Marriage Is a Battlefield
Read the story first: Marriage Is a Battlefield.
Nugget of Wisdom
In this war, whoever wins the battle loses the ground.
SOP
This story shifts us into the marriage stories, and they are the reason the book exists. Sit facing each other. If comfortable, hold hands. Close your eyes and remove distractions. Think of the last time you dug a foxhole. Not the last fight. The last time you went quiet and started protecting yourself from the person across from you. What was the grenade? What was the armor? Share it with your partner, and keep it to your own foxhole, not theirs. Keep your voice low. Then come together as a group and talk about what you noticed, without naming names.
Questions
- What is your weapon, words or silence? Which one is your partner’s?
- Can either of you find the line you are now fighting across? Who drew it, and when?
- Life brings pressure: work, children, money, exhaustion, responsibilities. Which one dug the last foxhole in your house?
- As you listened, did you hear a soldier, or did you hear a wounded person? Tell them which.
- What would it cost you, right now, to climb out first?
Closing Reflection
Most of the time neither person in that field wants to win. They just cannot find a way to stop. I know that field. I dug in, and later I retreated, and both of those are foxholes. Marriage was never meant to be a battlefield. It was meant to be two people standing shoulder to shoulder facing the world. The lesson is simple, and it is not easy: climb out, walk across, remember why. If you are not sure how to pray about this, one line is enough. “Lord, let me be the one who climbs out first.”
Mission for the Week
Get two flags. Two handkerchiefs, two dish towels, two pieces of white paper, anything. Agree on where they live. The kitchen drawer, the nightstand. This week, the first time one of you feels the foxhole starting, before the grenade goes, put your flag on the table. No words needed. The flag means, “I am climbing out. Walk across.”
The other one’s job is to walk across. Not to win. Not to settle it. Just to stand shoulder to shoulder for one minute. Then talk.
You may only need it once this week. Most of you will use it more than that, and that is not a failure. It is the exercise working. If you have children in the house, they will ask what the towel on the table is for. Tell them. There is no better lesson they will get this year. Then, on a good day and not a bad one, tell each other why you stood beside this person in the first place. Say it out loud, all of it.
The flag is not the point. The point is learning that the first one out of the foxhole is not the one who lost.
Drafted for review — not yet approved by Ron.