We started this blog series Monday, talking about the mistakes that we allow to creep into our marriage. These are the mistakes that probably won’t cause divorce, but they will keep us from experiencing the marriage we long for and the marriage God has in mind for us. First, we talked about scorekeeping. Yesterday, we talked about sweating the small stuff. Today is part three.

The number one goal I had when Trisha and I got married almost 17 years ago, was to avoid conflict. Well, “have sex as often as possible” was actually number one; avoiding conflict by default was number two. In all seriousness, I didn’t see conflict as a good thing at all. When Trisha and I would get into arguments, I wouldn’t fight back, I would tell her that she was right and I was sorry.

Over the course of the first few years of our marriage, this desire to avoid conflict developed a pattern in our marriage relationship. I would think everything was okay in our marriage as long as we weren’t arguing, so I tried to keep the peace as much as possible. Trisha began to realize that the only way to truly get my attention was through an argument. So she would get angry and start a fight. I would respond by wanting it to end as quickly as possible and she would stay mad until I apologized. “I’m sorry” were the magic words in my mind. I said them a lot.

During one argument about nine years into our marriage we were pretty intense as I had learned to fight back at this point. I could tell that I was gaining no ground and I wanted to move on with my day. I simply said, “Why don’t we save a lot of time and energy here, and you just tell me what I need to apologize for, I’ll say, ‘I’m sorry’ and we can both move on.” It was a statement of deep intimacy and love…or not.

This was a mistake that was holding us back, because here is the deal: Saying you’re sorry and being sorry are two different things.

When you say you’re sorry, you do the minimum requirement to restore peace and make the conflict go away. When you say you’re sorry your behavior rarely changes for the long haul. When you simply say you’re sorry your intention is to end the argument, not resolve it.

Being sorry is completely different. Being sorry often doesn’t require an apology, because your actions demonstrate it. Being sorry brings heart change not behavior modification. Being sorry doesn’t just seek to end the argument, it tries to leverage the conflict to build intimacy.

Avoiding conflict will never improve your marriage. It is fools gold. Avoiding conflict allows you to believe everything is okay, when everything isn’t okay. It allows you to believe that saying, “I’m sorry” will fix everything, when sometimes, “I’m sorry” is the mistake that is holding you back.

Do you embrace or avoid conflict in relationships?

We started this blog series yesterday, talking about the mistakes that we allow to creep into our marriage. These are the mistakes that probably won’t cause divorce, but they will keep us from experiencing the marriage we long for and the marriage God has in mind for us. Yesterday, we talked about scorekeeping. We continue today with part two. 

On Wednesday, October 12, 2005 I woke up and didn’t know where I was. I looked around the room and nothing looked familiar. I was in a bed that wasn’t my own. I was in a house that didn’t belong to me. As I sat up in the bed, I could see all of my clothes stacked up against the wall. In that moment the reality of where I was came crashing down. I was separated from Trisha and our boys because of the destructive decisions I had made that resulted in my choice to have an affair.

In that moment, everything changed. I realized all of the time that I had wasted sweating the small stuff in our marriage.

It is a mistake that many of us make in our marriage relationship. We give level 10 responses to level 2 issues. We go off about dishes not being done. We fly off the handle about our spouse being 10 minutes late. We get so upset when our spouse forgets to pick something up from the grocery store. If we are honest, we waste a lot of time being angry about things that don’t really matter. We treat the person that means the most to us really bad over things that are pretty insignificant. We sweat the small stuff and it robs us of our ability to enjoy the big stuff.

Our separation put this is perspective for me. When I was living in someone else’s house; eating around someone else’s table; spending time with a family that wasn’t my own, I didn’t care about toys that weren’t picked up or dinner that wasn’t ready or laundry that wasn’t folded. More than anything else, I just wanted my family back.

Are you sweating the small stuff in your marriage? Are you so consumed with all your spouse doesn’t do right that you can’t even see all the things they do well? Do you give level 10 responses to level 2 issues? Are you wasting time focusing on things that really don’t matter?

You don’t have to end up separated from your spouse before you understand this mistake. Maybe the mistake that’s holding you back from the marriage you desire is a matter of focus and perspective. Change that, and you can change your marriage.

Do you struggle with sweating the small stuff in your  marriage?

