How does marriage survive chronic, devastating problems? Sarah Kishpaugh has something to teach us.
On this blog, we tend to operate under the assumption that your marriage is mostly fine. Maybe not spectacular, but doing okay. We presume you read this blog because it makes you feel not-alone in the little niggling thoughts about your relationships, or because it holds you accountable to a higher standard, or because you want to take (hat tip to Jim Collins) your marriage from good to great. We make these assumptions because that’s where we are , in our marriage.
We’re lucky. We know that. Just scrolling through my (broad) friend list on Facebook, I can see couples that survived infidelity; that survived the death of a child, or a child’s chronic (and someday terminal) illness. I see couples that have conquered unemployment. That have faced the fact that they married impulsively, and have decided to make it work anyway. Hats off to you. 100 percent respect.
I am completely unqualified to offer marriage advice in general, but especially to people facing some of life’s more extreme circumstances. Perhaps that’s why I was so entranced by a recent New York Times article by Sarah Kishpaugh called Love, Light, Strength (and Glue).
Kishpaugh’s husband Miles was in his early 30s when a work accident left him in a coma for more than a month. He came home from the hospital looking mostly like his old self, but he wasn’t. Not really. Kishpaugh writes:
I knew that he felt like squashed garbage and that his brain was mush. He wandered from room to room with his head in his hands wondering what had hit him. He felt nauseated and slept most of the day.
When he told me he didn’t “feel love,” I tried to stay calm.
How does one “stay calm” in the midst of such circumstances? Love and commitment are the only explanations.
Kishpaugh and her husband weathered years of physical therapy and grand mal seizures and financial stress in the midst of the normal busy family lives we all experience. It took more than four years to find any sort of break through. But now, Kishpaugh writes:
I doubt I’ll ever say I’m grateful for the experience. And yet, because of it, I like myself better. When I finally broke through my wall of despair, I realized what I had gained: a sense of aliveness and appreciation that has opened me up and cracked me free.
We’ve been holding hands a lot lately, Miles and I. Before bed the other night, this man who once feared he could no longer feel love said: “I love you so much, Sarah. Now more than ever.”
If your life seems perfect, and untouchable, and illness or tragedy seem light years away, you should read this article and celebrate that this kind of love exists in the world. And if your life, and your marriage, are buffeted on every side, then read this article and believe in possibilities. I am humbled.
