Fight For It
Aug 28, 2022When our marriage melted down in 2005, Trisha and I thought that the things that we struggled with, the problems that we had and the issues we faced were unique to us. For the next year and a half, we spent a lot of time identifying our issues, talking about our problems and being honest and transparent about our struggles.
Over the course of the past three years, as we’ve talked to others, we’ve realized that the things that we deal with, everyone deals with. The problems we have, everyone has, or they lie about not having.
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend who was having some problems in his marriage. He began to walk me through their issues, and they weren’t unique or different or unsolvable. They were real and they were serious, but not exclusive to their relationship. At one point in our conversation, I said to my friend, “What you need to do is you need to fight for your marriage. You are more willing to fight for your music career than you are committed to fight for your marriage.” He said, “It’s easier to fight with her, than it is to fight for her.”
There is a relationship in your life right now that you need to fight for. Relationships don’t just happen…relationships drift. You have to fight for it. What I have noticed about life is that it is so much easier for us to fight for other things, which matter so much less:
- Fight for your career
- Fight for a bigger house or nicer car
- Fight for peoples’ approval
- Fight for your status
- Fight for a business deal
We get so consumed with life; we spend the best hours of our day fighting for things that in the end don’t matter. Somewhere along the way, the people that mean the most to us get the least amount of fight from us. We fight with them, but we stop fighting for them.
Your son needs you to fight for him. Your best friend needs you to fight for her. Your wife needs you to fight for her. Your boyfriend needs you to fight for him. Your mom needs you to fight for her.
If you want a great friendship, you have to fight for it. If you want an intimate marriage, you have to fight for it. If you want to know your son or your daughter and be known by them, you have to fight for it. If you want to have a close relationship with your sister like you used to have, you have to fight for it. If you want to rebuild your relationship with your dad, it won’t just “happen”; you have to fight for it.
