What’s Really Broken?

What’s really broken?

 

When Mike and Jeanette asked if I would help them repair their marriage of 26 years, the usual apprehension cut in. The possible enormity   of the yet-to-be-understood task stirred up the usual emotions of inadequacy.

 

Following twelve months of repair and improvement, the future still held no guarantee of lasting stability, and each improvement took on a feeling of “two steps forward one step back.”

 

Now, two years later, Mike and Jeanette have a secure confidence that the best years of their marriage are before them. They laugh, work and dream together and the acute pain is behind them.

 

What made the difference?

 

When Mike and Jeanette had restored a reasonable peace to their relationship, they transitioned from marriage coaching to personal management coaching. It became obvious that it wasn’t just their marriage that was broken.

 

In reality, their LIFE was broken, and the pain of that was manifesting where it always does; in their marriage.

 

To borrow a mechanical term, marriage is the usual shock absorber for our lives. And if we try to repair our marriage without repairing those broken areas of our lives where the pain originated, we are only applying a temporary “fix” for a much bigger problem.

 

So if we experience marital difficulties, what’s REALLY broken?