The Part Where I Thought I Could Save My Husband

 The part where I thought I could save my husband.

Growing up I was often told that marriage was hard...that it took work, but it was work that was well worth it. All around me I had examples of lasting relationships, and it seemed that the only thing I had to learn to succeed at it, was to be all in 100% and then remain committed in sickness and in health, through the good times and the bad til death do us part. Except I am Mormon, so we talk more along the lines of a forever.

So early in my marriage when issues started to creep up, I took it upon myself to fix them to prove that I "had what it takes" and could make my marriage not only work, but to thrive. The solutions seemed easy at first. Get into this doctor, see this counselor, find this psychiatrist, read these books! It was bumpy, but doable, and life marched on.

We started our family, and our son came along, and with that came a period of unemployment for me who had been up to that point the primary bread winner for our family. I stayed home with our new infant and after a period of months, and then finally found a job.

Working again brought a new set of problems, coupled with the financial ones we were trying to climb out of, and it was only a short while later that my attempts to fix our marriage led me to seek out my bishop who referred us to a marriage counselor.

This began a revolving door of marriage counselors, that were all good in their own right, and needed during some really critical times of our marriage, but things got harder and harder in our relationship. I didn't like the "hard" but I figured I knew what to do. I pulled myself up, kept forging on, and tried harder.

And somehow along the way, I lost my way. I became convinced that the harder I pushed to be better and try harder, the more likely I could save my marriage. If I could be a better wife, a better breadwinner, a better mother, a better housekeeper, a better lover, then I figured I could make my marriage work. But it was more than that too. I began to feel that I could not only prevent blow ups and arguments and struggles by being better, but I could also stave off the hard when it started to become directed at my kids. I thought could save my children from having to experience the hard that seemed to rest over our home. Through my efforts alone, I could control some of the hard that we were experiencing, and save my family in the process.

So I hope this doesn't shock anyone, but that didn't work, because I forgot something along the way. The only one who saves is Jesus. It took awhile, but I came to realize that my work to try to save my husband and try to save my marriage all while trying to save my kids from experiencing the hard family life they were being subjected to; all these efforts resulted in writing Jesus Christ out of the equation. He and He alone saves.

So bit by bit I had to unlearn doing a job that frankly Christ was better at anyway. I stopped trying to save my husband from some of the destructive behaviors he was engaged in. That part was the hardest. The relinquishing of control. I stopped trying to rescue him, stopped making excuses for him, stopped trying to remind him of commitments he made to ecclesiastical leaders, family members and me.

For the longest time I had tried to pull 100% of the weight of our family and our marriage, and I wrongly believed that even though my teammate was down for the count and unwilling to put in the work, because I had God on my side that somehow He and I could pull together to get our family to Heaven. It reminds me of a story that Dallin H. Oaks shared in a talk about a woman who stayed married until her kids were grown. "There were three parties to our marriage - my husband and I and the Lord. I told myself that if two of us could hang in there, we could hold it together." ("Divorce" April 2007 General Conference). That is not what God had in mind when He foreordained marriage.

Thinking on this, one day I came across a blog post that flipped some things on their head. A Christian speaker by the name of Gary Thomas, recounts presenting at a conference where he became inundated with people who came to him with marriage problems, who felt that divorce was not justified, because of the sanctity that God has for the institution of marriage. Thomas gave this advice to those present. "If the cost of a marriage is destroying a woman (or man, or family), the cost is too high. God loves people more than he loves institutions." ("Enough is Enough," Gary Thomas 2016).

And with that I want to help us as we come for circle. And what always completes that circle is love. "And God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should never perish, but have everlasting life." (KJV John 3:16). That is it. That is the post. God's plan is about love. It is about feeling His love, experiencing His love and getting out of the way so that others can access that love through Christ's atonement, if they want to. Because at the end of the day, we read in another scripture, "...since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself..." (see Alma 22:14). And isn't that what it is all about? I didn't hang on the cross for my husband or anyone else for that matter. I don't love enough, I am not God-like enough, so why would He ask me to die a martyr for an institution that ultimately was leaving me victimized and scared? Why would He subject my kids to verbal abuse just to ensure that both Mom and Dad lived under the same roof?

It is Jesus that loved and still loves. Me, my kids, my now ex-husband. and as yet the last scripture I will share states, He is "mighty to save." (see 2 Nephi 31:19). And He did. And He continues to do so now.

If that isn't a miracle, I don't know what is.

Love,

Madeline