Marriage

You can’t rest if you’re treading water. If you have become too tired in life or in your marriage, you might need to swim to shore. I like analogies. They’re fun to work with because they can teach an abstract idea through a concrete picture.

I sometimes use swimming as an analogy for how to develop a healthy relationship. Water isn’t a human’s natural habitat. We were born out of water and into the air. No one can last but a few minutes underwater without needing to replenish their air supply. No one can tread water forever.

Without Rest You Won’t Last Long

Swimming takes an enormous amount of energy. Relationships do too. No one will last long if they try to make it through life alone. We need other people in our lives; we especially need God.

Imagine you are swimming in an ocean with your spouse. You can’t touch the bottom. You can’t see the shore. It won’t take long for you to become too tired to remain afloat. All you can do is tread water.

If you become tired and start to go under, you would naturally reach out for something or someone to help you keep your head above water. If the person you are with is also tired, grabbing onto them probably won’t help much, at least not for very long. It’s possible it could even accelerate the problem.

A desperate person will attempt to cling to whatever is in from of them. When you cling to your spouse in a panic, you might end up pulling them under with you. Clinging to your spouse only creates a false sense of hope. If you’re both tired, you’re better off keeping your distance. Unfortunately, when you are caught up in the emotions of a relationship, it’s difficult to be aware of how dependent you are and the subsequent danger.

An Abundance Of Rest Can Keep You Strong

Thank God that we weren’t meant to experience life alone. An individual can have family and friends. But, more importantly, each of us can rely on God to keep us afloat. Each person in a marriage needs to learn how to swim independent of the other, but sustained by God at the same time. To continue the analogy, God would be like a large rock sticking up out of the ocean. If you become tired, you could take a break by resting on the rock, instead of attempting to rest on your spouse.

Psalm 62 doesn’t mention swimming, but it certainly points out that God is the only true place of rest and security:

Truly my soul finds rest in God;
my salvation comes from him.
Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Psalm 62:1-2 NIV

God rescues us from our failing self-effort. He is the only true place of rest, energy, and strength. Because everyone else is treading water too, there’s no guarantee they will be reliable. Only God the rock is resting on the ocean floor. He is the only safe place that guarantees you will never drown.

Psalm 62 ends by saying that God is powerful and kind. Cling hard to God whenever life circumstances toss you around like ocean waves. If a marriage is failing, the primary reason is usually because one or both people try to cling harder to their spouse (or someone other than their spouse) than they try to cling to God.

God means for husband and wife to cling to each other too. A lifeguard doesn’t spend all their time in the water. They keep watch over swimmers from the shore. You can be there for your spouse, at least in short bursts of energy, if you’ve had sufficient rest on the rock.

Finish reading Psalm 62.
Read more about finding rest.
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Trust is fragile because people can be fragile. Each of us is only as whole as the effort we’ve spent to heal from our emotional wounds.

When you act unreliably toward someone, you might be weakening an already wounded part of them. This makes repairing the relationship complicated. The process can be relatively easy if you already have goodwill built up in the relationship. If not, then the rebuilding can feel impossible. And sometimes, it might be.

Forgiveness can be easier than trust because forgiveness requires nothing further from the offender. You can forgive and move on without necessarily continuing the relationship. Trust, on the other hand, requires that both people coordinate a complex repair process.

Even so, since you can’t control how much effort the other person puts into the relationship, you are limited to what you can do. Here are 3 essential steps you can take to repair broken trust.

Repair Trust By Staying

If you are going to repair trust, you first need to decide that you are still committed. Consistency and patience build trust. Frequently changing your mind (being wishy-washy), a pattern of leaving and returning, and imposing time limits all hinder the rebuilding process.

Love always trusts. Love doesn’t give up. Love is patient. Trust comes easier for God because He doesn’t struggle with self-doubt when we betray Him with our sin. He’s with us for the long-haul. He knows how the story ends. However, you and I might struggle with self-doubt when someone betrays us.

When you want to repair trust with someone, adjust your expectations to allow as much time as it will take. Because you care about the other person, it shouldn’t make a difference how long they need before they can regain confidence in you again. Don’t attach strings to the time it takes. You likely don’t have the full picture of what other wounds are involved.

Repair Trust By Sharing

The bond of trust is formed by the glue of vulnerability. Honesty is inseparable from vulnerability. If you’re not being honest, you are keeping your guard up, so you can’t expect trust to stick.

When you are vulnerable, you are allowing yourself to be seen as you really are. No pretense. Vulnerability gives others a real reason to trust.

Before you can share yourself with someone else, you first need to know yourself. You can’t share what you don’t know. Invest time learning about yourself and learning to trust yourself.

What kind of relationship do you have with yourself? Whether you realize it or not, you do have a relationship with yourself. Are you kind and compassionate toward yourself? Are you self-sabotaging and self-condemning?

Are you reliable? Would you, trust you? Do you frequently betray yourself? It’s difficult to have a relationship with others if you hold onto self-doubt. Your lack of integrity won’t just affect others, it will affect you too.

Repair Trust By Serving

Being committed and vulnerable isn’t quite enough. At some point these fruitful actions need to ripen into direct service to the other person.

Jesus is committed to us. Jesus is vulnerable with us. We know this because He entered our world in the same bodily form as us and He came to serve not to be served (Matthew 20:28).

Jesus did not limit Himself to words alone but backed everything He said with actions that cannot be refuted. To regain trust, you must be worthy of trust–you must be trustworthy. This means your actions support your words.

Whether you’ve been betrayed, or you failed to keep your integrity, you now know what three ingredients make up the trust recipe. Are you allowing enough time? Are you using authentic ingredients? Are you willing to go beyond what you think is necessary in order to repair the relationship?

Are you interested in learning how to build trust with God?
Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay