Overcoming Marital Distress
Some time ago, I had an email from a friend. She was reaching out because her marriage was hurting and she’d heard I had personal experience with overcoming marital distress.
Fallen leaves floating on our pond. I took this picture on a beautiful Alaskan autumn day.
Of course, she wondered what made the difference for me?
Shortly after, a friend asked me how to be okay when you’ve made the decision to stay in a marriage that’s unhappy and feels too hard. She wanted to know if her decision meant she was doomed to only have what she was currently experiencing. Was overcoming marital distress possible?
As I answered both my friends, I decided I’d write this blog post.
One thing I know, if you have that question, most likely someone else does as well.
So, in this post, I’ll share my journey and strategies for overcoming marital distress, hoping to help others in similar situations.
Recognizing the Universality of Struggle
When your marriage is hurting, it’s easy to feel isolated and alone.
Sadly, though, you’re not.
Too many are in disappointing and painful marriages. I can empathize because for many years, I lived in that pain.
Deciding Against Walking Away
While it doesn’t always seem like it, there are others who have decided walking away isn’t right for them either, regardless of the marital distress they’re going through.
If that’s the decision you’ve made, what can you do?
Are you trapped in a never-ending cycle of loneliness, unfulfilment, disappointment, conflict, and pain?
Thankfully, no!
The Possibility of Transformation
There are ways to end the pain, transform how you experience your marriage and escape the chaos, stress and conflict…without walking away from the relationship.
You can find fulfillment, peace, openness, better communication, a fuller contentment, and a better connection.
These were things I was craving during those years in my marriage when such things felt utterly unattainable.
I can’t promise you the marriage of your dreams.
BUT…
I know you can transform what you’re experiencing.
Overcoming Marital Distress: Starting the Journey of Transformation
Maybe you’re wondering, how do I do this? My marriage feels hopeless!
Oh boy, do I understand feeling like that!
When you feel lonely, unfulfilled, relationally stressed, emotionally disconnected, or in conflict with your spouse, it’s natural to spend a lot of time paying attention to those things.
They can “take over” our mental and emotional ‘space’.
Yet, spending all our time and energy focused on what we have but don’t want, or what we don’t have but want, heightens our distressing emotional state, especially when your marriage is hurting.
Overcoming Marital Distress: My Personal Journey
I’ll share a bit about how this worked in my marriage.
I felt a lot of disconnection from my husband. It seemed we were living two completely separate lives. He worked a job where he was gone for up to six months at a time. Then, he’d be home for a while and gone again for more months on end.
It felt as though he brought in the money and I managed the household and raised the kids. It seemed to me like our two worlds collided, but never connected.
I also had a hard time feeling an emotional connection once he was home. This intensified as the years went by because, as we grew as individuals, our differences seemed to grow too.
The Power of Mindfulness and Perspective
Only when I started being mindful of my thoughts and critically examining what I was telling myself about my husband and our relationship did my experience transform.
For such a long time, in my mind, our marriage was difficult.
I seemed hard-wired to expect “bad”.
I expected worst-case scenarios in everything; always assumed the worst and interpreted everything in the worst possible way.
I’d create an assumption regarding my husband.
Then, I’d assign a negative meaning or motive to that assumption and interpret what he did/didn’t do or say based on the negative meaning/motive I assigned.
Understanding and Revising Our Perceptions
I’d create a narrative and believe it to be infallibly true.
Even if he gave me his version of what he meant, said or did, I’d usually hold on to mine.
My experience and feeling confirmed that my assumption and interpretation was right.
Through my internal chatter and mental “habits”, I was creating much of my distress.
Even when presented with his POV, I wouldn’t (or couldn’t) believe him.
These ways of being would overshadow what my ‘that day’ reality might have actually been.
The ‘hard-wired’ stuff didn’t allow me to see anything outside of how I felt, even if how I felt was based on something that wasn’t true.
I came across this beauty one fall morning before the sun melted the frost.
Feelings And Truth
By paying attention to my thoughts, while also questioning anything that caused my negative feelings, the emotional distress I was experiencing started lessening.
I realized it was assumption, negative interpretation and often unrealistic expectation, causing me to FEEL disconnected.
This questioning of the stories I was telling myself, while also being critical of my thoughts, allowed me to see that the assumptions and meanings/motives I was assigning weren’t infallibly true, even though I can assure you it felt like they were!
But if they weren’t, then the interpretations I’d created, or the expectations I had, probably weren’t true or were unrealistic as well.
Shifting the Focus Within
This started shifting my entire experience and eventually my part in our hurting marriage.
Notice I said “my part”.
That is actually the only part we can shift.
Our shifting may result in our spouses shifting too, but we can only shift ourselves.
