I mentioned life happening the other day, and one of you said, ‘There is very little marriage teaching dealing with the “life happens” situations’.

So a few words on that. “Life happens” is the things we don’t expect and can’t plan for. It’s the car dying on the freeway or an important meeting running longer than it was supposed to. On the more extreme end, it’s a parent who can no longer care for themselves or one of our children being hospitalised for weeks or months.

When life happens, our plans and routines get interrupted. If the event is significant, the interruptions can be extreme and long term. The danger is being so focused on whatever that we stop being a couple. Of course, things need to be done, but your marriage is a long term commitment and you can’t just sideline it for the duration. Okay, you can, but you shouldn’t!

If your marriage is good, your spouse will be a source of strength and comfort at these times. If your marriage is struggling it’s tempting to just ignore it till things calm down. But while this is easier, it’s a bad choice. You will get past whatever happened and find your marriage is in even worse shape. I’ve seen couples who were well on their way to resolving marriage problems lose all their hard-won ground because of life happening. And for some of those couples that resulted in divorce.

One common problem that occurs when life happens in a big way is the wife loses all interest in sex and the husband does not. If this happens to you my suggestion is to tell him the situation has shut you down sexually, but you realise he’s not the same way. Then either offer to do something for him when he says it’s getting bad, or encourage him to take care of himself. (Be aware the second option is not a good one for more than a couple of weeks.)

BTW, I went into the issue of caring for elder parents on TGH today. Check out When Life Happens II.

~ Paul – I’m XY, and I’ve had a lot of life happening the last six months!

A post worth reading:

How Sex Can Help Us Cope | Hot Holy & Humorous – Sex can be so much more than just an orgasm!

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