On Listening In Marriage

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

—James 1:19–20

Aaron and I had a really hard season. We said terrible things to one another, gripped tightly to unrealistic expectations, and failed to forgive, even when we promised we would. But we’re inching our way back, and I’m so grateful. We began listening to each other at what seemed like the last possible moment. We were heading for a crash and we both knew it, and turned to one another in the nick of time—Okay, tell me again. Really, tell me.

In our best, gutsiest, most honest moments of the last year, we said things to each other that we never imagined saying out loud to anyone, things we were afraid of, things we couldn’t bear. And those ugly honest confessions bloomed into a new intimacy, a new protectiveness, a new promise to walk together, and better than before.

Marriage is more than a contract. It’s a messy, beautiful, living, breathing thing, full of dreams and history and patterns and memories. You can make your point all day long, and you can even be right about your point, but if you stop listening, if you stop really hearing and seeing that other person, something fundamental will be lost.