We are going to launch a blog series this week called Mistakes that Hold You Back. Most of us that are married long to have a great marriage. Often times it isn’t the big, catastrophic things that hurt our marriage, it is the small mistakes we make without even noticing that keep us from having the marriage God has in mind. This week we are going to talk about four mistakes that most of us make in our marriage that if we recognize we can stop allowing them to hold us back from the amazing marriage we long for.

Our youngest son, Isaiah played Upward Basketball this past season. Upward is a Christ-centered athletic program that does a great job teaching the fundamentals of basketball while at the same time teaching the kids about God and sportsmanship.

To reinforce the value of sportsmanship, the league doesn’t keep score. So all during the game, no matter what time you look up at the scoreboard, the score is 0-0.

I decided to coach Isaiah’s team this year and this was our first year in the Upward program in Nashville. What I realized after our first game was that our team was good, like really good! We crushed the first team that we played…I mean, I assume we did, but I didn’t know the score.

At halftime of the second game, I was walking off the court to go talk to our kids at halftime and the opposing coach came up to me. He said, “Maybe you could take it easy on us in the second half. You guys are up 34-10.” I looked down and he had a notebook and had been keeping the score the whole time. After the game, we met the kids and parents in a room off of the gym to hand out snacks and recap the game. Every single kid knew the score, because their parents told them.

So while they weren’t keeping score…EVERYONE was keeping score.

The same thing happens in our marriages doesn’t it? You say you don’t keep score, but the truth is you know exactly how much you’re winning by. You know the score. You rehearse the score over and over in your mind. You know the last time they messed up. You remember the last time you won an argument. You know the chores they didn’t do. You know the last hateful thing they said. You know the week and month of the last time they promised to come home for dinner but were late. You say you aren’t keeping score, but in your heart, you know the score.

The problem with score keeping in marriage is that while it appears that one person wins and the other loses, the reality is that both people lose. The person that is keeping score is usually bitter and resentful and the person that constantly has the score thrown up in their face usually walks on eggshells and tries to avoid arguments.

Both spouses feel defeated and exhausted.

One of the biggest mistakes we made in our marriage was scorekeeping. The deceptive thing about scorekeeping is that it probably won’t cause divorce…but it will prevent you from having the marriage God has in mind and you long for.

What if there was no scoreboard? What if you truly started living as if 1 Corinthians 13:5 were true: Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Scorekeeping has no winner.

Is scorekeeping an issue in your marriage?

In 1998 Trisha and I moved from Saint Charles, Illinois to Kokomo, Indiana. This move, in my mind would be the move that made everything better. Our son Micah was two years old, Trisha was pregnant with Elijah, and our marriage of three years wasn’t going how either of us envisioned it would go. This move was going to be special because we were going to be moving from a $800 per month, 800 sq. ft apartment to a $525 per month, 1200 sq. ft house that we were buying! We were buying our first house.

In my mind, this would solve everything. Our house had a yard, it had neighbors, it had privacy, it had sidewalks, it had space. We were going to own it. I was convinced that this house would fix Trish. This house would solve our problems; this would would reduce the frequency of our arguments. This house would cover all of the things we disagreed about.

I soon came to realize that our first house didn’t fix it.

The truth is that we can never expect an external thing to fix internal problems. That just won’t happen.

So often when people are having marriage problems, they have this belief that if we just had this or if we just accomplished that or if we just got this or just moved there, then the problems in our relationship will go away or be solved. Our marriage will be better when:

• I get that promotion
• We get out of debt
• We move to a bigger house
• I finish my degree
• We make more money
• We move closer to “home”
• We have a baby

Babies are great. But a baby won’t fix it. A baby won’t fix the distance you feel. A baby won’t restore trust when trust has been broken. A baby won’t help you be more honest with each other. A baby won’t bring you closer spiritually. A baby won’t help you forgive. A baby won’t cause him to pursue you more. A baby won’t fix it.

We can’t count on something external, whatever that something is, to fix an internal problem.

There are two things that will fix what is wrong with your marriage.

• Pursuing God
• Pursuing your spouse

When you do those two things, you allow what is broken in your heart, in your relationship, in your soul to begin to find healing. You begin to move closer to God and closer to your spouse and in that process you begin to address the issues that you have rather than counting on a new house or a job promotion to cover those issues up.

