Until you come to a point of realizing that the relational/marital expectations you had prior to marriage were distorted by the limmerance buzz, misplaced and impossible, then you are ushered into a building sense of disappointment with your spouse.  They become the scapegoat for your un-fulfilled longings and you must get them to do the loving or romantic or protective things that seemed so natural for them before.  Their failures and weaknesses become the focus of your attention. Frustration, resentment and anger progressively build inside of you and eventually - maybe after a week or maybe after a decade - it begins spilling out.


Your ability to trust is immature; it feels like you can’t absorb any more disappointment or hurt and you’ve got to take charge.  Of course, you don’t think of yourself as controlling.  You’re just reasoning with them, or pointing out what they’re not seeing or calling out your own sacrifices and work in the hope that they’ll reciprocate.  You have to get them to do something - help around the house, help with the kids, make more money, plan a date, talk more - anything that shows you that they see you and care.  The tragedy is that anything you get from them in this manner can’t really be received as a reflection of their love for you… they only gave it to you because you threatened them, demanded it, earned it or cajoled it out of them.  Do they love you or are they just scared of you - even worse, obligated to you?


If you’ve got a modicum of self-awareness, your eyes turn inward and you see what’s below the surface:  selfishness and a fear that maybe the marriage - maybe you - are just not worth that much to them or, even deeper, that you’re just not worth that much to anyone.


Or, perhaps, you find yourself on the receiving end of a spouse’s disappointment and anger.  You say that you’d be fine if they would just relax.  Why can’t they be content with what they have?  It was good enough before you got married.  You scramble to try and please them, but never seem to quite get it right.  It starts to feel like no matter how much you do for them its never quite enough.


So, you resign yourself to failure and begin withdrawing and/or avoiding them.  You stay at the office a little longer (you feel adequate there and they seem to love you), get busy with a hobby or numb out in front of the television.   To avoid the inevitable conflict, you stop talking about real things with your spouse; better to keep it light.  Eventually, you build an emotional buffer around yourself.


If you look inward, you will come to see that they are threatening to expose your inadequacy.  You haven’t figured out yet that you can’t meet all of their needs and you’re not responsible for doing so.  So, their disappointment and anger is registering as a direct reflection of your adequacy.  Your spouse has become a mirror in which you see your own weaknesses, flaws and shortcomings.   So, you back away from the mirror - emotionally and then physically and then sexually - to avoid the pain and shame.   


So, one of you is angrily trying to get your spouse to meet your needs and make something happen in the marriage - deal with the conflict, provoke action, facilitate engagement, initiate intimacy - while the other is desperately trying to avoid conflict, exposure and failure.  One of you is over-working and over-responsible, driving things forward for fear of what you would discover if you stopped.  You’re scared of being alone in an empty marriage.  But your increasing desperation and intensity is received by your spouse as criticism and rejection. Although the emotional buffer they have donned leaves them looking indifferent, they are deeply troubled.  Their seeming apathy and lack of emotion is a marker for their self-protective emotional withdrawal.  But they’re not withdrawing because you’re unimportant to them.  They’re withdrawing because disappointing and failing you feels intolerable.  It exposes their failure as a spouse and as a person.  They fear that if you see too much of them - if you see them for who they are - then at some point you’ll reject them.  But, of course, it doesn’t look that way and their withdrawal just confirms your deepest fears, driving you to work all the harder.


That pattern - that dance of pursuit and withdrawal, attack and disengagement - becomes a self-perpetuating marital death spiral that progressively escalates conflict and creates growing emotional distance.  And unless you are able to get to the fears undergirding it - find a way to talk vulnerably about those deeper insecurities - your relationship will eventually become what you fear.   


The irony, of course, is that the Gospel is immediately relevant to those deeper fears and insecurities.  The Good News is that you are inadequate… you really have failed both your spouse and your God.  You are naked in the Garden and God is calling you to come out from behind the bushes.  The gig is up.  You deserve to be rejected and abandoned.  You are not worthy of love or care, not to mention a new car or more help around the house.  You deserve to be left alone.  But God is out there beckoning for you to come out.  His eyes are filled with compassion and forgiveness.  Jesus took care of it.  He knows you’ve failed and He accepts you anyways.  He sees the ugliness inside and still embraces you.  He knows your disappointment and your need; He wants to care for you.


