When Waiting Seems Like Losing

The Humbling Process of Marriage Counselling

“What makes the dessert beautiful”, said the little Prince, “is somewhere it hides a well.”

The Little Prince

I think I’m the most impatient person I know. It’s my one vice which elicits frequent reactive cries for help and deep breathing. God help us both if you’re a learner driver on their first expedition with me stuck behind. Yet this is my most sanctifying life scenario I’m sure!

This is why I’ve found uncomfortable relationship situations so difficult in the past (and still do). I just want things to be nice and right, and for everyone to get along and be happy.

Patience is uncomfortable. Exercising patience challenges my pride, my need to control, my rights, my wants, my entitlement. It’s very humbling.

So when people change and therefore relationship dynamics, I get squirmy. Change is natural, it’s normal. We grow as individuals. We’re not robots with a fixed avatar. We’re fearfully and wonderfully made, complex, beautiful, fickle, but we have the gift of growth. This is why I’m finding marriage counselling so very stretching. We may be one flesh but we’re not one person. I know we need this, I know it’s good, but it feels like death. The truth is, it is a death of sorts. You’re letting go of an old version of yourself individually and as a couple. The flip side is you’re entering what Anne Morrow Lindbergh describes as ‘the second adolescence’ of your marriage. In between these two realities lies some discomfort and a deep need for patience.