How Surgery Healed a Marriage

As the wheels of the gurney squeaked toward the elevator that would take him to a place he did not want to go, my husband carefully pulled me near and whispered, "I love you."

Squeezing his hand and repeating the same words to him, I kissed him and sent him off to what he feared so much.  Surgery.  He needed some repair work, but did not sit firmly in the knowledge that he couldn't live "normally" without the surgery.  His physical limitations showed he needed it, but in his own mind and heart, he thought he could keep plugging along, enduring the pain.  How bad was it, really?  How much worse could it grow?

How many people go through marriage just like that?  When a marriage hurts, often the people in it prefer to remain in a state of suffering rather than approach someone to help them find healing.  No one wants to be a patient.  Such an admission equates, in many minds, to weakness.

Must. Not. Show. Weakness. EVER.

This was my husband and me.  Two stubborn first-borns battling it out on opposite sides of a marriage, each believing the other should "see it my way" and work harder to make everything right and good for ME.  We ignored the fact that a pair of "me's" made this marriage.  Each of us focused on one.  The wrong one.  As our marital health declined, we sought sources of escape or substitution, and remained in a decline until one of us managed to make a call to God, the Great Physician.  I believe His qualifications in that practice cover all types of healing, not only the physical.

In that hospital hallway, hearing "I love you" from the man on the gurney felt awkward.  He hadn't said those words to me in a while, completely convinced he didn't feel them because we didn't make the gestures of love that require time and effort.  Marriage is work, after all.  Having followed the easy drift apart throughout many years of marriage, creating the distance that many couples never notice until they feel it's too late, he felt sure that our marriage would end.

He came to this conclusion at about the same time his doctor suggested that surgery would really help.  Two horrible choices coming to him at exactly the same time.

What to do?

God knew, and didn't waste any time getting the scalpel and sutures ready for action.  He knew our past scars and our current wounds, he knew our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual make-up -- those four things must exist for success in marriage.  One or two of the four malfunctioning, misfiring or comatose ensure failure in marriage.

God placed this need for surgery at exactly the right time.  Knowing these four capacities in each of us, He knew which one of us needed what kind of repair and set everything up to start moving in varying directions, all planned to come out at this very time.  For His purpose.

Those plans began months and probably years prior to this day.  Our drifting in different directions had separated us from the ability to care deeply because we took care to manage outside responsibilities and not the most important inside responsibility, our marriage.  We focused harder on saving ourselves from the other person's inadequacy at fulfilling needs and wants and stopped focusing at all on acts of love.  We stopped doing the little things.

We complained silently as well as aloud.  We had a Cold War as well as heated arguments.  We suffered at the words and inaction of the other person, as well as felt vindicated when the other showed any hints of suffering.  Anger bubbled just below the surface most of the time.  Anger comes from misunderstanding, poor communication, and also from some misgivings about one's own part in the misery ... and avoiding the acceptance of that responsibility.

The alternate routes each of us took allowed God to work with us in specific ways, in different "zones" of our minds and hearts.  While I zeroed in on volunteering and keeping busy with children's activities, God began letting me see the time and energy I invested and what that investment provided our family and marriage.  He gave me a complete disinterest in any activities outside our home.  I wondered what had gotten into me.  Clearly, now that I can see ... God had gotten into me.  He meant business, and he wanted me to choose the right activity, by His standards.

We can be doing good, wonderful, honorable, helpful things in life and still be sinning. Even positive activities can take away from what God has in mind for us. Our own sense of keeping busy warps our sense of right and necessary.  God has a way of telling us "no".  Lack of ambition in outside activities was my "no."  He took all energy from me in those things.  All of it.  Not a scrap remained.  

My husband pointed himself in the direction of work, social media and an addictive secret life.  God battled with him the way I envision Him wrestling with Jacob.  Physical ailments prevailed in making him stop and make changes he would not have made on his own.  He struggled in his mind to keep all of his activities in check.  God wrestled with him there, too, and continued for quite some time to separate his fact from fiction, His Truths from worldly lies.

We had no idea at the time that these things were happening and that God had them all in His control in such detail.  No words can describe the amazing transformations that occurred in very little time.