A baby won’t fix it. But your pursuit of God and your spouse can.

For years Trisha and I had the same belief about one another that became a self-fulfilling prophesy and left both of us frustrated and defeated. My guess is that there are so many people that struggle with this same feeling every single day.

You say it under your breath. You scream it as you slam a door. You say it as you throw up your hands and walk away. This feeling makes its way to the surface in arguments. It creates a sense of resignation. It makes you feel like you fight about the same thing over and over and over again.

Here is the feeling that most husbands and wives live with every single day: No matter what I do, it is never good enough.

Ever felt that way?

-No matter how much money I make she’s never satisfied.

-No matter how nice our house is, its not big enough.

-No matter how often we have sex, its never often enough.

-No matter what I wear, it’s not good enough.

-No matter what chores I do, I never do them good enough.

-No matter what I make for dinner, it just not enough.

-No matter how much I give, I don’t give enough.

-No matter how much I listen, I never listen enough.

It is amazing how two people can live in the same house, commit their lives to one another and always feel inadequate. When what you give always comes up short, why give so much?

Maybe the feelings of defeat you feel are the same feelings your spouse is feeling. This weekend could be a turning point. You could go out this weekend and instead of complaining about all that your spouse isn’t, share with them all that they are. That could be a game changer…for you and for them.

Have a great weekend.

Trisha and I have been traveling a lot the past two months speaking at marriage events. We’ve been honored to see God work powerfully in the lives of so many couples. One thing has been consistent at every event we’ve been: a lot of marriages are struggling. I know there have been times, sometimes seasons of our marriage that it has been a flat out struggle.

Conversations are forced. Decisions are difficult. Synergy is missing. Arguments are frequent. Resentment is high. Intimacy is non-existent. Struggle moves from something we experience to something we learn to live with. Here are some reasons I’ve noticed over the past few months that marriages struggle:

1. Our commitment to change isn’t greater than our desire to change. 

Everyone wants to change. I have not met a person that didn’t indicate a desire to change. We all want to change. But when our commitment to change isn’t greater than our desire to change, we will stay the same. I want to lose weight. I’ve wanted to lose weight for five years. If losing weight was based on desire, I’d be at my high school weight…because I really, really want to. Losing weight is based on commitment, and my commitment hasn’t outweighed (pun intended) my desire, so my weight has gone up and down. If you want your marriage to change, you can’t just desire change, you have to be committed to it.

2. We want to be right more than we want to do what is right. 

Saturday night Trisha and I got into an argument about money. As we were arguing, my rationale and my position was clearly off base. I made no sense. But I was tired and I was not going to lose. My desire in that moment was to be right…I wasn’t backing down. So often in our marriage, we choose making our point or being right in an argument over doing what is right for our marriage: admitting being wrong; forgiving; asking for forgiveness. Our pride and our ego create more and more distance between us and our spouse. Maybe you are struggling because you always have to be right?

3.  When we are there, we aren’t really there. 

This one hurts as I type it. Maybe our marriage struggles because when we are with our spouse, we are really with our phone. Maybe our relationship with our kids is hurting right now because when we are home, we are really still at work. Being fully present when we have time with our family is the greatest gift we can give them. Turning off our phone in the evening. Eating dinner together. Going for a walk. Those are things that help when we are struggling.

4. We ask God to change our spouse more than we ask Him to change us. 

I know my marriage is struggling when I’m more concerned about what God needs to change in Trisha than I am in my own heart. When I begin to focus on all that is wrong with her; the things that get on my nerves; the things I wish God would change in her…I completely shut off the work that God longs to do in me. When I begin to pray for my Trisha and ask God to change me, there are times that He does change her. But He always changes my heart. He always answers that prayer. Maybe we are struggling in our marriage because we are really struggling in our relationship with God.

Struggle in any relationship is a given. Struggle doesn’t have be constant. God longs for you to have an incredible marriage. An incredible marriage isn’t something that we drift into, it is something we choose.

What would you add to this list?

