“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1)

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the preacher proclaims, and the joyous celebration begins. At this momentous moment, God blesses our marriage with the wonder of oneness. However, as time goes by, the troubled waters of our life begin to emotionally separate us from our spouse, and we feel ship wrecked on an island of loneliness and despair, miles from the oneness with our mate we once enjoyed.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21)
Our lack of intimacy may be a result of overall circumstances that we have sinfully let corrupt our lives: exhaustion, preoccupation, or harboring negative thoughts towards our spouse.

Exhaustion - “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

First, we must work on not allowing exhaustion to wedge distance between us and our mate. God’s Word instructs us to treat our body as a temple and for good reason. When our body is not rested and healthy, we become totally absorbed with our physical situation. Therefore, we cannot focus on God, our mate, or family. All of us have a day once in a while, for whatever reason, that we are exhausted. However, when exhaustion becomes a daily mode, we are hurting our marriage.

Here are some suggestions for combating exhaustion:

• Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep at night.
• Exercise during the day or at night with your mate (3 days a week).
• Have a weekend. It is important to have a day of rest and recreation.
• Don’t make a habit of bringing work home.
• Choose a reasonable time to leave work and stick to it.
• If you work at home and take care of the children, carve out time for yourself while they are at school, during naptime or trade out childcare with a friend or neighbor.
• Share household chores with our mate. Try to do them when they don’t interfere with time together: early (before going to work), before mate gets home.

If our goal is to have as much emotional energy (at the end of the day) as possible for our mate, then we will have to find ways to guard ourselves from exhaustion. Once we are working on not having a schedule and lifestyle that leads to exhaustion, then we must make conscious choices in the evenings and weekends to not just “shut down” out of habit. When the kids have gone to bed or gone to their rooms, even if you don’t have kids, make the time you have together count. Don’t just “zone-out” and watch TV every night. Do things to connect with each other.

Here are some suggestions for “connecting” with each other instead of watching TV/video:

• Rub each other back or feet.
• Give each other a manicure or pedicure.
• Have coffee/desert for two in a romantic/peaceful setting (bedroom/patio/formal dining room).
• Take a bath together.
• Take a swim or Jacuzzi together ( if you have the facilities).
• Play a game together.
• Lie on the bed and just talk.

Preoccupation - “We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Exhaustion is mostly a physical issue, although you may have to battle the psychological need to work too much. However, preoccupation is strictly a mind/thought issue. The Lord tells us to take all thoughts captive; therefore, we know that if we are so preoccupied by work, the kids, or any person or activity that we are becoming distant from our mate, that we our disobeying God.

Like many sins, preoccupation many times becomes a habit over time. However, whether preoccupation is a new development or a long-standing habit, there are ways to take back our thought-life. Preoccupation is many times a result of not trusting God. We may become preoccupied with worrisome thoughts when we don’t cast our cares on the Lord. (1 Peter 5:7)

If our preoccupation is filled with worrisome thoughts, then we must work on trusting in the Lord. There are many excellent books on the market concerning this topic, and ultimately we must work on building our trust in the Lord.

Harboring Negative Feelings - “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge” (Leviticus 19:18)

Erroneously, many of us believe that it is best to keep our negative emotions and thoughts to ourselves. We believe that in order to have a happy marriage, we should just overlook the problems in our relationship and go on with a happy face.

However, we soon learn that this doesn’t work, and we are unhappy and distant from our mate. With that in mind, however, we must examine our hearts and our feelings and determine if our negative feelings are a result of unspoken feelings of separation from our mate or if we simply have not forgiven our mate for past transgressions. These are two very separate matters.

• Communicating with the Right Heart “Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23)
  
  • Express our hurt in the context of love and oneness
  • Remain open, non-defensive and loving
  Remember, we are actually hurting our relationship by not discussing issues that affect our relationship’s oneness. If we don’t discuss these issues, we cannot repair and mend our oneness, and we will simply get distance from one another.
• Unforgiving Heart “Be kind to one another, tender hearted forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32)
  

  Discussing issues and hurts that are essential to restoring and maintaining oneness is key to not harboring negative feelings. First and foremost, God has commanded us to forgive one another as He has forgiven us. However, even when we know this, sometimes it is difficult to know how to forgive.

If we have discussed an issue with our mate two things can happen:

• Hopefully, we will reconcile the issue and our marriage. Then we must “let go” of the issue and live as if it hasn’t happened. We must give our mate the opportunity to act in the best interest of our marriage, and if we are holding our hurt over their head, they are not free to love us.

• Sometimes, our mate may not be receptive, and we may not feel reconciled with them. Even when this is the case, we must “let go” and give our hurt to the Lord and ask him to heal our marriage. We must open our heart and allow God to fill it with love for our mate. However, if we have not discussed our hurt with our mate because we determined that our hurt was selfish and not an issue that would contribute to our oneness with our mate, we may still be holding onto the hurt and not forgiving our mate.

In any of these cases, we must work on forgiveness every day until we feel that our heart is rid of the unforgiveness. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32 NIV) No matter what the outcome of the discussion is with our mate, God has instructed us to forgive them. Here are some steps for forgiveness:

• Ask God to forgive us for our unforgiving heart.
• Ask our mate to forgive us for any negative actions and attitudes we have directed at them.
• Forgive our spouse in faith. This simply means to tell God that with His help and with His strength, we release our spouse and forgive them.
• Take our thoughts captive. When we start to have thoughts and feelings about the issue for which we have forgiven our spouse, we must stop those thoughts, and immediately pray and ask God to fill our heart with love and compassion for our spouse.

We can’t always avoid troubled waters in our life, but we can keep them from creating a great chasm of emotional distance between our mate and us. God has blessed marriage with the gift of oneness; however, it is our task to maintain our connection with our mate, and not allow sin to send us out to drift in a sea of loneliness. We are not alone in this task, however, the Lord has provided us the bridge back to oneness with our mate by His power and grace. The challenge is for us to seek Him on our voyage and to reach across anything that divides us and bring our relationship back to oneness in Him.

© 2001, Dr. Rebecca Dowden. Used by permission.

Title: "Bridging the Distance"
Author: Dr. Rebecca Dowden
Publication Date: June 22, 2001

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