Sometimes Love Needs a Reset Button
My husband and I met in 2010 at the same church congregation, but it wasn't until the end of june 2011 that we actually started talking. By the end of August, we were married.
Yes, you read that right. About two months. Don't judge me, I know that was crazy!
I was 23, a single mother of two, surviving, providing and protecting myself and my girls while pushing myself to keep going. My now husband was 24, a young man seeking God, working hard, making better choices for himself, and trying to build a life.
We were young. We were in love, and we loved God.
And...we were both incredibly immature!
Looking back now, I realize we didn't just bring love into our marriage. We brought our childhoods, our experiences, fears, expectations, defense mechanisms, and wounds.
We both came from broken families and had experienced difficult things growing up, and although our stories were different, there were pieces of them that were strangely relatable.
In many ways, we were two people trying to heal while simultaneously trying to build a marriage and a family.
When Two People Love Each Other but Are Still Healing
One of our biggest struggles early in our marriage was communication.
I can admit now that communication was not a skill I possessed very well. I didn't grow up learning how to calmely express what I needed, or explain when something hurt me, or listen without becoming defensive, or disagree without feeling like I needed to protect myself.
And instead of hearing, "This is the person I love trying to tell me how they feel," we would hear criticism, rejection, or attack. We were lovers, but sometimes we communicated like enemies.
Psychologically, this makes much more sense to me today.
Our past experiences can influence how we interpret conflict in our present relationships. When someone has learned to protect themselves emotionally, disagreement can sometimes activate defensiveness before there has even been time to understand what the other person is actually trying to say.
Now, that doesn't excuse hurtful behavior. But understanding where a reaction comes from can give us an opportunity to change it. And over the years, that is exactly what we did.
We learned how to communicate, and how to listen. We learned empathy, and that being able to understand someone's perspective doesn't necessarily mean one has to agree with it. Most importantly, we learned that we weren't each other's enemy.
God Was and Is The Foundation We Keep Coming back To
Through all of our growing pains, there was one thing we continually shared: our desire for God to be present in our marriage.
There were moments when our hearts were hard toward each other, moments when frustration was louder than tenderness. Yet somehow, when things became serious, we would find our way back to our love, back to God.
Sometimes it was through prayer, scripture, or even a sermon that seemed to speak directly into what we were experiencing at the time. And suddenly, our hearts would soften.
For us, keeping God at the center didn't mean we stopped having problems. It meant that when problems came, there was something greater than our emotions in that particular moment calling us back to love, humility, forgiveness, and grace.
"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins" 1Peter 4:8
Over the years, our marriage has been stretched in almost every direction: emotionally, mentally, financially, spiritually, academically, through raising our family, pursuing dreams, and simply becoming different versions of ourselves.
The Reset Button
There was a point in early 2021, exactly 10 years into our marriage, when I genuinely didn't want to do life with my husband anymore. We had five children at the time, and our relationship was going through a difficult season.
We needed something different, a game changer!
So we decided to go away for the weekend to Las Vegas, the same place where we had gotten married years before.
I remember sitting at dinner with him and telling him something that would become incredibly significant in our marriage. I told him that sometimes forgiving, loving, and letting things go wasn't enough.
Sometimes, I thought, we needed to hit a reset button.
LOL I remember the way he looked at me. Confused and surprised, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to continue listening to me, while at the same time, completely in agreement. And of course I elaborated further.
Finally, he said, "I agree."
And that weekend would be our very first reset in our marriage. We weren't pretending nothing had happened, or erasing accountability nor were we ignoring unresolved problems. Instead, we were deciding that we weren't going to keep dragging every version of yesterday into tomorrow. We agreed to go home, address our issues, work on ourselves, work on our relationship, and intentionally try again.
That reset became significant for us. An we've learned to recognize when our relationship needs one. (Although I must admit that I have probably mentally divorced him a few times since every reset button! lol jk)
In psychology, relationship repair matters. Healthy relationships aren't necessarily relathinships without conflict. What matters is also what happens after conflict: whether we can take responsibility, listen, reconnect, make changes, and restore emotional safety.
Sometimes repair sounds like an apology, or it looks like changing a behavior. Sometimes... it's actually listening without defending yourself!
Cultivation.
A flourishing relationship doesn't simply happen because two people found the right person.
It happens because two imperfect people continue learning how to love one another through changing seasons.
Two people willing to listen, grow, forgive, remain lovers, dream, and most importnatly, let God work on their hearts.
And more often than normal, two people willing to look at each other and say:
I love you. We are NOT giving up, and I think it's time to hit the RESET button.
I'll share our forever song below!
L.O.V.E
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