She knew in her heart she was trying her best to mend this impending disaster , she remembered being happy, being able to laugh at his silly jokes but that was a thing of the past. “What happened she thought when did we get here”? She tried asking him to see where his heart was but his response was the same as his disposition nowadays, it was a clueless response as if he didn’t see what was happening right in front of their eyes. They spent less time together, it was just about the kids whenever they had a conversation. Right now she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, she tried both as a matter of fact she even tried to do the thing that most women found it hard to do, submission; He didn’t seem to notice. She tried to be a good listener after all listening is the key to communication. She started suggesting things they could do together, a movie, dinner like old times, he responded soon. She had yet to see soon, nothing seemed to be working.

She begins to feel invisible to the person who should care about her the most, she only sees closed doors…so what does she do, she decides to start living for herself after all when she thinks about the scenario who really should be number one…  she starts hanging out with her single girlfriends because her married girlfriends are just that, married. They have their families to attend to, they don’t have time to entertain her thought process now which is just about doing her. So she is out hanging with them having conversations that she had long moved beyond…the party scene really is not her forte, it has never been, added to that the energy she once had to withstand the party life is no longer within reach. So she realizes that she is just as miserable with what she thinks  doing her is all about.

Nothing is working so she returns to her regular routine, now the marriage seems even more monotonous, stagnant, hopeless…she looks at him and feels nothing, she  feels trapped. Her inside screaming for a way to escape it all and then it happens, she meets him; he was able to give her the escape she has been looking for and before she realizes she is in way deep over your head. She has fallen in lust and thinks this is it…this is what she needs in her life. She starts spending all the time and energy afforded to her in her “escape”. She is now believing that this is what dreams are made of and so in her mind she begins to plan her escape, she decides this is who I want to spend the rest of my life with. He cares about me; he treats me the way I need to be treated. He listens to me, we have so much in common, I feel great with him and so she makes her decision.

The dilemma in this story can be found in the bible verse Job 3:25 “what I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me”. Sometimes in relationships we bring certain baggage with us, number one being fear –in her case it was fear of her husband no longer seeing her and valuing her in his life. She also had the baggage of low self esteem, being unfulfilled, not accepting herself for who she was, not being able to trust what the other person says in this case her husband. We tend to pass on our fears to our relationships; sometimes we make these issues overwhelm us to the point where we are not seeing reality anymore. I could continue the story and say how the new-found love gave her a wake up call. That while she was making the decision to leave her marriage, he made it abundantly clear to her that he cared but did not care enough to make her permanent in his life. Suffice to say she was totally distraught , there are a lot of similar situations in the world today.

Back to the story, her husband realized that something was wrong and the long and short of the story is that they had a conversation which showed her that he really didn’t have any issues with their marriage. He just had lost focus and was overwhelmed by the demands of his business that was experiencing some challenges. He thought she would have understood, they did some spiritual counselling as well as individual soul searching and are on the road to mending that which was broken.

Things to note:

So when situations change, it becomes difficult for us to see it in a positive light especially when we have baggage and expect things to remain constant.  We then adopt a “poor me mentality” rather than moving with the flow ,trusting, adjusting ourselves and making the best of the situation. We are ready to give up and throw in the towel, its quite similar to a child throwing a tantrum or misbehaving when the child feels the parent is not giving them the  attention they need. Communication is really key and becomes ineffective when we have the noise created by the baggage that is in us.

So what do we do:-

• When all else fails God is able. I believe that if more people would seek understanding and  ask for restoration of their relationships from our God who knows all things; our marriages would stand the test of time. Seems like a simple solution but in life most things are simple, we are the ones who complicate things.
• It was me all the time, we have to look within us too to see if there are any baggage we are carrying  within us that is preventing us from seeing the truth. It’s hard to identify our own faults and weaknesses and this reduces our ability to mature in our relationships. It needs to start with us, ask God to help us to identify what weaknesses we bring to our relationships which might be preventing us from trusting and accepting our partners.
•  This too is simple, we need to choose to be committed even when the going gets tough. This makes a huge difference and keeps the relationship in tact when we know we have made the commitment to stay together.
• Put God at the center of our relationships, the devil hates Harmony and too many of us are unknowingly giving him what he wants.

Let us put a stop to divorces and separations, I know there are extreme cases where abuse, ongoing adultery etc are involved. I am by no means saying that persons should stay in these situations; but too many of us get married and when we are faced with the challenges we give up, we cannot bother to make the effort. It’s like going to a store and buying a dress and then returning it the next day because we changed our mind.

Let’s just commit ourselves to the partner that we chose, let’s remember when the times were good and believe that seeking God can help restore our joy and give us the capacity to live each day, loving and accepting each other.