I already knew I had a stellar soldier for a husband- but right then I kinda hated it.  Perhaps you have one too.  The kind of spouse that strives to be his best at everything and sets his sights on maxing out that PT test every time.

Before kids and the military, my husband and I used to go for long runs and chat about our life.  It was quality time that usually ended with ice cream and a favorite show (oh how we miss our twenties). Once the military entered the story, early morning PT became his primary time to workout and I fit in exercise around everyone else’s schedule.

On this particular day we decided to go for a long overdue run together.  As I laced up my shoes, I was about to remark on how nice it was going to be to run together when he put in his earphones and said, “but I won’t be talking, I’m working on increasing my pace”.

“That’s okay,”  I said- more to prepare myself for the pain that was likely to follow, “I’ll do the same.”

We started off together, listening to our independent playlists. When we faced hills, he attacked them with purpose as I managed to keep up.  When I was forced to stop and fix my hair, he jogged in place and focused on his watch.  Finally, as we approached the last mile,  my stellar soldier surged ahead- or maybe I started to lag behind.  My legs begged for me to quit despite what my heart wanted.  I started to accept my fate as officially “smoked”- when I had a thought.

Without realizing it, we were both shaped in two entirely different ways by the military lifestyle.

The military has a way of creating fantastic leaders that translate into fantastic role models at home.  Mine appreciates organization, routine, and logical ways of finding solutions to everyday problems.  He teaches our kids the values he loves about the military including work ethic, respect for authority, loyalty, integrity, and others.

The military had done something entirely different for me.

As difficult as it has been to constantly maneuver around his schedule, I have learned to embrace the role that creativity plays in chaos. I have to fit in my own self care- not because someone tells me to, but because it keeps me from losing my mind.  Relationships in the home are more likely to come before order, and definitely more important than perfection.  Leadership as a military spouse has become more about adaptability and a strong “whatever” mindset.

I watched from a distance as he finished his run and then checked his watch.  Shame washed over me as I thought about how frustrating it is to be married to someone who folds laundry better than me, often thinks to start the crock pot before I do, and was in better physical shape than I was. To sum it up in view of the finish line, the military had made a stellar leader out of him and leisurely pace keeper out of me.

Unless you are in a marriage where you or your spouse quit along time ago, almost no one likes to be left behind.  In fact, if you’ve been married for any length of time, you have likely experienced surging ahead or lagging behind your spouse in one area or another.  What you do when you find yourself there, though, reveals the state of your true character.

“Do I finish strong or just slow down in defeat?”

As much as we try to experience life at the same pace, marriage will often ebb and flow throughout the marathon. The military lifestyle almost guarantees we will have different ways of approaching it.  Each spouse brings strengths, each spouse brings weaknesses to manage.  Both have something to offer when the moment is right.  From a strengths perspective, my stellar husband has expressed the same feelings I was having on days where no amount of logic or order fits into the chaos of life.  Sometimes, being a leisurely pace setter pays off.

One thing was clear, his pace challenged me to dig deep and find something new within myself or I would fall behind. The military, despite our different experiences, has taught us separately that the kind of battle buddy we are for each other is a matter of life or death for marriage.  As a military spouse, I’ve learned that I don’t quit.  I can’t quit a deployment. I can’t quit on a bad day.  I’ve learned to finish strong even if it’s looks or feels different than I originally pictured.  So I did as he waited for me.

It’s not easy to be married to someone who has thrived in the military.  He has been a perfect fit for this job from the beginning.  But it’s only difficult because he expects so much of himself and in turn I must do the same.

A military couple sat on opposite ends of my couch.  I asked what was going on and how I could help.  The wife said she felt weary from the responsibilities at home and felt taken for granted.  He snapped back at her about how hard he had been working, providing for her, and that she was ungrateful.  I asked (for her benefit) if he loved her.  “Of course I do!” he said, “I just feel she has to have me roll it in sugar for her to hear it.”  I asked her if she was grateful for what he had provided (for his benefit), “Of course I am!” she said, “but it doesn’t make me feel loved.”  Deep down, he loved her but was too angry to try harder.  Deep down, she was grateful, but was too hurt to show it. Both had a valid need for their spouse to make changes.