About three months before the affair started, Trisha and I got into one of, if not the biggest arguments we’d ever had. Our disagreement started out small but continued to escalate and get louder and more mean as the night went on. I inherited a pretty volatile temper from my dad, so even though I don’t like conflict, my fuse was pretty short, especially when it came to Trish. I don’t remember what our argument was about, but I do remember how it ended. I said, “You are such a b*tch.”

She was done. I realized I had crossed a line. We went to our separate corners.

Later that night, I went to apologize. We were sitting in the hallway outside our bedroom. I said, “I want you to know I am really sorry. I’m sorry for yelling. I’m sorry for calling you names. I’m really sorry.” Trish said, “You are always sorry. You just never change.” I remember feeling so hopeless in that moment. That statement was so true. It was not only true about me, it was true about both of us. We were always sorry, but we never changed.

Unfortunately, it took the affair and our separation for us to move beyond being sorry and to move into being changed. One of our biggest areas of conflict has always centered around money. Trisha would go to Target and buy $40 worth of toiletries and I would go off about how much money she spent. We would get into an argument that would end the same way every argument would end…both of us feeling sorry but hopeless to change.

What I realized when we were separated is that change comes when I am sorry for more than just my behavior. I was always sorry for yelling. I was always sorry for cussing. I was always sorry for my short temper. I was always sorry for overreacting. It wasn’t until I was sorry for the condition of my heart that I was able to change. My issue wasn’t the $40 that Trish spent at Target…my issue is that I am a control freak and don’t like feeling out of control of our money. So it didn’t matter if it was $10 or $400 the argument and my reaction were always the same. Once I identified the core problem in my heart, I asked God to heal that part of me, I was able to change my reaction.

Maybe today you are in a place where you feel like you are always apologizing, but you are never changing. You’re temper is as bad today as it was four years ago. You have the same arguments today that you had when you first got married. You are sorry for going off on your kids. You are sorry for getting home late. You are truly sorry for screaming and yelling. You’re sorry…you just aren’t changing.

Can I encourage you today to look deeper. Look beyond your behavior; look beyond your reaction; look beyond your argument and look inside your heart. There is brokenness in you that is driving your behavior. That is what God longs to heal. That is what God longs to make new.

Your apology can lead to change. It won’t be overnight, but it will come.

We haven’t bought new furniture in 6 years. In fact, the very first room you enter in our house is our living room. There has been no furniture in that room for the entire year that we’ve lived here. We called it the “rug room”, because we have an area rug in the middle of it. About 7 months ago, we started saving for a new couch for our house. The plan was to move our existing couch into the rug room and buy a new couch for our family room. For the past 3 months Trisha has been watching ads and surfing the internet trying to find something that would fit our budget, our room and style.

Last week she found a couch that was on sale for $700. Boom! She drove to the store with measurements of our room, I transferred money out of savings. We bought the perfect couch with cash. It was beautiful. On Friday we brought the couch into the living room and started unpacking it. As we attached the legs to the bottom of the couch, I could tell by the look on Trisha’s face that she didn’t like it. It is a lot taller than our current couch. We put it into the only position that would fit in the room and it covered up our only window in the room. Trisha wasn’t happy and I started saying things like, “It may just take some getting used to.” That didn’t help.

After about 30 minutes, we decide to move our old couch back into the family room and put the new couch in the rug room. We slid the new couch up against the far wall of the rug room. There is a window that is right behind the couch. Trisha says, “Let me open this blind and get some light into the room.” As she pulls on the blind, the blind comes off the window, falls on to the couch and slices a gash into our 24 hour old, 7 month saved up for, too big for the room we bought it for, leather couch.

Trisha was devastated. I was in disbelief.

That was a moment we had experienced hundreds of times before in our marriage. The cause has been different, but the feelings were the same. What I typically do is try to control Trisha’s reaction in an effort to fix it or fix her. This almost always leads to an argument. For some reason this time was different. I sensed God say to me, “Don’t say a word. You can’t fix this.” So I didn’t.

I didn’t try to control her reaction.

I didn’t try to fix it.

I didn’t tell her how I think she should feel.

I just let it be.

I left to go pick up one of our kids from school, and when I got back the mood was different. It wasn’t perfect, but it was different. Trisha told me that she was so upset and so frustrated that all she felt like she could do was read Scripture. She went upstairs and spent 30 minutes alone with God. That choice didn’t heal the gash in our couch…it’s still there. It did realign her heart. It renewed her mind.