This evaluating also caused me to be more honest with myself, to become better at not assigning things I simply can’t know; like what’s happening inside my husband.
What his interpretations and assumptions about me and our relationship are.
Why he did, or didn’t, do something.
Why he said what he said, etc.
When I gave up my negative ‘mind-chatter’ about him, I could actually enjoy him for who he is…not who I thought he was or should be.
Embracing Self-Empowerment and Inner Change
I became more concerned about my inner world, and what I allow to go on inside myself, than how I was FEELING.
I found that questioning the stories I told myself helped me see the connection between my thoughts and feelings more clearly.
For the first time, I was in the driver’s seat of my experiences and could make deliberate choices regarding my actions and what I thought or felt.
Paying attention to the stories I was telling myself and not allowing my feelings to dictate what I was experiencing empowered me!
Creating A New Reality
We can create a happier, less stressful/struggle-filled, more fulfilling marital experience (also an all round better living experience) when assumptions and interpretations no longer determine our “truth”.
If we use this “truth” to decide what’s happening in our husbands and marriages, and then we take that “truth” and think or act according to how we feel, we create much of the distress we experience.
I’m not suggesting we ignore our feelings.
I tried that too and discovered it just creates more distress.
I am saying, though, feelings are a poor judge and shouldn’t be a measuring stick in our lives.
We can change how we feel by challenging the stories we tell ourselves and questioning the “truths” of our assumptions and interpretations.
A few other changes to our way of doing/being are also helpful in lessening our distress.
Taken while waiting for our daughter to run past during her recent half marathon.
Embracing Today for a Better Tomorrow
First, open to what is in your today.
When you spend so much of your experience struggling, allowing yourself to let go of it, even for a bit, while embracing the good you find in your present day can be hard to do.
Lowering your defenses and allowing a connection, a fulfilling or peaceful moment as they present themselves, can be a challenge.
But if we allow this, our distress and pain lessen.
When we look for the good in today and nurture it, it can grow.
If we no longer need something different from what we have…
because we’re embracing what we have, when and how we have it, rather than wishing it was different…
Or more of this. Or less of that, the good that we have can grow, and our pain and distress will diminish.
Understanding Control and Acceptance
And second, stop fighting against what you don’t control.
Ask yourself… what can I really control in this situation?
This will quickly remind you, your only control is over yourself.
That’s it.
You don’t get a say in what your husband thinks, feels, understands, assumes, or accepts. You can invite him to see or experience something the way you do, but you can’t force him to actually accept your experience of it.
That understanding is empowering! And liberating too!
The Journey to Self-Discovery and Empowerment
I know when l feel a broken connection, or feel we’re living separate lives; or I feel discontented, or experience soul pain…I need to take an inward journey and ask myself what is going on inside me?
I’ve discovered it’s not really about the relationship. It’s about how I’m viewing the relationship, my husband, or what is the actual reality and what I am telling myself about those things or what I’m saying to myself about him.
I’ve learned that I am very generous in the judgment of myself…because I know what I meant,
what I intended,
what I said,
what I thought
but…I instinctually judge him with much less generosity and more severity.
I’ve noticed this seems to be our human condition.
Thankfully, it’s a condition we can change-should we decide to take on that challenge.
The Path to Overcoming Marital Distress
For me, all these changes have been more than worth it.
These changes have also benefited my life beyond my marriage.
Who knew, when I was suffering such deep soul pain, that the cure for that pain wasn’t dependent on my circumstances, my experiences or my husband changing, but on the fact that we have the power to trip our ‘inner pain’ fuse.
We can disconnect from its source.
I hope this encourages you as much as it has me!
You can transform your experience without having to wait until something changes in your circumstances. We all can do this if we learn to use tools we already possess.
I’ve experienced this transformation firsthand and I’m confident if I can do it, you can too.
Conclusion: You Are Not Alone
Painful marital relationships can be hard to talk about. They’re private affairs.
Often, a sense of loyalty to our spouse keeps us cautious and, understandably, creates a reluctance to talk about our struggles.
But know you’re not alone.
Implementing these things changed how I experience my marriage and now, at least most of the time, I’m able to appreciate and value my husband and his unique giftedness, which are so different from my own.
While also accepting our relationship and him as they are right now.
I’m happy to talk more about this if you’d like to engage more on this subject.
Leave a comment below and let me know how you’ve found peace in the marital struggles you’ve encountered.
Or email me at sarah@herheartathome.com.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Today’s family favorite may seem daunting, but they’re really quite simple. Whenever possible, we minimize our use of pre-packaged goods. This recipe is a must have for our many campfires during our short Alaskan summers. Give these a try and let me know what you think. You can find our favorite recipe here.
Until next time,
Sarah
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