The Marriage Advice That Almost Broke Me

The marriage advice that almost broke me came from a place I never expected, but the key here is almost. God reminded me of who I was and who we were as a couple. He never left my side and brought me back to my very first love – Him.

Unsolicited advice…or was it?

Sometimes people just want to give you advice, whether you asked for it or not. 

Anyone been there recently…? 

At least there’s a little bit of a predictable pattern to this unsolicited advice – major life events are prime time. Graduations, weddings, births…these seem to be the favorites. Really though, aren’t we all looking for advice during this time? 

So while it may be unsolicited, it may not be unappreciated. Yet sometimes, a well-intentioned word can hurt. 

My favorite place to turn to for advice is books (which may have been part of the problem here) and I’ve never once seen an author who wasn’t well-intentioned. I suppose if I picked up a book the advice there wasn’t unsolicited. So as a reader, this is the chance I take on whatever these people had to say.

Preparing for marriage

Reading and learning drives what I do, both in my teaching and in my personal life. One of my favorite pastimes involves learning too – studying ideas or topics that interest me. In 2017, the topic that interested me most was marriage. 

I wanted to be prepared (ha!) as well as I could before our impending nuptials in July of that year. After we were married all I wanted to do was grow closer and strengthen our bond. So I turned to marriage book after marriage book, some we read together, some I read alone.

But the more I read marriage books, the more I began to feel isolated. The more shame I felt in not meeting the status quo. 

They weren’t true to my experience. And honestly, they were telling me things that broke my heart.

I felt abnormal. Alone. Ashamed. I felt depressed and longed to have a different set of problems than the ones God gave us in our marriage. 

So what I’m (slowly) starting to learn is how to be grateful for the set of problems I do have. To be grateful God gave us this wonderful bond and mutual love and acceptance in the first place.

Marriage books are not a bad place to start

For those of you who like to read those marriage/relationship/sex books and are helped by the information and advice they offer, more power to you. I’m glad you have resources to support you, and in no way am I condoning these types of books! 

In fact, there are several books that have helped me/us to move through the obstacles present in our young marriage.

On my resources page, I’ve noted some books that have helped me in the past as well, but at this time I found myself more frustrated than fulfilled, which inspired this post.

I tend towards marriage advice from Christian friends and authors. The books that specifically encourage including God in our relationships were the most helpful to me over the years.

However, I got stuck when they made a generalization that didn’t apply to me. There are some behaviors that typically apply to husbands that felt more true to me. When Caleb and I would read these books together, the marriage advice would make sweeping statements that just didn’t fit.

We already had some hurdles with intimacy (Read: Intimacy can be difficult, but that’s okay). The last thing we wanted when searching for marriage advice was to hear how many other ways we didn’t fit the status quo.

Some authors like Dr. Kevin Leman made us feel a little more at home, which is why Sheet Music is still one of our go-to books when intimacy issues arise.

Most, however, would only briefly mention the exception to the marital role rules (us), then move on with advice for the general population. 

Then the general population gets help and us exceptions get nothing. 

Not the life Christ meant us to live

Feeling left out and alone when we desperately wanted advice was heart-breaking. We wanted so much to just be told, “This is how you deal with your struggles.” How to deal with the fact that we didn’t match the marriage advice that was wildly available.

Yet, something kept us close. Something kept Caleb and I committed to this life we chose together – the unity we had with Christ.

Heart-broken, depressed, competing against what the world said marriage should be like and the discrepancy between our own experience – this is not the kind of life we were meant to be living.

Unity in Christ, hope and trust in God to pull us through – that’s what defines a Christian life.

Christ came so that we may have life to the full (John 10:10), and those books weren’t filling us.

Caleb didn’t fill his head with all this marriage advice nearly as much as I did, so it became a journey for me (supported by my thoughtful husband) of how to come back to myself and come back to Christ.

I slowly learned how silly it was to think some well-intentioned Christian authors could fill me with more life than the Author of Life.

I learned about gratefulness – the set of problems we’ve been given is uniquely ours, just as God intended it. Our marriage is the exception in hopeful ways as well as heartbreaking ones. 

Years ago I wrote What I’ve Learned After 6 Months of Marriage, which may give you a little glimpse of what I mean. Being the exception means instead of looking to Christian resources, I need to look to the source of the life and love I hold most dearly. I need to head back to My First Love, and read His Book more deeply.

My First Love

It turns out there’s marriage advice in the Bible too.

But the advice I really needed was about love, and who loved me first and most.

When the Apostle John wrote to various churches in Revelation on God’s behalf, he says this to the church in Ephesus:

^“3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. ⁴ Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.”

Revelation 2:4, NIV

“Forsaken” seems like a pretty strong word to me. But I love the severity of the picture it paints. If I am not holding fast to the love that gave me life, I’m doing a very good job of living it. 

God loved me before everything else, and still loves me more than anyone else.

Psalm 139 tells us explicitly of the intimate knowledge God has of our being, and the deep love that comes with it.

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:1-5; 13-16, NIV

He loved me – and all of us! – before everything else, before we were even a glimmer of thought. 

Christ chose me. He loved me before everything else, and now it’s my job to gratefully accept His grace, His provision, and His plans. 

He has chosen that in my present circumstances, my marriage will be an exception in many ways. But perhaps this puts me in the perfect position to give my own unique marriage advice to others in our position down the road.

For now, my experience is unique, and so must the remedy for healing be.

Thankfully, I have a good, good God who already has all of that sorted out.

Christ is my Healer, my Redeemer, and my Savior, and perhaps, the loneliness means to call me back to My First Love. To bring me deeper into a relationship with Him, instead of deeper into the cacophony of marriage advice.

A prayer of intimate love

Let me share a prayer with you, in light of the knowledge of My First Love and the unique, intimate knowledge He has of the comings and goings of my heart, my mind, and my marriage:

“God, you know me better than anyone ever could. You know my struggles. God, You know my desires. You know me completely. You know that there are days where I long for a life different than this one.

Forgive me for my ungratefulness. Forgive me for wanting anything other than the plans you have already written out.

I know you meet me in the secret places of intimate vulnerability. Meet me there again, Lord, and heal my hurting heart. Help me to see loneliness as a call back to My First Love. Give me peace where there is confusion. Give me strength when I need to persevere. Let your love cover everything I do and everything I experience. Let your light permeate my soul.

Lord, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You are doing great things. I praise you because you have chosen to treat me with great kindness, constant grace, and unending love. I love you, Lord. Help me to love you even better than I do now. Amen.”

Amen, friends. 

God is so, so good, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to keep learning that. 

Hope you have a lovely week, full of praising Jesus.

Susannah