Keeping a Marriage Strong in the Midst of a Storm
The song “The Bones” by Maren Morris is my anthem currently. If you haven’t heard it yet, I encourage you to take a listen below. I heard it for the first time a few weeks ago and felt like she was singing about my marriage. Maybe you’ll feel that way too. I think we all must sometimes.
Right now, it feels like Mark and I are hanging by a thread. We are two months into his intern year, and it is brutal. I knew it would be. We prepared for this. We spent lots of time talking and praying about how to safeguard our marriage, our family. But the reality of it hits hard. Harder than I thought it would I guess.
Last month Mark had a 30hr shift every 3-4 days. On those days he would get about 3hrs of sleep, and would come home completely exhausted. On a normal night, he gets home after a 12-13 hour day at the hospital and often falls asleep while putting the kids to bed.
He’s gone before I’m awake in the morning and falling asleep by 7pm. Most nights, when we sit down to talk after the kids are in bed, he falls asleep in the middle of the conversation. Which makes sense of course, he’s exhausted. But it’s hard to maintain a relationship with someone that you barely see or speak to.
This is a rough patch. And we’ll make adjustments and find our rhythm, and we will ride out this storm. Because here’s the thing: the bones of our marriage are good.
Lean into the Sacrament of Marriage
Our marriage is built upon a Sacrament, and we get to lean into the sacramental graces of it every day. And goodness knows we do. What a tremendous gift Jesus gave us in making marriage a sacrament because in doing that He promises to be present in our midst, in a real and powerful way. I cannot overstate the power of the sacrament that binds us together.
Pray like crazy and cling to the Cross
Mark and I were married on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, which seemed very fitting at the time since he had a terrible case of mono on our wedding day and a week later I ended up in the ICU with sepsis, and it’s become even more meaningful the longer we’re married.
This feast commemorates the finding of the True Cross by St. Helena and the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It’s also a day on which we remember and exalt in the Crucifixion of the Lord because it is through His suffering we find salvation. For me, I love that our marriage will always be linked to this feast, because it reminds me over and over and over again to cling to the cross and to Jesus.
One huge way we do this is that we root ourselves in prayer, separately and together. When we started dating, we decided as a couple that if we were discerning marriage, we needed to be praying together. So we started attending mass together every Sunday and ending each date with night prayer from liturgy of the hours. I know that has had a huge impact on our relationship and our marriage. I know that I need Mark’s prayers for me, and that he needs mine. So we try to ask each other for prayers throughout the day if we need it. I’ll send him a text if I’m having a rough day with the kids, and he’ll do the same from the hospital.
Communicate as much as possible
We had fabulous marriage prep while we were engaged, and it included a mentor couple that we met with a half a dozen times to talk about all sorts of difficult topics. They gave us the space and the vocabulary to build a strong foundation for our marriage, and the communication tools we gained through those sessions have saved us from many arguments and misunderstandings.
We don’t have a lot of time to talk these days, so when we do we try to make sure we’re hitting the big points. We are upfront and direct about our needs. One phrase that has really been helpful to us has been to use “__________ would really make me feel loved.”
Sometimes it’s “words of encouragement would really make me feel loved right now” or “having you help clean the kitchen would really make me feel loved right now” or “a twenty minute nap would really make me feel loved right now.” It lets the other know what our partner needs from us and gives us a quick way of knowing how to love them effectively. This is remarkably helpful when we have very little time together.
Please pray for us as we go forward on this journey. I don’t pretend that we have all the answers to how to make this whole “having a family during residency” thing work, but we are trying and striving and working for heaven.
If you’re feeling at all like your marriage needs a little help right now, or you’re not sure where to start, check out 40 Days of Loving Your Husband, a challenge of doing one small thing each day to show your spouse love and support. I love the simple acts of kindness, and the physical reminder of a jar of cards to pull from helps me to love Mark better. For this week only you can get 40 Days of Loving Your Husband as a part of the Catholic Mom Bundle, a collection of 24 resources for moms and by moms designed to help your family grow and learn together this Lent.
