Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.
       Though it cost all you have,  get understanding.

Proverbs 4:7

Peace at Any Price

What price are you willing to pay to live peaceably with your spouse?  If you are like me, then you will agree that there is no price too high to pay for peace.  Having peace brings its own rewards.  I have found that when you are in a peaceful state you are healthier.  You can think clearer.  You sleep better.  The words that you speak are sweeter.  When you have true peace you are more optimistic and less critical.  If there is trouble and turmoil and conflict residing in you, it cannot be contained.  One way or another it will find a way to seep through and bleed out all over the place; usually at the most inopportune time or in the most unlovely fashion.

I can remember very well when I would have these times in my relationship with my husband.  It took me a while to figure out where the root of the problem stemmed from.  One day I “got it”.  I was not being clear about the things that I needed and expected from my spouse and neither was he.  We had no true understanding of what each of us needed, much less how to meet the need.  So we spent many years functioning off of assumptions and misconstrued ideas.  Looking back over those years it seems funny that we could have been that oblivious to one another.  Even though we were living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed, eating at the same table, we still did not really know one another.  And every time we would try to address the issues we would more than likely end up arguing to the point that we would eventually stop talking to each other all together.  And this would be our definition of living in peace.  We weren’t living in peace though.  We were actually living in silence.  There is a difference.

Help Me to Understand You

The wise man, Solomon, says “though it cost all you have, get understanding”.  I can tell you that those words of wisdom helped save my marriage.  Most of you know that I got married just two weeks after I turned 19 years of age.  My husband was the only man that I really dated.  Our backgrounds are as different as night and day, which at the time never occurred to either of us that it might create a problem.  Well it did.  Not problems that could not be solved.  Just problems that took longer to be solved than they should have due to lack of understanding.  He did not understand me, and I surely did not understand him.  All I knew back then was that I needed to be right and he needed to be in charge and neither one of us knew why it had to be that way.  But one thing I did learn on this journey and that is that it actually will cost all you have to get understanding?  It cost us our pride.  And isn’t that the one thing that most people will hold on to for dear life? Pride was the one thing that was standing in the way of our peaceful existence together.  Right smack dab in the middle of the word pride is the letter “I”.  I began to understand that I don’t know everything.  That I don’t know what he needs unless I ask him.  That I won’t understand why he does certain things unless I provide him with a safe, trusting, loving, emotional environment to share his feelings.  And he had to do the same with me.

Never Too Late to Rebuild

I pray that most of you reading this article will not have to spend as many years as we did living in marital dysfunction trying to find the road to peace.  Your beginning may not be the same as ours but your end can be.   It is never too late to rebuild.  Pride and ignorance will make you think that your situation and your spouse are impossible and that your life apart from each other would be much better.  Don’t believe the hype!  Pay the price for peace; get understanding; and begin to rebuild the loving, caring, fun relationship that God intended for you to have.  Yes, it may cost you everything, but it will be well worth it.  Let this year be the year to a fresh new start in your marriage.

Karen