Real Life Marriage: When Your Soul is Laid Bare

Marriage is beautiful, but it can also bring out the ugly. This last half a year or so has really done that for me. It’s brought out the selfishness, bitterness, resentment, perfectionism, unworthiness, and so many things I thought I laid to rest, or at least shoved to the back of the closet of my life years ago. I don’t know if it’s been COVID or work or life or what, but they’ve all come back out with a vengeance. My husband has been oh, so patient. It’s not like I had any place to hide. I did try to hide in a closet once. No joke. It didn’t work. He found me.

There’s something to be said about being found and known in marriage. It’s not often pleasant. Most of the time, it’s painful. At the same time, though, it’s reassuring: to have someone who knows it all and stocks by you, even when you crawl into a closet.

I’ve struggled this year with how much to share with my husband. I don’t want to be the spouse Gary Chapman writes about that spills sewer everywhere. I want to love my husband well. I want to show him that I appreciate him. I want him to be happy. I want to be able to make him happy. But sometimes in spite of my love and good intent, my pain and angst and even depression all comes out.

Rebekah Lyons writes about the power of vulnerability in marriage in her book, Rhythms of Renewal. She writes about how her husband points her back to God and his grace. My husband does the same. Whenever I have meltdowns, he just holds me and tells me that he loves me anyway. He encourages me to talk breaks and practice self-care. He tells me that I am enough.

It’s hard for me to always buy into what my husband believes about me. He asks me when I will, and then tells me I just have to trust him. And despite it all, I do. And somehow I grab onto his strength and allow it to cover me even as my own soul is weak.

It’s no fun having my soul laid raw and bare, but it’s united my husband and I in ways I never dreamed possible. That’s the power of covenantal love, the power of marriage. I can’t imagine facing my demons or doing this soul work any other way. Without the power of God and the love of my husband who images God, it just wouldn’t be possible.