WALKAWAY WIFE!

I love interesting terminology that explains things without explaination. One of my favorite is the walkaway wife. The walkaway wife is a woman who has given all she can to her marriage with little or no results and after a period of time she runs out of steam, so she gives up trying and literally or figuratively walks away from engagement in her marriage. Unfortunately most of the time when she is at this point the husband is usually relieved that she has relaxed from her former pressured position. He erroneously thinks things are much better in their marriage.

The "Walkaway Wife" is a term coined by Michelle Weiner Davis, who wrote Divorce Remedy, Divorce Busting and The Sex Starved Marriage. A wife in this frame of mind is done trying and usually headed out the door of her marriage. 75% of divorces today are filed by women. I was a walkaway wife a few times in my marriage, but never carried through with divorce. One time I was dead to my marriage as I was preparing myself to leave by getting all of my ducks in a row. I was getting my career geared up, financials in order, and going to counseling to work on my issues. By the time I was "prepared" to leave, I was in a much better place and no longer wanted to walk away. There are legitimate reasons to leave a marriage, but as Michelle says in her Divorce Busting book, we often get stuck doing the same thing over and over with the same negative results. What we really need to do is examine what we are doing, ask ourselves if it is working, and if not, learn some new approaches to get what we want. Zig Ziglar says "If ya keep on doin' whatch been doin', y'all keep on gettin' whatcha been gettin'! Ladies, we need to get smarter about how we do marriage. Being a walkaway wife is lonely and over rated.

Have you ever felt like a walkaway wife? If so, what did you do about it?

JUMPING SHIP

There was a time in my marriage, probably lasting about 5-7 years, that I really wanted to jump ship. I had had it. I was in pain and saw no end in sight and wanted out! Today, I am so glad I persevered and can't believe how contented I am, still on the ship!

First, I want to say, there ARE many legitimate reason's to bail out on a marriage. If there is a danger to you or your children through physical or emotional abuse, leaving may be appropriate. Get help making that decision from a person with training in working with abuse. There may be unrelenting addictions, alchohol, drugs, gambling, sexual. Women in these situations can play a role in these addictions continuing and I recommend we learn through Alanon or a counselor if we are involved in enabling behaviors. The ongoing addictions can help us grow out of those behaviors so that we are in a better position to decide if we need to leave. It is estimated that only about one third of the marriages which end are in this category or severly abusive and addictive patterns, and really need to end. The rest of the marriages, two thirds of those that end are the ones I am addressing here.

There is sooooooo much we can do to avoid jumping ship in our marriages.

We first need to stop pointing the finger of blame at our spouses and look at ourselves and grow out of any dysfunctional patterns. If we have been stuck in blame, we probably haven't even begun to consider how we are contributing. This is a humbling, scary and necessary step. (personal experience tells me so)

We have to get away from people who tell us things like "you don't deserve to continue to struggle", or "you deserve better than this", "you can do better than this", "God would want you to be happy", "Kids are resilient, they will be better off without all the fighting and tension". These messages undermine your seeing and growing out of unhealthy patterns and being able to powerfully effect your marriage. Seek out mentors who have persevered in difficult marriages and come out on the other side with joy! Maybe all of the marriages aren't joyous, but we CAN have joy in spite of them!

We need to seek forgiveness of our spouses for any and all hurts and injustices we have caused him and our marriage.

We need to break away from any fixing, teaching, helping or changing behaviors with our spouse. (been there, done that, doesn't work!)

This last point should be first. We need to fully surrender our lives, our marriages, our spouse to the Lord. Give up control, seek God in all things. We need to submit ourselves, our identity, our future, our thoughts, our speech, our actions, our kids, our marriages to the Lord. He needs to become the first and foremost lover of our souls. He needs to be the soul mate that we desire more than life. If we can do these things, even begin down the path of "I am staying, I am not going to jump ship easily" you will be amazed at the possibilities! But you will never see them if you jump! God is so good!

THE WINTER OF MY DISCONTENT

I was thinking today how much winter in Wisconsin is like a marriage. We have just come through a brief spell of wicked weather. It has been below zero, getting up to maybe 5 degrees in the daytime. At times the wind has been whipping up and it takes your breath away. Prior to that we had quite a bit of snow for 2-3 days in a row. Today in contrast is a beautiful winter day. The temp is almost balmy at 28, no wind and brilliant sunshine. The air is clear and crisp and I am glad I live here today!

Marriage goes through cycles like the seasons. Of course there is early marriage which is usually a 10, perfect, enjoyable, even giggly. Unfortunately it is also a time of adjustment, suprise and disappointment that you didn't exactly get the spouse that you expected.

It is totally normal to have ups and downs in marriage. They can be due to a change in circumstances which are temporary or permanent. Like career problems, financial setbacks, children, moves, health issues and such. Any of these issues of life can cause stress in a marriage, but it is how we deal with them which determines their long term effect on us and our marriages. We tend to have more difficulty when we were hurt and not given good coping skills in our upbringing. If we didn't have good role models we struggle more. Certainly if there are any circumstances like alcohol, drug use, addictions or mental illness it is more complicated.

