January: Divorce or Rebuild Month??

This morning, Kris Laudien and I chatted on CTV Morning Live about January being known as “Divorce Month”…a month when there is an increase in calls to lawyers from couples seeking to end their marriage. It was great to talk about something I am passionate about (look at CTV News player link entitled, “January: Conquering Divorce Month” in the center column)

January is also known as Couple Counselling Month for couple counsellors and the couples we work with. It is our experience over the last decade and more that we have been operating as a counselling clinic, that there is a greater number of calls from people wanting counselling in January. As people look back at the previous year and evaluate goals for the next, they realize that they want changes in their marriage.

There is another option between sticking out what is, or getting a divorce: a third way…developing a different, more satisfying marriage.

Marriage is the most important relationship in our lives, and yet we often expect it to take care of itself.

• we don’t expect our teeth to manage without a dentist;
  
• we don’t expect our cars to go without regular oil changes and other routine maintenance, with the odd repair done when needed;
  
• we don’t expect our houses to clean themselves, or the laundry to magically appear clean in our drawers

…but often couples expect their relationship to run well without deliberate maintenance or tending.

Without that maintenance or repair work when the cracks are manageable and easily reparable, the cracks can develop into fissures and crevices that create distance and coolness between the couple. Spouses stop being a safe place to land for each other, so they start protecting themselves…which in itself creates distance and further coolness as the relationship is no longer primary, but rather self protection takes precedence. And it spirals down until one day one looks at the other and says, “I can’t even remember loving this person. I don’t want to be here”. Maintenance and maintaining a healthy marriage can prevent a spiral into marital unhealth.

Now…make no mistake…all marriages have seasons and normal “ups and downs”…and I’ve heard officiating ministers, on more than one occasion, tell a bride and groom at the alter to take a deep breath and remember this moment of love and commitment as one that, in all liklihood, will need to be recalled at a moment when it’s rough. To be prepared to recall it in a moment that it’s hard, in a moment where one or both spouses want to attack or pull away or “throw in the towel”. To know at the moment of celebratory love that there will be difficult moments ahead…and that is OK…it doesn’t mean to give up, it means to try differently.

Marriage is valuable and lifegiving and remarkable and hard and incredible and stressful and empowering and frustrating and sacrificial and potential-filled…and, ultimately, humans are hardwired to desire it.

It’s important to proactively protect and build up this most-precious of relationships…to expect hard times, to expect to work hard to find strategies to work through them, that ultimately, years later will have a couple realize the strength that was developed in the relationship because of the weathering of those storms.

So, go out on a date, have an extra cup of coffee with deliberate conversation after supper, work through a book, take some online relationship-health quizzes and talk about the results. A fellow promoter of marriage health dropped off some handbills today promoting a “Love and Respect Marriage Conference” occurring on February 10 and 11, 2012 at Grant Memorial Baptist Church…a workshop/retreat like this, from engaging and interactive speakers, can be a real boost to a marriage with some struggles, and can recharge a tired marriage, or vitalize a marriage that is already strong.
Have you had a marriage tune-up lately?