Story #29: “Mom’s Advice That Saved My Marriage”

I held on as long as I could in my marriage. But the day came when my strength was not enough and as soon as my husband, Bill, left for work, I packed my things, took our 14-month-old son and left home. That year was the only one when we lived in the same city with my parents. Obviously, being able to run away to Mom and Dad made my decision to leave Bill easier.

With a tearful, angry face, I went with my mother to the kitchen. She held the child and I, sobbing, justified my act. Mom poured me a cup of coffee and said that she and dad would help me. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that they were for me.

“But before you leave Bill, you have to do something,” Mom said. She laid my sleeping son down, took a sheet of paper and a pen and drew a vertical line in the center of the sheet. She asked me to write in the left column everything that Bill did that made it impossible to live with him.

I looked at the dividing line and thought that on the right, my mother would ask me to write down all the good qualities of Bill. I was sure that the list of negative qualities would still be longer, so I willingly undertook to fill in the left column. I spared no ink and paper. I was impatient to put on paper a disgusting portrait of my intolerable husband. The left column looked like this:

Never cleans up after himself.
Quiet (taciturn).
I am the last to know about all his plans and decisions.
Falls asleep during church services.
He blows his nose and burps right at the table.
Never buys me good gifts.
He dresses casually.
Stingy.
Lazy (does not help me around the house).

The list filled the entire page. I had more than enough proof that no woman could live with such a monster man.

With a stiff, self-satisfied smile, I asked:

“And now, I suppose you will ask me to write on the right side of the sheet the good qualities of Bill?”

“No,” she said, “I already know Bill’s good qualities. I just want for every line written on the left, you to write your response on the right. The way you act.”

This turned out to be a more brutal and difficult task than describing Bill’s good qualities. I remembered a few of Bill’s good qualities and I was quite able to describe them. But I never thought about myself. I knew that my mother would not leave me until I finished everything, so I began to write:

I was offended, screaming, angry, pouting.
I was ashamed to be near him.
I made a “martyr” out of myself, played on feelings and aroused pity for myself.
I wanted to be married to someone else.
I did not talk to him (I closed in on myself and punished him with silence).
I thought I was too good for him (I thought Bill was unworthy of me).

The list seemed endless. When I wrote the whole column, my mother took the paper from my hands and the scissors from the table. She cut my work in half along a vertical strip. She crumpled up the left column and threw it in the trash and handed the right column to me.

“Becky,” she said, “take this list home. Think about your actions today. Pray about it. Let the child stay with us today. If you sincerely do what I ask of you and still want to leave Bill, then Dad and I will do everything we can to help you.”

Naked truth

Leaving my things and my son, I returned home. I sat on the couch with my part of the sheet. It was hard to believe what my actions looked like without a balancing list of Bill’s annoying habits. The list looked terrible.

I saw a record of petty behavior, shameful practices and destructive reactions. I spent the next few hours asking God for forgiveness. I asked for strength, guidance and wisdom for the changes I needed to make. I continued to pray and realized what a laughing stock I was. It became difficult for me even to remember the sins of Bill that I described. How absurd they were. There was nothing immoral or terrible. My heart became so hard and blind that I stopped noticing that I had been blessed with a really good husband—not perfect, but good.

I remembered how five years ago, I swore an oath to Bill. I promised to love him in sickness and in health. Be with him in sorrow and in joy. I promised all this in the presence of God, my family and friends. But despite my sacred promise, I was ready to leave him this morning because of petty annoyances.

I jumped into the car and drove back to my parents. I couldn’t believe how good I felt, unlike my first visit to my mother. Now I felt peace, calmness and gratitude.

When I picked up my son, I was horrified that I had almost tragically changed his life. Because of my petty pickiness and hypersensitivity, I almost deprived him of the opportunity to spend time with a wonderful father every day. I quickly thanked my mom and stormed out the door to get home before Bill returned.

By the time he returned from work, I had already unpacked my things and was waiting for him.

A New Look

I would like to say that Bill has changed, but he didn’t. He kept doing all the things that embarrassed and annoyed me, making me explode and lose my temper. However, there have been changes in me. From that day on, I felt responsible not only for my actions, but also for how I reacted to Bill’s actions and attitudes.

In one of the points, I wrote: Bill sleeps in the church. As soon as he began to doze, I became unable to worship God and perceive His Word. So often I thought of my husband as an unspiritual brute who had no interest in preaching— but my father was the preacher! In church, I completely forgot that Bill could not stay awake for a long time in a sitting position. All I did was fixate on his disrespectful attitude to worship. He was dozing and I was fuming. I fidgeted on the bench, feeling insulted and humiliated. I wondered how I could marry a man who would shame me in front of the whole church. I was sure that he did not deserve a wife as pious as I.

However, after prayerful reflection, the veil fell from my eyes and I was able to see myself as I really was. I was ashamed of the fact that pride and arrogance poisoned my soul during the most precious time – the time of glorification and worship of God. In fact, the problem was not in my husband, but in me. With insight, changes came into my life. Now that Bill was once again taking a nap in church, I would take my eyes off Bill and myself and focus on God. I devoted myself entirely to prayer and thanksgiving. I didn’t care about what was going on around me. I knew that I was responsible only for my heart, so I directed all my strength and attention to drawing closer to the throne of grace. It is amazing that after I began to focus my attention on God and not Bill’s shortcomings, a change took place in my own soul. Anger, irritability and resentment were replaced by joy, peace and love.

Bill soon noticed the change in me. One day during lunch, he remarked: “I noticed you became more joyful in worship. That’s good, because I started to think that you don’t like the preacher.” Instinctively, I immediately wanted to tell him how many services he had ruined for me, but I simply accepted his words without a comment.

Rewritten List

Many times over the years I have rewritten my list. I kept asking God to forgive my selfishness, pride and give me wisdom.

Fifteen years later, at the age of 49, Bill was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was forced to leave his job. All household duties and the financial support of the family fell on my shoulders. Many days and nights became restless and anxious for us. My sons and I watched as Bill struggled desperately for his life. His optimism and endurance inspired us.

We held on with all our might to our faith that God had his life in His hands. For us it was comforting, because we were clearly aware of our own helplessness. We searched the Bible for answers to questions. We asked: “Why?” Our hearts were filled with either pain, despair or sadness. Despite the flurry of anxiety, we did not stop looking for God’s peace, which is beyond all understanding.

I regret that so often I lost my temper due to the fact that Bill’s condition took me out of my inner balance. In those days, I lacked patience, although I knew that Bill did nothing to complicate my life. Over time, I realized that it was my responsibility to respond to his actions with the love of God. I called out to God to love through me—because I was unable to love Bill the way God loved him.

Many times I thanked God for my mother, who was my spiritual guide. Surely, many times she wanted to chastise me or express her opinion about my bad behavior. Instead, however, she simply helped me discover the truth that saved the most precious thing for me – my marriage. If I hadn’t learned to respond like a Christian wife to Bill’s previous little problems, I wouldn’t have been able to properly deal with the big problems that came later.

My son once came home and asked: “Mom, what are we going to do if dad doesn’t remember us one day?” I replied, “We will remember him. We will remember the husband and father he was. We will remember everything he taught us and how much he loved us.”

After my son left, I smiled. I remembered everything that this man who loved his family and his God did for us. And many of these fond memories are precisely those annoying habits that I added to Bill’s list of negative qualities many years ago.

Becky Zerbe,
was married to Bill for 29 years.

Source: История №29: «Совет мамы, который спас мой брак» – Добрые истории на “Добро ЕСТЬ!” (dobro-est.com)