It takes two people to make marriage work and in the end it only takes one to break it. But marriage is hardly ever broken in one blow. I think that when it dies it most often dies by a long slow habitual failure to love. The little things have consequences as well as the big. There is no cheats way out in the end. If you choose to not do the good you should have done, then eventually you have to go back and make things good OR become someone who habitually chooses not to do good. The further you go in that direction the more you justify your actions, play the blame game, feel sorry for yourself, totally miss the point. By the time you’ve really fucked things up beyond the point of recovery you’re probably even feeling good about horrid things you are doing, and full of hatred towards anyone who wants to help you go back.
Yesterday my wife and I spent the afternoon with a friend whose marriage recently ended. She is a good woman and has done well under the circumstances. I know that nobody is perfect and that marriage can be really hard. But her ex has been a real jerk and is so blind right now. I’ve been there and done that, and somehow that makes it feel all the more horrifying to me to have this up close view of him really fucking things up. He is fucking up his kid’s lives, fucking up his own life – though I know for sure he can’t see it right now. Its pretty scary to hear some mutual friends talk and know that they can’t see it yet either.
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Oh i so unfortunately know what you are talking about. That’s how I feel like our marriage is going – sprialling downwards and Tim doesn’t want to see or hear the blaring warning signs I keep shouting at him! He seems intent on destroying himself, destroying me and destroying us/family.
Have you any thoughts, knowing that blindness, how I can be most effective! I feel like he’s pushing me into making a decision to leave him. I know he’s in alot of pain and doesn’t want to face that … but stuff me. It hurts that he is willing to destroy the kids lives for his own cover up of pain. Mind you, last night he did agree to have a REAL counselling session. Although not till after Christmas. Things have been so much better since we’ve been doing this Living Wisdom stuff I talked about in Cornerstone Interactive – but he just keeps on doing the same old crap consistently. I know he doesn’t want destruction – but it seems he just naturally chooses it and naturally thinks it’s not a problem and that I should just “snap out of it and stop feeling sorry for myself”. Aaaggghhhh.
Wow Jenn that’s hard.
Every month since I wrote this there has a steady trickle of readers who have found this post after doing a search for “failure to love” or “failure in love” or “failure of love” on google or other search engines. I know its a big painful spot for lots of people.
I don’t think there are too many answers that don’t involve being face to face with good people who love you both and want to stay along side you both. This is the kind of stuff that church and community and extended family should be good for and so often aren’t. Counselling is good if it gets you both rethinking things at a level that impacts your gut reactions, and even better if it has the relational context I was just mentioning. Is there a couple of good couples or families that will just do lots of normal living stuff with you both? Words can bounce off so easily. When I think back to how I was, the words of even the men I respected most didn’t make any difference to how stupid I was. But day after day seeing them do stuff that I had to do might have.
yeah tim’s not that keen to put himself in that type of environment. He doesn’t go to church much – reckons he doesn’t have much in common with them (which I suppose he doesn’t) and is more interested in hanging out with his piss-head friends. He keeps saying it’s a shitty world and i reply with well yes it would be if you keep hanging around shitty people rather than good ones. Although … there are lots of flaws in that comment i know. But you know what i mean. That is what scares me – he doesn’t seem to want anybody interfering. these people at Living Wisdom are excellent – but they can only help as far as tim is willing to open up – he doesn’t seem to be willing to do that. I suppose prayer is the only thing – just so bloody frustrating and I’m scared i’m going to close up shop and it will all be too late one day.