Often I see a relationship where there is love, but the unmet needs are so great they only experience tension. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how this couple parallels with our relationship as spouses with the Military.  “Needing” often gets a bad reputation in our culture, leaving families feeling angry with unmet needs on the inside when told they should be grateful for benefits.  Military leadership acknowledges the need for strong families to build a strong military force, but struggles when families don’t trust them.  I’ve heard spouses say that “needing” their service member too much is seen as weakness.  The biggest one is that if I don’t “need him” then I will survive if something ever happened to him. In reality, the Military and families need each other just as much as a couple does, and there is nothing wrong with that need.

A thriving relationship must involve some level of need, just as fire needs oxygen to create warmth. Each of us needs something on the outside to be fulfilled- water, food, shelter, sex, human connection, etc. Neediness, on the other hand, is when we begin to feel entitled to having our needs met and in turn begin to need more to remain “happy”.  Abandoning their expressed need was not the answer for the couple in my office, it was seeing the need of the other first.  It was just as important for him to “roll his words in sugar” as it was for her to express her gratitude.  It is just as important for Military leadership to find new ways to support families as it is for us to remain trusting and positive of their efforts. We can do all of this while still asking for change.

My husband and I often say in conflict, “I am for us, not against us.”  How would the tone of your marriage change if you began to meet the needs of your spouse first?  How could our relationship with leaders change if we say, “We are for us, not against us?”

Sometimes it feels like fear and anxiety go hand in hand with the life of a military spouse.  No matter what branch your family serves in, it seems that worry sails the ship when we are faced with so many unknowns. “How will my kids handle the transition?” “Where will we live next?” “When will he get called away?” “Will I be able to handle it?” “How can my marriages stay strong through this?”

Fear and I have a love-hate relationship.  On one hand, it has a fascinating way of motivating me when there is a real cause for concern.  Like the time I knew my son was about to fall down the stairs and I was there just in time (I love having a mom’s sixth sense!). Other times it serves as a real and present driving force of conviction that must be there to promote change in our life.  As much as I hate being wrong, when my husband points out something that must change in me, fear of real and possible consequences motivates me to do something new. My deep appreciation for him and desire to have a stronger marriage steers me towards the humility I need to begin the hard work.

Other times, fear can get out of control.  Left to feed on our insecurities and old wounds, fear can grow dangerously like a cancer- spreading throughout our relationships and robbing us of joy and intimacy.  Without exercising self-control of our thoughts and feelings, fear can cripple our ability to stay connected and intimate with our spouse.  When he communicates hurt, it is my fear of being wrong or misunderstood that temps me to selfishly choose protecting myself over addressing the hurt he needs me to heal.  I fool myself into thinking that control over my surroundings (and my marriage) will somehow manage my fear of so many unknowns (I can’t control the military, but I can control everything else). In reality, it can become a destructive force that only causes more problems for me to address.

Courage appears to be the antidote for fear.  When there is something to protect- it is my courage that says what I desire to protect is more important than my fear.  But to have the courage to choose my spouse over my own selfishness is the ministry of marriage.  By choosing selflessness when I have the opportunity to choose me, I in essence choose us.

What about you?  How do you handle fear and anxiety in your life?  How have you seen selflessness and self-control of your thoughts and feelings make a difference in your connection with your spouse?  What can you do today to find freedom from misdirected fear in your life?

It was two days before our first deployment and the anticipation was nauseating.  It was our last chance for a date before he headed off to Afghanistan.  There were so many unknowns, so many emotions and not enough words to convey them all.  We had no idea what that deployment was going to do to us, but we made a promise that has shifted our marriage ever since-  “Thrive, don’t survive.”  In that little booth, we verbalized individual and couple goals we would work on while we were apart.  “By the end of this year, we will be better than we started,” we promised.  We could not have known the stress we were going to face in the years to come, but that promise continues to shape how we do life together.

Military life can often put you in survival mode before you know it.  As I sit in a hotel room waiting for housing, it has taken everything in me to not just survive the last two weeks and it will be months before we are fully settled.  Constant change, or the anticipation of it, has a way of making a person feel crazy.  All the personalities in your family can leave you wondering if the moments of joy will ever catch up to the stress.  Add deployment, reintegration, relocation, drills, and other stressors to the mix and it is a recipe for marital destruction.

