THE MARRIAGE MIX

Each week I leave a short story or video blog here about where I saw love in action during the previous week.  Sometimes my story might have to do with my marriage.  Sometimes it won’t.  The point is that if we are looking for love throughout the week, we will have more faith in the power of the love we share with our spouse.

You are invited to leave a story in the comments section about how you saw love in action last week!  Or leave a link to your blog in the comments section (and be sure to link your readers over here so they can see more stories about love in action!).

this week i finally sat down

and talked with a friend i have been in conflict with.

she has not been having conflict with me.

just me with her.

she didn’t know.

she thought everything was just fine.

which makes it a good thing

that i decided to talk with her.

it could have gone badly.

very

very

very

badly.

but it went well.

i talked.

and she listened.

and then we switched.

it was beautiful.

sounds simple,

but for two girls who have a history of

solving their problems in ways that can end a relationship,

it was worth celebrating.

the reason we talked and listened

and listened and talked

is because

on that night

last week,

over a glass

(or two)

of table wine,

we chose to listen

over being right.

because we love each other.

and it worked.

Where did you see love in action this week?

My name is Cara Harjes.  I am a writer, a psychotherapist, and a connoisseur of lazy rivers and tiramisu!  Three years ago, I married a wonderful man named Herb.  We were friends first and then had a whirlwind romance.  Within the first three or four days of our honeymoon, things began to slowly shift in our relationship.   At first, we laughed about it, and convinced ourselves that a daily argument was normal for being married just one month.  Within six months, things had gone from shifting to falling apart and we were no longer laughing.  Our love took the backseat to bickering, nagging, tears, and plenty of anger.

That summer, I remember trying to keep my head above water as I thought about how to deal with the mess we had created.  Everywhere I turned, it seemed that stories of difficult marriages always ended in divorce.   From what I was observing, it seemed that if you did not have an easy marriage, ending the relationship was the only option.  For a number of reasons (that I share in this blog), I knew I did not want a divorce, but in our throw-away culture, I had an impossible time finding stories to reassure me that we could find our own path and remain married.

Over the past three years, I have been on a quest to find something in between the “perfect marriage” (a myth) and ending the marriage.  Herb and I might never have a marriage that lands on the easier end of the spectrum, but we are very committed to our marriage.  So, we were left with one choice, to find a “third path”: another way, often unpaved, to navigate our relationship so we may stay together for the 70 years we signed up for!

This blog is the compilation of stories I (and others) have to share about how we have found our “third path”; how we have managed to stay (happily) married even in the midst of some very terrible times in our relationship.

It is not always easy to talk about the things that are tough in our marriages.  Whether it is an ongoing argument, infertility issues, or an affair, everyone faces conflict at some level during their marriage but we don’t always know where to turn during these times.  It is my hope that the stories you find here serve as a voice of encouragement and hope in what can be a very dark time of life.  I don’t have the answers about how to avoid divorce or fix your problems, but I do have a voice of hope to offer – a voice that says it IS possible to stay the course even when things become rocky.

This blog is not a “how to guide” for navigating the ups and downs of relationship, but rather a love letter to marriage itself; a testament that it is possible to create a marriage that works for you and your spouse.  It is a string of stories in which you might see a little bit of yourself and, with a deep sigh of relief, realize you are not alone.