If the Gospel is true, then you can risk engaging with your spouse even though you have come up short with them.  You can tolerate their disappointment because you are not responsible for it.  You can empathize with him/her in their disappointment because the God of the Universe has forgiven you and you stand clean before Him.


If God truly loves you and cares for you, then you can surrender your efforts to manage your spouse.  You can wait for your spouse to come to you.  You don’t have to get them to take care of you because your very Creator loves you and is close.  He has committed to care for you.  You don’t have to fear the loneliness because He is with you.  And those disappointments are purposeful - they mature hope, shifting your focus away from your spouse and toward the day when you will see Him face-to-face… the day when everything your heart longs for will be yours.

I know that you’ve heard this before, but marriage is not easy.  It only feels like it's going to be easy when you’re dating because you’re in a state of limmerance.  What you may not have heard before is that this “honeymoon” period involves a very real physiological and neurological change that accelerates the bonding process.  It lasts as long as 18 months, but more often less than that.  The “high” associated with it is triggered when you think about - or are with - your love.  Although it can become sexual, it is not fundamentally sexual. Rather, the chemical change produces a feeling of euphoria and, to some degree, an immunity to physical or emotional pain.    If you were struggling with anxiety or depression before, you’re probably not feeling much - if any - of it when you are in this stage with your person.  More importantly, the neurological re-configuration associated with the change in chemistry provides you with an illusory experience of oneness with the person to whom you are bonding.  You get the sense that they think and feel in the same way that you do.  So, besides experiencing a massive bump in mood, you feel a deep sense of emotional connection that may be like nothing you’ve experienced before.   


But, it doesn’t last.


And somewhere in the midst of this emotional/relational crack high, you get married.


Then it goes away.  Maybe abruptly or maybe progressively, but it goes away.    


Then you’re confronted with the realities of your shortcomings as individuals and differences as a couple and you feel like you’ve been duped… it was a bait-and-switch.  The “happy” is gone and you’re really not sure that you even like this person to whom you are now married.  During limmerance it really felt like your spouse could meet your emotional/relational needs for a lifetime and now they’re not doing it anymore.  When the party ends and you’re relational super-hero is exposed as being just another human being, you’re confronted with the challenge of some hard relational work.  You’ve got to learn how to navigate conflict and disagreement as you meld two very different personalties and backgrounds into a cohesive one.  You come to see that your spouse is more wounded and reactive than you’d previously perceived them to be.  Further, if you stop blaming them and are honest with yourself, you see that you’re more wounded and selfish and reactive than you’d previously known.


When the buzz wears off its a bit of a shock.  You thought you had a good relationship and you’re a confused.  The good news is that the ground is razed, “demo day” is done and you are now ready to start work.  You have the opportunity to build a real relationship… a real marriage.  It’s going to be harder than you thought and it’s going to take ongoing work to build it and then keep it vital.  But if you put in that work as a couple you can re-claim that passion you had earlier.  It will be a little different - less consuming, but deeper, less fiery hot, but more resilient and sweeter - but no less passionate.  But that reclamation process will take decades, not a few months or years.

​During a recent Church service, the pastor spoke about ‘giving our best’.  In other words, is it ok to settle for ‘just ok’?  That sermon spoke to me and had me really thinking about the patterns we create for ourselves.  It also brought up the word perfection.  Our expectations to see immediate results and striving for perfection.  Which often have us leaning toward being self-critical, setting unachievable goals, and creating negative self-talk.  Sounds overwhelming and stressful, doesn’t it?  The sermon inspired me to give this topic some more thought…
 
Thoughts on Perfection:
Many years ago, someone asked me if I could remove the word perfection from my vocabulary.  So, I tried it.  I replaced the word perfection with other words and phrases such as “great, awesome, sounds amazing, that’s beautiful”.  What a difference that made in my own communication with others and to myself.  It’s validating! 
 
So where is your threshold of perfection? 
 

• Mine is perfection is not obtainable.  I’m not even trying anymore.  However, I’m also not accepting ‘just ok’ – I want to experience the beauty in the journey first - I want to relish in my hard work and see my results to enjoy them. 
• Can you ask yourself where how you learned “perfect” was expected?  Did you give that to yourself or was it an expectation from others?
• Reflect on it – then go ahead and try replacing perfect with your own adjectives!

 
Thoughts on Self-Criticizing:
Have you ever noticed how you felt when you did not meet a goal or felt disappointed in yourself when your plan or situation did not work out?  Did you tell yourself some really negative things?  Your brain probably held onto to those negative words! (Huge negative pattern developer). 

