And that was that: Marriage, conflict, and personal evolution

Something had to change.

How often is this true in a marriage? 

How often do we have to reorient, readjust, and realign with the person we’ve chosen to walk alongside for life?

My husband and I hit a point that felt insurmountable, a series of conflicts that felt too big to be resolved without a foundational shift.

So I told my therapist about it, the big and the bad, and she told me, “Everyone goes through this.” 

That was fine to hear, but wasn’t there more to it?

As I talked, I cried on and off. She listened and, although she engaged with kindness and empathy, she never took my side. 

I noticed because I’d expected to be clearly in the right.

As the hour moved ahead, something unexpected changed…

I came full circle into compassion.

I told her that our conflicts escalated in a way that seemed to have nothing to do with us, that our conflicts put our deepest wounds on display.

I told her that something else must be going on beneath the surface of “who should clean up the bathwater?”

It wasn’t him against me, it was us against history.

In the affirmative, she nodded enthusiastically.

Was this the “more” that there was to it? Was I finally in the right?

Something inside of me was shaken up like dust on a dirt road.

Underneath all of my anger, self-righteousness, and self-protection, I found compassion.

Compassion doesn’t force its way to the surface, we have to dig for it.

I realized that, if I could move in this new awareness, there was an invitation on the other side.

As I sat there, less-clearly in the right, I realized I’d been wrong.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

Maybe the gift of marriage is the steady flow of conflict that allows us to see things we’d never see otherwise.

Maybe the magic in marriage is the ability to heal wounds together that we got while we were apart.

Maybe holding each other’s unlovable parts with compassion and curiosity is how we come to know our own stories by heart.

Good partners are mirrors. They help us see ourselves.

A loving marriage is always an invitation to a very personal evolution.

If you’re really in it, you’re always changing.

After that hour of therapy, I re-entered the world on my own, away from her wisdom and assurance.

Something had to change in my marriage, and it wasn’t just him like I’d set out to prove…

It was me too.

Is this what love actually is? Forgiving when you could be withholding? Asking gentle questions when you could be vindictive? Loving when you’re hurting?

It was disorienting, but it was true.

Something in my marriage had to die to make space for something new. 

And when something new is being born, you’ll always find Mother God nearby.

After I re-entered the world on my own, I went straight to my bathtub to get baptized yet again.

Ritual exists for our benefit, after all.

My therapist didn’t take my side because there were no sides to take—it is better to love than to be right.

I laid there, naked and broken, and I asked God what She needed me to hear.

“Love the unlovable.”

Clear as day.

Love the unloveable parts. His, yes, but also your own.

And then, like the addendum you’d never expect, “Love the unlovable…

The world needs to meet the feminine face of God.”

And that was that.