Greater Self-Preservation

Because you’re now living with a “villain,” the protective walls go up quickly, and you make them as thick as possible. You begin to watch every move your spouse makes with heightened suspicion. You believe your cry for love will be rejected because your spouse can’t possibly love you in return. It becomes just too dangerous to open yourself up like that. You become more exhausted, empty, and expect to live in eternal vigilance.
Whatever spontaneity was left in your marriage drains away.
But the assault on joy can come from another direction too. When in distress people often default to their strength. If they’re organized. They begin to organize everything. If they’re gregarious, they forget their responsibilities altogether. And when that happens, those little characteristics they found so endearing in their mates, they now hate.
This leads to more needs not being met, which leads us back to step one in the negative cycle, which is increased distancing and polarization.

Cycling Back Again

Each time we cycle through this negative cycle, disaffection grows and the secret resentment locked in our heart intensifies. The fight left in us turns to a strong desire to take flight to just leave.
As the cycle of disaffection grinds on, within it develops a response, which only feeds the complains, and the complaint is ignored, the offended partner may begin to sulk-sulking being a way of calling attention to the pain without saying anything about it. When the sulking is ignored, then come the accusations.
People don’t actually believe these accusations, at least the reasonable part of them doesn’t. They are just trying to get a reaction. The spouse wants to hear, “Of course I want you to be happy.” When he or she doesn’t hear an affirmation like that, and it is, in fact ignore again, and then come the threats. You want me unhappy? I’ll show you unhappy. You just wait.”
This growing problem of disaffection is like is like a death grip. But it’s not just a steady walk away from love, it involves hurt, distancing, hurt again, more distancing. It’s a pattern of clearly definable behaviors that spiral back on themselves, each time becoming more sever and more destructive. It’s like quicksand. The more you struggle to pull yourself out of the hole and subsequently get rejected, the more easily discouraged and tired you become. Before long, you become “islands of me,” where one cries for love but no one sees the pain or hears the cry for affection. That isn’t to say there’s no way out. It does mean, however, that battling with one another to somehow stop the marital decline only seems to make things worse.

Breaking the Cycle and Coming out of the Pain

If you detect your relationship sliding down this destructive, predictable cycle, immediately seek help from a Christian marriage counselor and extricate yourself. If you don’t seek help, your natural emotional survival skills will take over. When that happens you’ll continue to experience a downward spiral spiritually, emotionally, and physically-one that will eventually overwhelm your marriage and require you to work harder and harder just to stay even, And eventually, the vitality that God has put in your marriage will simply die.
Losing at love is a horrible thing to experience. It is made even more so by the possibility that it could all be avoided with a commitment to break the cycle and return to the love God wants for you and your mate. Your marriage should be filled more joy than sorrow. God wants you to have more warmth than indifference, more love than anger.
The pathway out of pain will involve at least these four ingredients:

1. Empathy

The most significant first step in getting beyond your pain is stepping back from the marriage and honestly looking at how you lost at love in your marriage. Could it be that your spouse is hurting too? That doesn’t mean he or she isn’t to blame for what’s happening, at least to some degree, but just maybe you both very subtly, even unintentionally, lost sight of each other. You started to drift apart and then life just got out of control. If so, why not turn to Psalm 139 and ask God to search your heart to see if there is any wicked way in you and ask him to do a new work in your life. Sure you’ll need to keep in place healthy boundaries, but you can begin a new by simply asking God to help you be defined as a person of love and begin to exhibit the behaviour of love ( see 1 cor.13) The God of Hosea knows betrayal (see Hosea 11: 1-11). He knows heartbreak, and he is there for you even now. Trust his heart and remember that your marriage is to be built on a spiritual foundation.

2. Safety

For positive changes to begin to take place, each spouse needs to feel safe. Creating a place of safety is crucial to reduce the pain and to allow the feelings of love to flow again.
It takes about five positives to counteract one negative experience, even one hurtful word in marriage. You can increase the ratio of positive to negative by cutting back on the negatives. Stop the yelling, nagging, badgering. Be judicious with your words and actions. First Peter 3:8-9(NKJV) reminds us that in our relationships we are to “be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil…but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.” These are sound principles for how to treat our spouse.

3. Affection

This is not just “You know I love you, baby,” but these are to be clear demonstrations of love in ways that your partner likes to be loved. Ask yourself:

1. How do I show love to my spouse?
2. How does my spouse show love to me?
3. How would I like to be loved by my spouse?

Now, have your spouse do the same thing compare notes and make changes in your behaviour so that you are doing the things that communicate love. Just saying “I love you” is never enough. You have to be sure that your spouse knows, and receives your love.

4. Forgiveness

As long as the two of you are alive you are going to have to work through times of heartache and disappointment. The oil of forgiveness is the only way you will survive. Forgiveness involves both forgiving and asking for forgiveness. Someone might be thinking,” I can’t forgive.” Ephesians 4:32 (NKJV) has helped us get over that hurdle. Paul tells us to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forging one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. There is nothing that God can not forgive through Jesus Christ. So based on the facy that God has forgiven you in Christ, There is nothing you can’t forgive because you have been forgiven so much.

Forgiveness is always my responsibility, even as I have been wronged. It means canceling a debt. That’s something I do within myself. Don’t confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. That takes two people. When I choose to forgive, it frees me to love.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the marriage you’ve always wanted will only come as you heed Psalm 127:1 (NASB), “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labour in vain who build it.” Spiritual intimacy is not about changing your spouse and demanding vulnerability. It will begin to flow as the two of you just simply seek to embrace the heart of God in your marriage.

Questions to Discuss

· 1. How have you handled conflict in your marriage? What concerns you most about the way you the way you typically handle conflict?
· 2. What are the expectations you brought to your marriage? Are any of them similar to the false expectations described in this chapter? What good expectations did you bring to the marriages that are now being met?
· 3. What strategies have you used in your marriage that has successfully stopped, or broken, negative cycle?
· 4. Talk together about ways you can increase the affection in your marriage. What does your spouse consider to be meaningful ways to experience affection?
Please use the above questions to evaluate your marriage situation. If you response to this article, please feel free to write us. We shall be willing to render further assistance to you, saving your marriage for the better.