Choosing to be proactive instead of reactive is one of the most powerful tools you have in your pocket.  It can change your marriage, parenting, determine your path to reach goals, and prevent apologies later.  It is simply taking a breath, a pause, to remember that while there are many things over which you do not have control, you do have control of yourself.  7 Habits of Highly Effective People has one of my favorites metaphors to explain what it means to be proactive. In one hand, shake a water bottle and in the other shake an unopened Coke bottle. During stress, if we react without pausing, we will explode (or implode) like opening the shaken Coke bottle. Imploding is equally destructive.  It is a quiet internal explosion in the form of depression and/or anxiety.  Personally, I would rather “be” the water bottle.  Choose to be someone who not only remains calm during an escalating argument with your spouse, but models mature, adult self-control.  When you feel your patience wearing thin with your child be proactive…take a breath, stop, and think about who has ability to handle the moment.

Thriving in the chaos of constant change demands that we not wait until we are in the midst of stress to become proactive.  We must proactively set goals and put self-care options in place before the day starts.  For me, getting up early and having a moment of quiet makes a huge difference.  This can also involve seasonal goals where you read and discuss a book with your spouse, start a fitness goal, or begin counseling before life feels unmanageable.  This simple concept, can result in a better you when the chaos subsides.

Thrive, don’t just survive- it’s your choice.

I can admit that fear holds a special place in my life, but not because I want it there.  In a moment’s notice, fear can take over an innocent conversation with my husband and turn it into a battleground. We have a strange relationship, fear and I.  And my guess is that you do too. Fear is one of the biggest threats to intimacy in marriage.  I have seen fear convince men and women that vulnerability is weakness and weakness equals failure.  Finding its beginning in our childhood, imagination, or experiences we have witnessed, fear brings with it the intense desire to protect self.  With real danger, this is incredibly helpful.  To choose “me” by running away or fighting off the threat in front of me, I survive and go on to live another day. The physical pain heals and scars become a sign of courage and strength.  Emotional pain is an altogether different experience.  The pain of rejection, hurt, and betrayal does not heal as quickly.  In fact, as soon as we think it is resolved, it resurfaces to tell us the risk is not worth the pain. Yet it is rarely the event that we fear after we have been emotionally wounded, it is the intensity of emotional pain. Paulo Coelho said, “the fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself.”

Marriage is hard because it requires a daily commitment towards selflessness rather than selfishness.  Love by its very definition involves sacrificing our own wants and desires for someone else’s needs, and marriage is exactly that.  When you talk with service members who courageously risked their life for their fellow soldier, you often hear “because I know he would have done the same for me.”  Was fear there?  Of course.  To love someone does not mean that there is no fear. In fact, Ambrose Redmoon said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

Fear is a self-protective choice just as trust (it’s opposite) is also a choice.  Fear tempts us away from intimacy with our spouse whispering “He’s only going to reject you”, “She will think you are weak” or “he won’t understand.” It will tempt you to choose you every time- protect yourself, the pain of getting hurt will be too unbearable.   Fear weakens bonds, introduces doubt, and plants seeds of discontentment.

I heard once that marriage is not meant to make you happy, it is meant to make you better and I believe that is true.  It is the daily choice to courageously serve your spouse with trust, forgiveness and grace while learning how to be vulnerable.  When fear threatens the security of marital intimacy, choosing your spouse by maturely meeting their needs is communicating that they are more important than whatever it is that you are afraid of.  It is saying, instead of protecting me right now by fighting, withdrawing, or doing nothing, I choose you.  I choose to believe that you are not out to hurt me, destroy me, or even make my life difficult.  And by choosing you, I in essence, choose us.

It’s conscious uncoupling that prevents families from being broken by divorce and creates expanded families that continue to function in a healthy way outside of traditional marriage.

Before we unpack Conscious Uncoupling and how it effects our view of marriage and divorce, we have to look at our perspective.  You are likely in one of more of these scenarios, (but not limited to):
1. You are a child of divorce in some stage of healing and processing.
2.  You are considering marriage and asking yourself What is marriage?
3.  You are married and both of your are working damn hard to keep divorce out of the equation.
4.  You are married and considering divorce yourself.
5.  You are married and your spouse is considering divorce.
6.  You are divorced and your spouse quit on you and know that wounds never heal fully.
7.  You are divorced because you quit and you may or may not see it that way.
8.  You are in an emotional, physical, and/or sexually abusive relationship and divorce is a necessary topic.