There was a very interesting study about marriages out of Ohio State University. They did a study of a large group of couples who were unhappy and wanted to divorce. Half of the couples did divorce, the other half decided not to. They followed up with the group who did not divorce five years later. What they found was astonishing. Of those who had been unhappy and almost divorced, 80% of them were very happy five years later! They questioned them about how they survived, even thrived their winter of discontent.

1. Some had what they called the ENDURANCE ETHIC, where they just outlasted their problems.

2. Another group had the MARITAL WORK ETHIC, just accepting that marriage was work and they continued to plug away.

3. Another group had adopted the PERSONAL HAPPINESS APPROACH, where they sought other ways to experience personal happiness in spite of their difficult marriages.

So, what is the lesson here? I think that we commonly perceive that the struggle we are currently in (the winter) will never change. Often times that is not true. There are many reasons for a winter of discontent. Some of these struggles will resolve or improve over time. With work and skills and attention to growth, or not. It makes me pause and think long and hard if I have done all that I can about surviving, even thriving in the winter in Wisconsin!

Can Love be Rekindled?

Can love be rekindled? The answer is an emphatic and qualified YES!!

So, what do I mean by that!?!?!?! The qualified part, is that under certain circumstances, it certainly can be rekindled. So what are the circumstances?

FIRST:
We have to seperate out our desire and search for love to be a ME thing. I mean we have to not be tied to finding, keeping and rekindling our love with our husbands. Sounds rather strange when I write it....... But for so many years I wanted to have a marriage which honored God and I drove myself crazy, even though that sounds like a respectable goal. I am only in charge of me and my life, and when we make goals or have desires which include our spouses things get complicated very fast. So we need to seperate out our search for and desire for love to just ourselves, our husbands are in charge of themselves. When I changed my desire to be a woman who honored God, I didn't drive myself so crazy!

SECOND:
Once we are just looking at ourselves we can begin the real work of growing. So we begin by connecting to God and His love, acceptance and great and perfect plan for us. This becomes the bedrock of any future growth. We HAVE to start here!

THIRD:
I hate to be the one to tell you this but Fairy tales aren't true and no one promised you a rose garden. We next have to examine and get rid of any unrealistic expectations. Get rid of all the riff raff clogging up our hopes and dreams.

FOURTH:
We need to heal from our own past. Examine our family history, life experiences any traumas we have had, etc. It may take being in a group, counseling, years of Bible study, journaling or all of the above. For me, I had to examine what it meant to be from an alcoholic family and what my role and rules were. I had to look at my reaction to the death of my sister and my parents divorce. Then I had to look at my unhealthy relational patterns which I had been practicing in life and marriage. This can be a long process and it will take as long as it takes. Probably a lifetime!

Other helpful things we can do is to get a group of like minded, supportive women around you. Then learn and apply skills for a healthy marriage. Of course it would be preferrable if we could do this with our spouse, but it is also possible to do alone.

So I recommend that if you want to experience rekindled love that you do all of these things for 5 years and then reasses the situation then!

Can I promise you that your love will be rekindled? NO

Can I promise you that it won't if you don't do these things? YES

To proceed down this path of working, searching and desiring to have a rekindled love alone is a fearful and risky path. But it is a path that honors God, grows us up, and from my perspective, the only path of hope towards rekindling love. Let's do our part and see what happens. . . . . It did work for me! May God Bless you!

New Year, New Hope

New Year, New Hope
I can't believe it is 2010! I feel like I usually do at the end of one year, and the beginning of the next, mixed. Sad about what did not happen in the previous year, excited about the possibilities of the next. I hope you feel similarly as you get to know this very new blog. This blog comes with a purpose and expectations.

PURPOSE:

• A SAFE PLACE for Christian women who struggle with marriage.


• A PLACE TO SHARE challenges and insights and questions in the ups and downs of marriage


• A place to share honestly and NOT BE ALONE.


• A place to be CHALLENGED to be all that God made us to be.


• A place to LEARN about ourselves and relationships.


• A place to be EMPOWERED by the Lord and other sisters


• A place for HOPE beyond our circumstances.
• A place to be ENCOURAGED

EXPECTATIONS:

• I expect honest feedback of all kinds regarding my posts
• I expect us to be challenged and uncomfortable at times
• I expect that we will be encouragers, accepting we are all on different places in our walk
• I expect to write the blog 2 times per week
• I expect the blog to get better and better with time
• I expect great things!

Thank you for entering this journey with me. I really do want your feedback on my articles and writing. I want to know if what I write is true for you or not. I want to know if you think I am right on, or if I am off base in what I am saying. I will write comments on the replies as I am able, but mostly I expect to learn a lot from you!