Back at the hospital, several hours after I left my husband in the care of medical professionals, I had him in my care.  As he emerged from the fog of anesthesia and pain medications, he found himself at the mercy of those around him, unable to move independently for anything.  At my mercy, which he felt unsure of receiving.

We had spotty care from the staff at the hospital during my husband's stay.  I had God-given means for me to do the care-giving.  For four days, I lived in the same room, refilling ice packs, requesting medicine doses on time, adjusting body position for comfort, moving pillows, handling meals and assisting in physical therapy.  After four nights of sleep deprivation for both of us, the doctor sent us home, and for many weeks, the same care regimen continued.

The physical healing happened slowly and in the context of the surgical repair and its special needs.  In the meantime, faster and more direct in His work, God gave my husband mental, emotional and spiritual care, concentrated and practical.  He gave him exercises in the form of learning to depend fully on me and in letting his fear of losing control of situations relax.  He prescribed total rest from the outside world, which we accepted without question.  It allowed us to talk and listen effectively, and to tune in to each other in ways we had never experienced in our marriage prior to this healing time.  He promoted emotional and spiritual healing in the form of our entertainment choices and in the timeframe (Christmas Season), giving us opportunities to share our thoughts and feelings on varied subjects.

Strange as it may sound, this surgery provided a second honeymoon at a time when we believed an impasse existed, that nothing could change the direction of our relationship and turn it away from destruction.  We felt God's presence and see it more clearly in the rearview mirror as time goes forward.

God gave us the blessing of time.  Time does heal wounds, but not in the manner in which most of us understand that old adage.  Time heals wounds when people take the time to learn to communicate in better ways.  Time heals when we spend it together on activities that unite us and make memories to share, rather than squander it for ourselves on selfish activity.  Time heals when we manage it to the best of our ability and not fritter it away without discussing our options.  Time heals when we form bonds within it, using purposeful activities, communication and chance to learn about one another to make those bonds stronger.

Yes, surgery did play a central role in healing our marriage.  Only one of us experienced a physical change, but God used that opportunity to unite us in all the ways we had divided when left to our own selfish devices.

 The best news in any marriage illness is that the Doctor is always in ... He makes house calls and knows your history ... as well as your future.

Today, My Marriage Looks Like Waiting

Right now, this very minute, my marriage looks like waiting. I sit here in the waiting area of a physical therapy center while my husband works to strengthen his recently-repaired shoulder. He does not have clearance to drive, so I play chauffeur for him, taking him where he needs to go. To the post office next. I think he has a stop at a store in mind, too. I do not know what he may decide later, but I will make myself available when he asks.

Many things in the world have skewed our view of what relationships look like and, to a smaller degree, how we should feel and should act within a marriage relationship.  For instance through the magic of Hollywood, we watch and hear what comes to the surface in "relationships" -- the obvious, the facade -- without a clue about the inner workings that don't exist anyway, except in a script. We measure our success by a false or invisible scale.

Movies or books do not depict waiting, at least the kind I do.  Lying in wait?  Yes, they corner the market on that, for the chance to even the playing field or to set a trap for someone.  But not waiting, serving, and showing the love that gives us the ability to wait in these small but important marriage-nurturing ways.

My marriage does not look, feel, or sound like the renditions on the screen with a hero and heroine sprinting along, firing at the enemy expertly, without tripping over rocks or furniture, and without smudging her make-up.  We, my  husband and I, are quite scarred, actually, and we trip and stumble sometimes.   Our marriage did look like a tragedy for a season, and our version of it wreaked havoc like no other deception outside the movie theatre can.  Neither of us won in the struggle, neither of us felt happy or hopeful.  Neither of us had a script or any direction other than self-preservation and search for happiness we didn't know how to have.  We filled the holes in our lives with alternate and opposite "fill" -- from coping mechanisms to activity that fulfilled us in other ways to fill the void we offered each other.

When we called on God, he shaped us very quickly in some ways and very slowly in others.  We learned to refocus on acting in love and in learning how to hear rather than to just listen, to see rather than to just look, and to respond in love rather than to react.