Depending on which perspective you have when reading about Conscious Uncoupling, you will have a different response.  Let’s be clear from the beginning.  If you are are #8, Insightc2 (Matt and I) will always encourage safety for you and any children involved first, and divorce may be part of that process.  If you are considering divorce, we also encourage separation before an individual follows through a divorce to gain wise counsel and support before a divorce is finalized.  Matt and I together stand for marriage, the covenant, lifelong relationship with one person.  It is not easy.  In fact, it is the hardest damn thing we will ever do.  But it is intended to be the most rewarding, more than any career or amount of success we will ever accumulate.

If you are not #3, it is hard to understand the visceral reaction this group of couples felt when Conscious Uncoupling came out.  As a couple who is #3 and mental health professionals that work with all of the above perspectives on a daily basis, it is important for me (Corie) to make a statement about this theory/movement and the harm it can do to every one of those perspectives (1-8).

This is not about the details in a celebrity’s life and why they are choosing to divorce, but it is about the platform they have to influence others.

What is “Conscious Uncoupling”?

Here is a link to read the full article:
http://www.goop.com/journal/be/conscious-uncoupling

Dr. Habib Sadeghi & Dr. Sherry Sami are the ones who have coined term “Conscious Uncoupling” and are trying to suggest that we need to redefine divorce.  They claim that divorce is not the problem, it is more likely the fact that we are living longer lives and being with one person is just not realistic.  They are encouraging three things.
1.  Lifelong marriage is no longer something that is realistic since we are living longer than our ancestors and we are biologically/psychologically more likely to spend our lives in several long term relationships, therefore the belief structure/expectation/measuring stick of marriage should be lowered to what is easier or what commonly seen in America.
2.  In order to make divorce less painful, we must shift our beliefs about divorce as well.  Divorce brings with it shame, feelings of failure, and deep hurt, causing us to lashing out in resentment and anger.  Feeling like a personal failure can be prevented if we resolve that the pressure of “till death do us part” in our vows was too high of a standard to commit to.
3.  By setting boundaries with people and taking ownership for our own internal reactions, we can be vulnerable and yet unaffected by other people’s behavior.  By realizing our conflict with the other person is triggering our own issues, we can resist the urge to add fuel to the fire and instead regulate our own behavior.

I don’t completely disagree with Sami and Sadeghi.  The one thing I appreciate is their attempt to encourage healthy boundaries.  Nearly every session I have with clients involve boundaries and toxic people.  On some level we must learn to take care of our own internal response to people (i.e. you can’t make me angry, I choose to be angry).  I agree that there are times that we must find the strength within ourselves to see our own worth and respond with firm boundaries when someone else is destroying our relationship with selfishness.  In fact, if you are #1 and a child of divorce, you likely loved this theory because it tends to your pain of having parents who made a decision that changed your life and you either are thankful that they successfully co-parented, or read this and wish this theory could have helped. You (and I) are hearing it from a child’s perspective in light of our own pain of people that chose to hurt each other without regard to others around them.  Yet, redefining marriage doesn’t quite sit right either because you will always, deep down inside as a child, wish that your parent(s) would have chosen selflessness and achieved the “crown” of lifelong partnership that is now the “exception to the rule.”

If you are #8, in an abusive relationship, then this doesn’t work either.  Although setting boundaries is necessary (and extremely difficult) and finding the inner strength is necessary to set them, uncoupling is not an option.  There are and should be deep consequences to the offending spouse, possibly including having little to no choice on your role in parenting and access to the spouse you hurt.  In these scenarios, taking internal ownership of what is happening in conflict is the opposite direction we would want.  The other person is selfishly destroying you, and that is not your fault, nor does it have to do entirely with your past.  It has everything to do with your spouse selfishly harming those around him/her.  Marriage is not the problem, divorce is not the problem- you made a bad choice in who you chose to marry and they are just a bad person.  Period.