I wonder how many times I have robbed God of doing something in my wife or in my kid’s heart because I’ve tried to be god. I’ve tried to fix things; to make them go away; to heal wounds that I don’t have the capacity to heal? I wonder how many arguments we’ve had; how many hurt feelings we’ve caused because we don’t really care about the situation as much as we care about controlling the person’s reaction to it.

We think by controlling our spouse’s behavior we are changing their heart. Only God can do that.

Maybe today the best thing you can do for a relationship; your marriage; your kids is to simply allow God to be God. Giving up our need to control brings freedom to us and to the ones we are trying to manipulate.

Do you have control issues?

I met with a couple the other day that had lost almost all hope for their marriage. They love each other. They just don’t like each other. They don’t like being around one another. Why? Because all they do is fight.

Been.

There.

There isn’t a more miserable way to live than on egg-shells trying to avoid an argument. Trisha and I still have arguments. We still have conflict. One of the things we’ve learned to do is leverage conflict to draw us closer to one another rather than allowing conflict to put distance between us. Here are 4 questions I ask myself when we are in pretty big argument:

1. Do I want intimacy or do I want to be right?
Motives are everything. Have you ever been in an argument and you know you are wrong, but you have already argued your point so much, that there is no going back? Pride is the biggest obstacle to intimacy in our marriage. We need to ask this question honestly when we engage in conflict…Am I trying to grow closer to my spouse or am I trying to prove how right I am? That question will bring your motives to light.

2. Am I withholding truth about anything?
Have your feelings been hurt and you haven’t said anything? Did you have expectations that you never communicated, so they went unmet? Do you have a sin or a mistake that you are hiding behind your defensive attitude? You will never fully resolve conflict if there is withheld truth in your marriage.

3. Does my spouse just need some space?
Trisha and I react in opposite ways when we fight. I like to be all cuddly and affectionate and love it out. She doesn’t want to be hugged, touched or breathed on. If we try to make our spouse react or respond to conflict like we do, we will constantly be frustrated, and create more conflict. Sometimes, some space in conflict helps everyone see things more clearly.

4. Have I prayed about this?
This question should be the first question that I ask, but honestly, sometimes it doesn’t even make it on the list. I can’t imagine how many fights and arguments and harsh words I could have saved if I would have just prayed about what I was upset about or what we were not on the same page about. God’s desire for our marriage is oneness. When we seek Him, He has a way of restoring that oneness, even through conflict. Are you willing to pray about what you are so upset about? God has the power to change your spouse, you don’t.

What would you add or take away from this list?

On Saturday, our son had a basketball tournament most of the day. Trisha was able to go to the first game of the day, but I couldn’t make it. I showed up for his afternoon game and it was tense from the very beginning. I’ve been banned from “offering suggestions” from the sidelines. Trish put the shut down on that years ago.

It wasn’t difficult for Micah to know how I felt about how he was playing. I didn’t have to say a word…my face said it all. After the game, I told myself that I wasn’t going to say anything. That commitment lasted about five minutes.

I launched into the speech I had been writing since the first half. I shared with him all the different ways that he could improve and all the things he could have done differently. My words cut to his heart. He shut down. We walked to the car. I continued with my pep talk. Finally, Micah looked up at me and said, “You know, it doesn’t matter how good I play, you are always critical.”

In that moment, I realized just how much I had hurt him. My heart began to sink. But in my mind, my pride defended my actions. I began to justify the words I had said and the advice I had offered. I was trying to make him a better player. I was destroying him as a person, but I was making him a better player.

He and Trisha left and went to a graduation party and I left and went home. As I drove home, the pain of my words rushed into my heart. I began to text him an apology…he wasn’t returning my texts…so I texted Trisha to convey how sorry I was.

When I got home, I read this verse, as I prepared to speak at church the next day:

Matthew 5:23-24: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

What a hypocrite I am.

How many times have I tried to offer my worship to God, when I knew I had hurt someone? How many times have I offered God half-hearted worship because I haven’t owned the pain I’ve caused someone else?

I’m thankful Micah showed me grace and forgave me. I’m thankful God does as well.

Am I the only one that has trouble owning it?