problems? Probably. But you are not your problem. Whatever “your problem is,” maybe you’re the one who’s unreliable or you’re the one who’s unfaithful. Even if you, as a woman, you’re listening and you’re the one. You don’t have to be defined by your issue.
Just like I told you a second ago to release your problems back to your husband and to let him own his problem, I want to tell you, too, Sis, that you need to own your problem, but you are not the problem. If you listen to this podcast, you have heard me say you are not the problem. The problem is the problem. Your husband is not the problem. The problem is the problem. You’re not identified, or you shouldn’t be identified by whatever problem you’re facing in your marriage. Get help, seek out help, do whatever you need to do to overcome your problem, but realize that you are not your problem.
6. Your children (and husband) need to see your vulnerability.
This is where I messed up in my own life and my parenting and my marriage. I wanted to be the strong mom all the time. I didn’t want my kids to see me cry. I didn’t want my kids to know what was going on in my marriage, which there’s some wisdom in that. Like, your kids don’t need to know everything, okay? But your kids do need to see that you are a real woman with real feelings and real emotions. Your kids don’t need you to be strong 100% of the time, because how else are they going to learn how to process their sadness, their emotions, their disappointment, and their heartache if they never see you processing yours?
I remember laying in the bed at night and crying my eyes out. And then, like, a kid would walk in the room, and I would, like, wipe my face real quick and put on the smiley face, and they would be like,
“Mommy, are you crying?”
“No, Mommy’s not crying. Mommy’s good. What’s wrong?”
And then I go straight into mom mode instead of bringing that child to me and saying, “You know what, yeah, Mommy is crying right now. Mommy is really sad about something.”
When you do that, you do a few things and I’ve done it a few times, but not as much as I should have done. You give yourself grace to just be, to just be a human with hurt and feelings and pain and emotion, but also you give your children an opportunity to love on you.
Kids have this capacity to just love and be. Kids have the gift of presence. And so when you allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of your children again, not telling them everything and certainly never putting down their dad, right? Like, don’t ever do that. Don’t ever say, “You know what? Daddy really hurt Mommy. Daddy is being a jerk.” Like, don’t do that, okay? I don’t believe in that. But when you’re able to say something like, “You know what? My heart is really hurting right now. I’m really disappointed with some things that are going on right now.”
You don’t have to go into all the details, but let your child know that, yeah, I’m not always happy.
And, while you’re at it, be vulnerable with your husband too. Intimacy requires vulnerability. I’m going to tell you something that sometimes husbands do things and they don’t realize the pain that they are causing you. When you are strong and independent, sometimes your husbands think nothing gets you; nothing hurts you. So they can do stuff and don’t realize the damage they’re doing.
Sometimes you need to let your husband see. You need to be more vulnerable with your husband and let him know that what he’s doing hurts, that you’re not this Teflon-tough woman that doesn’t ever get upset about things or hurt by things. You’re never afraid. No. You’ve got fears, you’ve got hurt, you’ve got pain, you got disappointment. It’s okay to let your husband see that part of you, to be vulnerable in front of him. That’s a risk, I know. Vulnerability always is.
7. Prayer works.
I know that sounds so simple, but prayer gives you a softened heart and a sound mind. Listen, when you have been hurt by your husband, you will have the temptation to become hardened, to become apathetic. Like I don’t care. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m just going to bide my time until my kids get older. I don’t want you to live like that, friend.
When you pray for your husband, do you know that it is impossible to hate someone you’re praying for? It’s just not possible. So if you find yourself struggling to love your husband, you find yourself struggling to like the man, would you pray for him? Because prayer softens your heart. I believe that it also softens his heart. But let’s talk about you for a second. Prayer softens hearts. It allows you this greater capacity to love someone who’s unlovable, to love a man who is maybe not loving you the way that you need to be loved. You can’t do that on your own strength.
You need the power of the Lord to help you with that. And when you pray and when you say, God, I need you to help me love this man, I need you to put a seal over my heart. Not a wall, right? Walls are impenetrable. That’s not what we’re asking for. But I need you to put a seal of protection over my heart so that I’m not continuously being hurt by this man. Because if we’re continuously being hurt by someone, we won’t reach out and love them because we’re trying to protect ourselves. Let God protect you. Let him protect your heart.
ALSO LISTEN TO: Episode 129 – How to C.O.V.E.R. Your Marriage in Prayer
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