If you are married (#3, 4, or 5), you know that marriage is the hardest thing ever.  There are ups and downs and during your worst moments, it takes maturity and selflessness to not throw the “d” word out. Conscious Uncoupling is offensive because you participated in your vows on your wedding day, and they meant something to you.  Even more, you hope they meant something to your spouse.  You have likely learned that original vows are a one time commitment in front of others who witness them but they are a daily choice as well.  Spouses who are both fighting for their marriage (or those who are trying but their spouses aren’t) see Uncoupling as a cop out for something they fight for daily.  The standard of “till death do us part” is sometimes the only thing that gets them through the worst moments where they can say on the other side, I’m so glad I held on to that commitment.  Uncoupling only gives a spouse the “permission” to change their mind and give up, saying Oh well, it was never meant to be (especially when your spouse is not doing the work already).  It is weak, selfish, and destructive to whose heart you promised to standby “in sickness and in health, for rich or poor”.  I say, if you said “I do” you are accountable to that and there are consequences when you don’t.  Some of those include the generation beneath you that you committed to providing stability for at conception whether or not you feel like it.

Speaking of the next generation, if you are #2 and considering marriage, this definitely affects you.  Hitching to this bandwagon, especially because some celebrity endorsed it, is ignorant, naive, and headed towards a disaster fueled by entitlement.  Do your future spouse a favor and change your vows to “I might”, then they have the opportunity to rethink whether you are seriously into this and they can back out before having their heart broken by someone who is only half in, half meaning only considering his/herself.

Marriage is designed to have friction.  Under the covenant relationship of “lifelong commitment” there will be intense differences.  It is the friction that causes movement towards betterment.  Two people should not even enter into it unless they have proven as much as possible their ability to receive accountability and actually make changes, rather then just think on potential. They also need to show they have the guts to hold you accountable when there is something your need to change.  In other words, marriage takes confidence, humility, and a willingness to improve- even when you can’t see it as clearly as your spouse can.    That’s why having a God in the mix of all of this is crucial.  We are all human and flawed and it takes a God who is not, paired with the wisdom of community around you who also believe in this God to help you see when to be confident, when to humble yourself, and when to do the hard work.

Finally, lets talk about #6 and 7. If you are divorced and someone left you (#6), there is no amount of your ex finally deciding to be an adult that will make the pain of that marriage failing go away.  Although self regulating and boundaries can lead to healthier communication post divorce, reframing marriage and divorce is not going to take the sting away.  It is jsut as difficult to see a family split up because one or both were acting like children only to act like adults once the family is torn.  For some people, suddenly choosing to Consciously Uncouple is a slap in the face of those who were hurt.  It is saying, I will now get along with you for the sake of others by managing my own feelings, now that less is required of you.  I’m not saying you still shouldn’t try, maturity is always best, but you will still not be able to escape accountability.

If you are #7 and you initiated the divorce, you may have ended it because you tried and the other didn’t and you had to set a boundary. In that case, you are really #6 and have every right to still be processing your feelings for having to make that decision.  I’m more so talking to the ones who emotionally left their spouse even before the marriage.  The ones who just gave up, had affairs and left, and are still experiencing the consequences of their actions.  For you, Conscious Uncoupling validates what you’ve been needing to hear the whole time.  That marriage is too hard and it is completely acceptable to end things early.  That divorce shouldn’t have feelings of guilt attached to it if we just say that this is the norm in America.  To you (although you won’t hear it) I will say that you are fooling yourself, and so are Sami and Sadeghi.
There is no escaping guilt, unless you are a sociopath and maybe that is who Conscious Uncoupling is for.  Guilt is the productive feeling in our gut that says we are or have done something wrong.  It is what moves us to change our selves and be better.  Without it, a marriage would never survive.  Get rid of that, and there will be no marriage at all.  If someone hurt you by leaving when you were still trying, then guilt is not the usual feeling- it is the pain of rejection mixed with relief- neither of which I would minimize by saying marriage was just too hard.  For them, it was torture.

So I contend, marriage is not the problem, divorce is not the problem, selfishness is always the problem. It is the root of sin and is what makes us human, which is why we need a God.

When Matt and I talk about some of the differences between men and women, we often refer to the computer screen as a perfect metaphor.  Of course, we are not trying to label people or say that everyone is the same, but it does seem pretty consistent that men and women have different ways of thinking.

