Mawwage.... that bwessed awwangement....

Over the past few months I've had friends who have separated and then divorced, or separated and then reconciled, or whose spouses have died. It feels weird to be at that stage of life. This kind of thing always used to happen to "adults" - to a generation of people who were older than me. Now it's happening to my friends, to MY generation. It's brought marriage into focus for me in a way that hasn't happened in a while.

As I've been contemplating the ultimate cause of marriage break-down, and the sequence of events that has lead to the breakdown of various marriages I know, I realised afresh that I can never sit back and assume that my marriage is risk-free, or divorce-proof. There are things that could lead to my marriage breaking down, not because I stopped loving my hubbie, or because he stopped loving me, but because we simply 'grew apart'. 

G and I have been through hell with losing Zoe. We've grieved differently, and have tried to give each other space to grieve in whatever way we felt personally appropriate. We've tried hard not to impose our own way of dealing with our grief on the other. The result has been that we haven't been communicating as well as we used to - partly because it's just been too hard to share the depth of grief, and partly because we've been afraid of what the conversation might do to the other.

Add to that the fact that we have both struggled with our faith. I came close to losing mine, and G is still struggling. It's hard talking about something this important with the person you love the most, because of what it might do to them. As I've been rediscovering my faith, I've tried hard not to put any pressure on him to feel the same way. It's been hard, and I don't know how successful I've been. Still, he is getting counselling now, which is an important step in his grief journey. As much as I want him to be where I am in the journey, I know that he still has a long road ahead of him, and I don't know where his journey will take him, or where he will end up.

A question that I've pondered is what would happen to us, to our marriage if he decided that he wasn't a Christian anymore, or didn't believe anymore. Faith has been a central pillar of our relationship since the beginning, so what would happen if he wound up on the other side of the fence, if losing Zoe ultimately caused him to lose his faith? I know that I wouldn't choose to leave him if he were to make that decision. He's an awesome husband and father, an incredibly moral person who loves me and the kids. I don't think that would change if he lost his faith.

BUT...

If we no longer shared the same core values, I pondered how that might affect us. Aside from the obvious issues of how to handle Sundays and the inevitable questions from the kids about why they and I were all going to church and Daddy wasn't, I realised that I would no longer feel comfortable sharing any of my reflections or emotions with him as far as my faith was concerned.

If he were to stop believing that God existed, I would worry that when I talked about my faith he would be secretly thinking that I was being ridiculous, or superstitious - although that wouldn't be in character for him. Never the less, the fear that he would be thinking less of me would remain. If he shared his reflections and emotions with me, about deep stuff, I would want to bring God into the equation, which would be out of the question, and he would know that, which would leave us both feeling awkward. This would ultimately result in us both withdrawing and no longer sharing with each other, because we're both conflict averse and don't want to put the other person in a corner.

I realised that if I stopped sharing with him, or vice versa, we would stop communicating at a heart level. Currently, when our lives get on top of us, that's exactly what we do. We stop communicating. The result is that we start to misunderstand each other, pre-judge each other, misjudge each other. We become defensive and snappish. We start living past each other. It's HORRIBLE. It struck me that while we might both love each other, if we stopped sharing, if we stopped communicating, that would be the death knell for our marriage, although it might take years or a decade or two to actually die.

So, while I wouldn't choose to leave him, if he were to say he no longer believed, I don't see how our marriage could ultimately survive. That means that I have a lot vested in the outcome of this journey he's on. Yet, I can't put any pressure on him, because whatever happens, he needs to know that the journey he's on is his own. He needs to work it through himself, he needs to find the solutions without feeling that I've pushed him in a particular direction. But how he can't feel pressured after we've discussed this...? I have no idea.

About 8 months after G and I were first married I was ready to get out. I wasn't sure that our marriage was going to work, and I wanted out, before we brought kids into it. My folks got divorced in the most amicable way possible, and it still messed me up. I didn't want to do that to my kids. We went for counselling though, and we're still together, 13 years later.

But losing Zoe was not something I ever thought would happen to us. Losing a child often causes a marriage to break up, for exactly the reasons I've outlined above. I always assumed that we would make it. I never had reason to doubt.

It scares me being the one who has to stand on the sidelines, watching, waiting, hoping, praying, but all the while knowing that I have limited power to help him, or to protect my marriage. The possibility that he will come down on the other side of the fence scares me, but I can't make that choice for him, and I can't pressure him into making the safe choice. I have to leave him in God's hands, to walk the path he has to walk, to struggle through as I have had to struggle through, to battle his own fears and doubts and questions, until he comes out on the other side - wherever that may be.

And even if he finds himself on the other side, I will still love him, and honour him. I will still cherish him. I will still  continue to commit my all to him, to making this marriage work, because that's the vow I took - 'everything I am, and all I have, I share with you... for better and for worse'. He's my man, and I love him.

'Faith is being sure of what he hope for, and certain of what we do not see.' Heb 11:1