Unlike what we see on the silver or television screens, my husband and I do not share equal physical strength, nor do we share the same mental or social abilities. Our spiritual development differs. Our emotional make-up stands opposite the other in many ways, and walks hand-in-hand in other ways.  We complement each other, each filling in the gaps where the other needs a little help, and doing it selflessly, for the good of the other person.  When we do this, we both win and we grow closer in oneness.  Nothing feels like achieving oneness as husband and wife.  Nothing can, you see, because God wrote it this way.  

Interesting, isn't it?  They keep remaking movies to improve upon some aspect or another, or to update the story.  Yet, the Bible stays the same.  The ideals and how-to of marriage hasn't changed.  Thought-provoking?  No.  Action-provoking, I say.

And the waiting?

In the past few weeks, women have offered my support in prayer.  I welcome that kind of uplifting act, but the support they offer comes in the form of sympathy. They do not want to have to serve their husbands in the same way, to fall into a role of "servant" which looks, to their way of seeing it, like real slavery. At his beck and call? Are you kidding?

Like the Hollywood deception of relationships, many women have skewed perspectives because of what they believe socially true. They buy the idea that men want to rule over women in a dictatorial way, and that every request for help or suggestion for improvement means another step toward male dominance.

Feminism/Women's Rights has put these ideas into the fish pond and women have reeled them in as "keepers" without bothering to measure them against the Ruler of Truth. Many women have accepted the ideas of the Feminist Movement simply -- and sometimes ONLY -- because the ideas come from women. We esteem our kind, and we have bonds the same way men do -- but they come in the form of human bonds, not holy ones.  The concept that we women should stick together ... really?  For what purpose?  To form a culture of women only?  No, thanks.  Women don't often work well together for very long, and they star in far too many reality shows based on these dysfunctional relationships.  I would rather not perpetuate the kind of thinking that we see on the screen in the present day.  Entertainment value?  Nil.  Voyeuristic value?  Skyrocketing.  And, they show lots of action.  Very little waiting.

Really, we need to check those human bonds carefully, measure them against the Word of God, and adjust those that fail to measure up to that standard.  I believe most of us would find ourselves far less tied to social mores and find ourselves moored safely to the Lord, in whom we can put our whole trust in this life and marriage endeavor.

In my current role as driver and care-give-as-needed, some of the women who respond with sympathy edge past the aspect of my serving role and move right on to asking, "How will you stand having to go everywhere together and be in the same room so often?"  How will I make it through the days having him nearby every minute, or for more minutes than usual?

Well, it's like this. When you begin using that Ruler of Truth (Bible) in respect to what you let into your life (thought and action) and marriage, you begin to have a new perspective. You start to see the world's view for what it is -- grasping at straws and hoping for impossible perfection.  You begin to want to spend more time together and avoid filling your schedule with activities that keep you apart.  My husband and I look for time every day to spend together.  We know when we haven't found enough of it, and we look for ways to make more of it -- time together renews and strengthens us, and bonds us in new ways.

When using the Truth to measure, you begin to think differently.  You think of your husband and why he might act a little off his game today.  You ask him why he seems distracted or disgruntled, rather than assume it, because you focus on serving him and understanding him first, instead of jumping the gun to figure out his problems for him. When he rejoices, you rejoice.  You begin to feel each other's emotional pulse more strongly and you learn to take that pulse and work to serve in whatever way the other needs.

When you tune into your husband, take the time to wait for him and on him, you find that:

You wait for the answer he will give.
You learn patience in the waiting.
You discover more ways to serve him while you wait for him in these moments.

You don't have to sit in a waiting room to do this.  You can be in your office at work, in the laundry room at home, at the kitchen sink, in the grocery store, at church, in the home of a friend -- you can position yourself anywhere and wait on your husband.  It all has to do with how you let yourself think. When you keep your focus on serving your husband through the focusing lens of God, you will get this waiting thing down and find so much purpose and success in it, you'll invite the opportunity.

What does your marriage look like today?  Are you waiting?