Matt and I work from two separate computers.  I think he is extremely thankful that, other than the satisfaction that I have finally joined the Apple community.  When I go to his computer and log in, I see his nicely organized desktop, with perhaps one window open that he failed to closeout before he hurriedly ran out the door. But when he opens mine, I generally hear something like “Have mercy, what in the world could you possibly be working on with all of this happening!”  I usually have about four internet windows running, three projects minimized, and several things saved to my desktop waiting in line.  It usually looks something like this- this is my current screen shot:

 My current window is this article I am writing, while another internet window is searching for business plan templates and Facebook is available for quick reference. Nevermind focusing on one thing, I have my Wunderlist behind my internet window waiting for more tasks to add to my to-do list and another article off to the right.  Don’t forget the budget at the bottom of the screen that may need updating at any moment.   I can see why this drives Matt literally mad…

Thus, our saying that men and women think like two different computer screens.  Women have this amazing ability to multitask.  We can be working on one project, only to have it remind us of something else we wanted to do, which reminds us of the room we meant to decorate (open Pinterest) which reminds us of the budget that we open up, reminding us to book the event that is coming up in the Calendar, and then the coupons that need to be saved and printed out.  I mean, why close anything when I can load something else while I wait? Matt often jokes with me that I probably contribute to the internet slowing down at night more than the online gamers do. Very funny… all those open windows are serious Mister….

Women can have multiple “windows” going on and still function in the here and now.  Of course our super power diminishes the more windows we have open.  We become more and more consumed by what is happening in our brain.  For example, I can be thinking of the kids playing outside while I am following directions on a recipe for dinner thinking that I will check on them in 2 minutes.  In the meantime, I may minimize that “screen” while I remember to water the plants on the patio, then remind myself about the kids in 1.5 minutes, then turn to think about what we will have for dessert while I am writing down what we need from the store, which reminds me to call my mom, leaving me 1 minute to say hello before I go outside to check on the kids, right when it is time for me to add the next ingredient.

Of course, that also leaves plenty of room for us to forget something important, like the kids, an ingredient, or worse- dinner burning.  We may think everyone can think that way- but I assure you, men do not.  Most men’s minds compartmentalize topics, similar to a command prompt screen or train car.  One thought may lead to another and then to another- drawing a final conclusion.  It also gives them the ability to “put a thought away” (especially if it is a troubling thought they don’t want to affect them now) and come back to it later… or not.  How this plays out in the man’s mind is another topic, but for today we need to focus on what this “multi-tasking superpower” can mean in our relationships.  Although it is incredibly useful- it can also damage our relationships if we are not careful to manage it.

One is that we become forgetful and consumed.  Men often say they feel like their wife can think of everyone else, but they feel forgotten by the end of the night.  Ladies, it is important to have a “window” open for our marriage.  We need to be thinking about how they fit into our crazy thought life.  What happens when it is not the dinner that is burning, but we have set aside improving our relationship. Marriages often suffer when the tasks of life and children take our energy and we save the marriage for later.  The 30’s are a prime time for this (believe me I know!)

Another is the annoying pop up.  I hate the ones that you have to chase around to close out.  We get those too.  You know those feelings that we thought we resolved 5 yrs ago?  Our husband may do the smallest thing that causes that feeling to re-surface.  Sometimes it is another layer to look at and process, but a lot of times its an annoying feeling that we closed out long ago.  Hear me on this one, friends.  It is our responsbiity to close out those windows.  Just because old feelings that have been resolved “pop up” does not mean we have to “click” on them and open the “window”.  Old wounds that have scarred over through forgiveness are often resolved, but we must have the self-control to “close it out” before it becomes destructive- or worse- is used as a weapon when we said we forgave.

Lastly, if you feel overwhelmed by too many responsibilities and “windows”- communicate to your husband about ways he can help close out some of those windows- doing the grocery shopping, the laundry, or the dishes, etc.  Let go of the control that only you can do it and let him help you.  Let him know that by doing this, you are able to make more room for him in your thought life.   *Hint* Tell him it’s a turn on, leaving you more time during your day to think about him coming home.  Most men want to be thought of and needed more, they just need to know what they can do to make it possible.  Believe me, you both will thank me for it later!