Re-Engage

My husband and I started attending a weekly program at our church called Re-Engage. We’ve only gone to three sessions and it looks like it will take about 6 months to complete the course. It’s a program designed to help your marriage grow. We’ve heard lots of good things from the program so we’ve been looking forward to getting started.

My husband has also been blogging about his experiences in our marriage. Between his blogging and joining this course, I’ve been thinking a lot about our marriage, what it was and where it is going. A little over two years ago, our marriage was pretty much over. I was dealing with a lot of negative feelings that I didn’t know how to fix on my own. I no longer felt like the love in our marriage was real. It didn’t feel like I was in love with my husband. I didn’t feel he was in love with me. To me, it felt like we were two people that just happened to live under the same roof and were raising the same children. There were times where my husband would be home, but to me, it felt like he wasn’t there. It was as if he was part of the decoration. To me, our home felt the same whether he was there or not. That wasn’t the kind of marriage I wanted to be in.

I talked to my husband about it. We had been attending counseling sessions at our church and communication was one thing we trying to improve at the time. I remember one night we got into a really big fight that ended with me driving off, not knowing what I was going to do next. I think I drove around for about an hour. I remember coming home and saying these words to my husband:

“I know you might not know how to fix the problem, but the least you could do is use your words to show me you care that I’m hurting, instead of using words to cause more hurt.”

I don’t remember if I worded it exactly like that, but you get the gist. The past two and a half years have been pretty amazing. We still have work that needs to be done. But it isn’t like it used to be. I’m so thankful for our church. I can honestly say I don’t know if we’d still be married today if it we had never stepped through those doors. We still struggle in some areas, but the negative feelings are no longer there and the hurtful words that were once in our relationship are getting to a point where they are almost non-existent.