Related Articles:
Anticipate Your Husband
Are You in Control?
Dealing with Clutter in Marriage
Distractions in Life and the Marriage Effect
Recognizing Your Husband's Strengths

Ten Ways to Love: An Introduction

The photograph over there on the right shows a Christmas present from my husband.  One of this year's Christmas presents!  The man couldn't wait (he loves to give surprises but has great difficulty keeping them), and he wanted to make me smile on a day when smiling felt distant to me with stress and with a train of thought I had to work at derailing.

The gift lists ten loving acts and a corresponding Bible verse to illustrate it.  My kind of gift:  strong emotion mixed with education and a little research!  My husband also admitted wanting to see happy tears, which he felt quite sure this gift would produce.  He knows how to manage that really well and doesn't abuse it.  I'm easy when it comes to crying during emotional experiences.  Any one of my family knows to toss the box of tissues my way when Hallmark greeting card commercials begin to air at Christmas time, and I'm a weepy mess during "The Blind Side." The list goes on.

Anyway, My Dear Man had the idea for this months ago, and with a lot of thought and requests for assistance from various sources, finally found a way to make it happen.

The gift hangs in our kitchen, right at the door to our family room -- where we do most of our living and where we need the most reminding about how to love.  When the chips are down, we don't always play our cards right, letting stress, emotions and old habits get in the way.  Every man, woman and child in this family fails from time to time, and I'll wager the same holds true in every home around the globe.

I love this gift.  I love even more that he made it for me, and chose a subject that we have worked and worked to learn, over many years, through many mistakes and over a span of darkness that could have swallowed us, but didn't because we let God intervene.  The lessons listed on this heart-made and heart-felt gift keep love in line.  If we do each of them purposefully, without looking for recognition or reciprocation (in other words, acting SELFLESSLY), we will achieve the intimacy in our marriage that we crave.

Intimacy = mental+spiritual+emotional+physical

I often see the biggest stumbles and pitfalls happening at the mental, spiritual and emotional level.  People seem to get the physical part, as if that's enough to go on, forever and ever, Amen.  But, it isn't.  God gave us intimacy -- the "one flesh" command way back in Genesis (in the beginning), to Adam and Eve, as a model for all human history.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.  ~~Genesis 2:24

Becoming one flesh involves every area of our lives, as husband and wife; it's not the intertwining of body parts that achieves it, alone.

Our thoughts, our mental struggles and successes that come to light through conversation need to mesh.  Even more than that, we must sometimes debate and disagree in order to fulfill the "one flesh" ideal of problem-solving together and coming out on the other side a little stronger and a lot closer.  Overcoming problems and working through struggles strengthens marriage.  Like our muscles, our marriages need some rigorous training to get through the difficulties life brings.  No one can climb a mountain without strong arms and legs and a back that won't give in under strain.  No marriage will succeed without the gaining of strength in communication, devotion, commitment, and appropriation of time.  Marriage will encounter some turmoil and putting all our energy into trying to avoid it won't eliminate it.  Avoidance means escape, and escape means half-truth.  Half-truth is whole lie.  Meet the trouble head-on and know the power of "one flesh" fully.  It's hard.  It's also thoroughly worth it.  I can feel the oneness building, even though tempers may flare. Flaring tempers do not have to lead to a raging, out-of-control fire.  Self-control can happen, people.  Find it and use it, and do your best to model it for the man in your home.  Don't fall into old patterns.  Argue with purpose -- to understand, to connect, to come to a conclusion.  If your desire is to win, you need to rethink and revamp your style.  One person winning in marriage means someone else loses.  That's not "one flesh".