• Would you tell a friend those negative things?  Probably not. 

• What if you spoke kinder to yourself?

• What if you had greater flexibility in your expectations?  (Sometimes wiggle room is ‘ok’).  
• Try smaller goals first and sit back and enjoy how motivating it is to see your accomplished goals.

 
Thoughts on Mistakes:

• What happens if you make a mistake, or you experience a mistake from others? 
• Was it a learning opportunity or a challenge, maybe it’s too hard to accept? 
• Maybe it’s easier to forgive others and not yourself? 
• If you aren’t making the mistake, you aren’t learning, and you aren’t accomplishing your goals either – it’s part of the process, and that’s ‘OK’.

 
Showing up for Yourself and Others:
My pastor used John 2:1-11 in that sermon I mentioned as an example of showing up for others.  Jesus showed up and met the needs of others.  He turned water into wine in order for the wedding celebration in Cana to continue.  He did that for the people as they mattered to him.  Jesus was doing more than ‘just ok’ – he was giving his best and he gave it to others too!

• How do you show up and do more than ‘just ok’ – for yourself and others? 

 

​“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
2 Timothy 4:7

On the morning of July 4th, my husband and I got up in the wee hours of the morning to make our way to Buckhead in order to run the Peachtree Road Race.  We have made this an annual tradition, us and 35,000 of our closest and smelliest friends. 

I’ve noticed we have the same “mood” surrounding the race each year…meaning the night before we ask each other ‘Do we really want to get up at 5 am?’, then when we hear our alarm go off there is a strong inclination to just turn it off, roll over, sleep in, and have a lazy holiday. 

However, once we arrive at MARTA, we see other runners with their bibs on and some in super fun red, white, and blue attire.  Our moods begin to improve a bit.  When the race begins, there’s lots of music, laughter and fanfare.  Many people are on the sidelines cheering runners in their own unique ways from offering water, holding encouraging signs and billboards, and – our favorites -the priests throwing holy water on you and shouting, ‘Blessings’! 

All this energy helps us keep up the momentum towards the finish line.  We start to pay more attention to our surroundings and less attention to the sweat dripping down us. Then, when the race is finished, we wait in line to pick up the coveted Peachtree Road Race t-shirt - the PRIMARY reason we got up at 5 am. Well, the t-shirt and the brunch we eat as soon as the race is over.

And - you know what - the t-shirt and the brunch are much more appreciated having successfully finished the race instead of staying in bed. 

Whether literal or figurative, we all have our races to run.   And, truth be told, most of us have thought about turning that alarm button off and just sitting the race out because somewhere along the way the race gets hard.  Certainly, just like in a physical race, we need to be wise and take rests, notice the things that keep us “hydrated”, surround ourselves with encouragers, but it is important to not quit! 

Every day, each of us does ‘hard things.’  We just forget about those, and then when some big thing or race pops up, we think we aren’t prepared.  We don’t have what it takes…

But, most of us are stronger than we think we are; we may just need someone to encourage us to keep going.

​On a recent short trip to the beach with family, we rushed out to the beach each evening to catch the sunset.  It’s always a brilliant pink even after the sun comes down behind the trees.  We stay til every bit of sunlight is gone.  If a boat had been readily available – being on the water chasing the sunset each night would have been on the agenda.  Settling on the beach view, I watched people set up small campfires, take family photos, create social media posts.  You know what seemed missing?  Folks enjoying the actual sunset. 
 
Don’t get me wrong, our family took photos and enjoyed being silly.  But then we sat down in the cool sand, toes and all.  We enjoyed God’s display of nature, listened to the waves hit the shore, and enjoyed the hoodie worthy ocean breeze.  Savoring some silence at that point, I reflected on the day and planned on some downtime for the next couple of days instead of doing “all the things” expected on vacations.  
 
So now I’m wondering if we are enjoying our vacations, birthdays, graduations, weddings, holidays or are we checking off more to do lists?
 
I encourage us all to spend some time reflecting…

• Do we enjoy these events?
• Our families?
• Ourselves?
• Are we just checking off the boxes?

 
What needs to change, stay the same, or can we look at a situation from a different point of view.  Instead of looking for perfection, enjoy the moment the way it is – Just Be. Be in the moment, chasing the sunset, enjoying the view. 
​
Deuteronomy 24:13
“When the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.”