Marriage Is A Duel To The Death Which No Man Of Honour Should Decline

If you want to plumb the deepest depths of anger, frustration, and all those not-so-nice parts of yourself that come out only when pushed to the brink--get married. If you're married already, you'll know what I'm talking about. If you're not, and you do...you will. There is a reason marriage is a hard road to sanctification, or as G.K. Chesterton put it, "Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline."

Let me tell you a little story of what went down in our house tonight. It has a happy ending. I promise.

Deb stopped by her Dad's after work, and also went grocery shopping after that. Now, there are two things that need to be noted.

One, this was my second night at home late with the kids. I can usually handle one night alone, but back to back nights push me to my limit. The kids for their part are fine, but as any single mother knows, being alone with your kids can be hard. Now, part of this is selfishness (makes it hard for me to get anything done I want/need to get done) and part of it is an irrational feeling of abandonment (which my wife probably feels herself on a regular basis).

The second thing to be noted is that I usually do the grocery shopping, and when my wife is out on her own, she tends to, shall we say, take her time. I appreciate the willingness to shop, but I know what we need and what is on sale and am a control freak too which makes it hard to accept this help. So combine the two nights in a row of late night watching the kids alone, with latent frustration, plus my wife refusing to answer her phone, and you have a big huffy time bomb just waiting to detonate upon arrival. 85% my fault

But I was hanging on to that 15% that wasn't my fault, and hanging on hard. I fell asleep on the couch about the time she got home and woke up to...her falling asleep on the couch. This is the struggle of working parents, especially mothers: being spent from the day and all your emotional and mental energy drained out of you so and struggling to give what's left. It's a model we've been working with for most of our marriage and honestly it's hard, and I think if circumstances were different we would consider a more traditional model, but it's just what we're dealing with right now.

I think at the heart of my anger and frustration was a feeling of not being respected, which is at the heart of many men's feelings in their marriage. I mean, anger is not really my thing, but tonight I was slamming cabinets and banging pots and dishes like a rhinoceros and yelling, with Deb yelling back over who was going to make the freaking instant pudding. The kids were starting to get upset, and for good reason--they felt the tension between us, that something wasn't right, and it wasn't right, and it needed to be made right.

But I was holding on tight and so was she, and the stalemate was starting to implode. Anger is a bitter pill, and it doesn't take long to start poisoning everything. We needed to separate. I grabbed my charger, brushed my teeth and took my contacts out, and headed to the spare bedroom for the night.

I had also grabbed my rosary. Now, it feels really hypocritical to pray in a state of unforgiveness, but I didn't know how else to get out of that state than to pray about it, because I was really in deep. In scripture it says,

"If you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Settle matters quickly with your adversary while you are with him on the way, so that he may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison" (Mt 5:24-25) 

So, I needed help.

I had just made it through the Creed, the Our Father, and three Hail Mary's when there was a knock on the door. I made no sound, but the door creaked upon and in walked David.

"Daddy," he said, "are you praying?"

"Yes," I said, "Will you pray with me?"

"Okay."

I got him a pillow for his knees so he could kneel next to the bed with me. We began again, together..."I believe in God, the Father almighty..." He knows the Our Father and the Hail Mary, but we only got about as far as I got initially when he came in the room that there was another knock. It was Deb, followed by Monica some steps back. She layed on the bed next to us.

"I'm sorry," she said, "do you forgive me?"

"Daddy," David said to me, "Let the sun not go down on your anger."

I wanted to hang on to it. Forgiveness really is an act of the will, and it takes practice to exercise it.

"Remember," my son said again, "If you don't forgive others, God won't forgive you."

He's like a little prophet, this one.

Thankfully with the whole family together it makes a heart soften quicker. I squeezed Deb's hand and told her, "I forgive you." And that was that. 60 to zero in about 20 minutes. All grace, and a little boy who only wants to see love between the people he loves most.

Marriage makes you dig deep. It's intimate tutoring in the school of love, forcing you to work things out in the life raft when all you feel like is throwing the other person overboard.  With love comes forgiveness, it's annoying little tagalong brother that you have to take together as a package deal.

We sin against each other, wound each other, and bind the wounds of those we hurt, sometimes all in the same night. It's an intense, intimate dance, one of great privilege. A duel to the death, and experiencing life along the way.