Three Game-Changing Words for Your Marriage
Silent tears fell from my eyes as the realization that we were not going to agree settled into my heart.
We were driving to the mountains just after Christmas in 2018 for a few days away, and were off to a stellar start. This same conversation resulting in disagreement had come up before, but every time he dismissed it, I figured it was only a matter a time before he would hear me out and change his mind.
But each time I tried to bring it up, he shut the conversation down just as quickly. Mike knows I am not one to give up easily, but in this case, my persistence only seemed to further cement his own certainty.
All kinds of emotions surfaced. Anger was first. Why wouldn’t he hear me out? Why was he making this very permanent feeling decision without considering my thoughts and feelings? Why was he putting his foot down now for the first time when he’d always been flexible? And most importantly, why would he not listen to me? I didn’t have a playbook for this.
Sadness came next. The tears came not out of anger but out of this next set of feelings. Mike wasn’t changing his mind. He hadn’t changed his mind since the first time I had tried tried to reason with him. Never had I felt so shut down. It wasn’t just that we weren’t able to communicate and understand each other that was releasing the floodgates on my tears, but that the desire of my heart seemed to have less and less of a chance to come to fruition with each passing day.
His grip tightened around the steering wheel, his face giving away his discouragement.
“Great,” he said. “Now I feel like a jerk. Did I just ruin our weekend?” Among his favourite things in the world, making his wife cry does not top the list.
There was no consensus between us. And it didn’t look like there was going to be. It had been two and a half years of not agreeing on this particular topic and the more we could not agree, the more disconnected I felt.
The first ten of our marriage were not a breeze, but they were without the kind of disagreements that left us on opposite sides of a chasm. With all the newness of the first decade of marriage behind us— new babies, new jobs new houses, we found ourselves facing the not-so-exciting reality of maintenance, not just of our stuff, but of our relationship. And neither of us felt a great deal of excitement over maintaining something that felt divided.
I was at a loss. I had never felt so helpless in our marriage. Never before had my husband not be willing to hear me out. We did not agree, and we were still married which left us with a choice. Let the issue we felt divided over divide us, or find a way to stick together.
In 10 Lessons from 10 Years of Marriage, I wrote about choosing to move towards each other. But in this case, I was not sure how to move towards him when it felt like the Grand Canyon between us. I could not see a path. We could be cordial, but I didn’t feel connected.
Five months later, I read James 4:2 in my time alone with God: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.”
I borrowed Lysa Terkheurst’s words and wrote in the margin beside the verse, “Thy will, not my will,” and the date. I said to the Lord, “I can’t change his mind. If it’s your will, you will need to make it happen.” I still wanted what I wanted, but that day I gave it to God and trusted him to do what I could not– change Mike’s heart or change mine. But there was still a gap between us I couldn’t close.
That summer, at a late night campfire, we got talking about conflict in marriage with my sister and brother-in-law. When we were asked what our biggest recent fight had been, the answer was obvious to both of us. My brother-in-law asked Mike to explain how he felt about the situation. And then he did, to which my brother-in-law said, I can totally understand how you feel that way. Then he turned to me and asked the same question, I answered, and he responded the same way– “I can understand how you feel that way.”
The next morning, I told him if he was ever looking for a career change, he wouldn’t make a half bad counsellor. While there was still no change in either of our opinions, there was something new. There was understanding, and it was enough to begin bridging the divide that had been growing for the past three years.
We didn’t agree, but we were finally able to understand each other and that itself was a gift.
This past summer, we celebrated 13 years of marriage and as I pondered what we’ve learned this past year, I kept coming back to these three words that have been a gift that keeps on giving: “Help me understand.”
Whether it’s help me understand what you were thinking, help me understand how you got there, help me understand what was going through your mind, or help me understand why you’re feeling that way, the answers have given many gifts of insight into each other’s minds and hearts.
Here’s what these words have brought to me that I hope they bring to you as well:
Humility: “Help me understand” is an admission that I don’t know everything. I might think I know how to interpret Mike’s facial expressions, body language and words, but since he speaks Mike and I speak Steph, these words help me with the difficult work of translation by acknowledging that I don’t know everything and I’m not always right.
Curiosity: “Help me understand” is also an admission that after 21 years of knowing each other, and 13 of being married, he is still somewhat of a mystery to me. And who doesn’t like a little mystery in their lives? I want to be a student of my man, and of marriage, and love him really well. Part of loving him well, is knowing him well, and to know him well I need to stay curious.
Understanding: “Help me understand” can begin to build a bridge over the chasms disagreement can leave between us. You don’t have to agree, but you can always understand.If you are willing to embrace humility and curiosity and really listen, you can give your people the gift of understanding.
The next time you feel like resigning yourself to the frustration of an unchanging disagreement, ask God for “thy will not my will,” and then ask your spouse to help you understand and see where it begins to take you.
And that wrap up our 13th lesson from our 13th year of marriage.
You can read The First 10 Lessons Here, Lesson 11 here and Lesson 12 here.