Our spiritual selves should jibe, although, as the verse below indicates, we wives can have a very important role in guiding our husbands in a faith-oriented direction by working at being a wife in the truest sense of the word, as Peter wrote:

"Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives ... " ~~ I Peter 3:1

In other words, act like a wife who dares to live fully.  Be the wife who defers to her husband in matters of life and love.  Make your husband the leader of your family by setting aside selfishness and letting God handle it.  That means you need to pray -- keep your God connection open and viable, not sitting on a shelf waiting for dire circumstances, or hanging on a wall like a little-needed fire alarm, pulling it only out of desperation.  To disagree in views of faith, to live as a believer with an unbeliever, or to have weak moorings in your faith and to adopt concepts from a variety of religions undermines truth, and the consequence of that lifestyle is a pieced-together foundation that cannot hold through the tests of life.  Faith must have a rock-solid base, or what we construct will crack and crumble.  Any builder can tell you the importance of a firm foundation and what will happen to the structure, over time, if the foundation fails.  Bits of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Catholicism, and myriad other beliefs fit together in small bits, and may even resemble each other, but none  match exactly.  The pieces might look pretty and make you feel good, but they will not hold firmly together.  Ever.  Stand firm in faith, and don't fall for the leadership of man-made religion -- man is fallible, God is not.

"Every word of God is pure: he is a shield to them that put their trust in him."

~~ Proverbs 30:5

"He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." ~~Deuteronomy 32:4

Our emotional natures must meld, allowing each of us to share feelings, hopes, disappointments, dreams and failures without judgement and with a caring, invested listening ear.  Men have emotions, they simply learn to push them down and, sadly, society and parental guidance often sends the message that emotions are for girls and those who are weak.  Women, conversely, need to take a tighter rein on emotions and realize that sharing every thought and feeling with someone else who will listen does not build up a marriage.  Sharing with someone who has the success of your marriage in focus can help, but the person with whom you should share most is the man you married.  Not a friend, not a family member, and never someone who shares similar difficulties.  Learn to share with your spouse.  Start small.  Grow together.  PRAY IT OUT, and lean on The One who gave you this man to have and to hold ... for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad ... in everything.

Our physical relationship.  Hmmmm.  No-brainer?  Yes, it's the bond we all think of first, but it's not more or less important than any of the others.  The physical relationship of marriage makes "one flesh", but not in the simple, connective way many people think.  Every other aspect plays a part in the physical relationship, and if the others are off kilter, the physical will suffer.  If the physical isn't happening, the others won't fare well, either.  Don't expect emotional connectedness if you're holding back elsewhere.  Don't expect a dazzling physical relationship if you can't express your feelings or thoughts adequately.  And you can have a physical relationship without faith, but faith sets it ablaze in a wholly different way.

Overshadowing the four core aspects of one-flesh marriage,  social and personal spheres must mesh to a healthy degree.  Work, play and enjoy life together.  No living separate lives and hiding conversations or relationships with other people.  That's not "one flesh", that's deceit.  The only good secrets are birthday gifts, surprise parties and Christmas presents.  Throw in a much-needed weekend away together once in a while, too, but otherwise, secrets siphon life from your marriage.  Feeling the need for secrecy?  Consider that feeling your giant, flashing, billboard-size neon warning sign and run the other way without a backward glance.  Fight for your marriage.  No one else will.

I know that's a lot to take in.  What kind of introduction to love is this, anyway?
The lesson is this:  Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Huh?  What?

Begin to think of your marriage relationship throughout every facet of life.  Mental (personal/social), emotional (personal/social), spiritual (personal/social) and physical.  Give and take from every part, not just one.  Learn and grow in every part, not just one.

Many people struggle in more than one of these areas of One Flesh marriage.  Not every husband or wife tries his hardest in any or all of the aspects, but the person you need to focus on is YOU.  Not what you're getting, but what you are giving; how, when, why and where you are giving it, and with what frame of heart, mind, spirit and emotion.

Work at making all the parts work well, bathed in prayer and faith, and 1+1+1+1 will equal ONE.  This may sound confusing or impossible, but you won't realize how clear the answer really is until you begin to put effort into it and realize the results.



Other Articles in this Series:

• Ten Ways to Love: An Introduction
• Ten Ways to Love: Answer without Arguing
• Ten Ways to Love: Enjoy without Complaint
• Ten Ways to Love: Give without Sparing
• Ten Ways to Love: Listen without Interrupting 
• Ten Ways to Love: Share without Pretending
• Ten Ways to Love: Speak without Accusing
• Ten Ways to Love: Forgive without Punishing 
• Ten Ways to Love: Pray without Ceasing 
• Ten Ways to Love: Trust without Wavering