When Marriage Feels Like War!

The greatest joys in our marriage don't come without a fight.

Steven Curtis Chapman with Mark Moring

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The war started long before Mary Beth and I met.

I grew up in a home buzzing with open, honest, spill-your-guts conversations. And when there was an argument, we talked it out—even yelled it out—till, by golly, we reached a resolution … no matter how long it took.

They did things a little differently in Mary Beth's family. They seldom talked about much more than the superficial, and arguments were rarely resolved. Instead, they swept conflicts under the rug, woke up the next day, and pretended nothing ever happened.

So it's no surprise that when we got married, we had decidedly different ideas about how to approach a spat.

I remember one heated discussion early in our marriage. I don't remember what we were arguing about, but I told Mary Beth, "Scripture says we can't let the sun go down on our anger." I took that verse literally. I was determined to resolve it before the sun went down.

Mary Beth apparently felt differently. She just sat there on the bed looking at me while I kept yapping away. I said, "We can't let the sun go down on our anger!" And she said, "Yes, we can. Just watch."

Then she fell asleep, just when I was making my final point. I was enraged!

I'm ashamed to say this, but our first apartment ended up with a perfectly round, fist-sized hole in the drywall of our bedroom. Later, Mary Beth told me she was praying I'd hit a stud.

It wasn't the last time Mary Beth fell asleep during one of my soliloquies. She says it's a coping mechanism. All I know is that it drives me crazy.

Well, I can drive her crazy too. That's all part of the war.

Into the fire

Don't get me wrong. We don't fight all the time. We have plenty of fun, and the big picture of our marriage is a happy one. But it's not without its battles.

It seems as if Mary Beth and I were destined to deal with stress and struggles right from the start.

We were really young—I was 21, she was 19—and immature when we got married. We certainly weren't ready for the challenges we'd face, especially early in our marriage.

We had only been married six months when Mary Beth got pregnant. That certainly wasn't in our five-year plan.

Then we had another surprise, just five weeks after Emily—the oldest of our five kids—was born. Our apartment burned down, and we lost all our possessions. Money was tight, insurance was nil, and tensions were high.

Mary Beth, who was still a "daddy's girl" at that time, called her father in tears, begging for help. Her mom and dad came as quickly as they could.

But I told my parents not to come. I said, "We've got all the help we need, and you'd just be in the way."

My mom was in town a few days later visiting my brother, and she dropped by just to check on us. Mary Beth's parents were still there, and stress levels were soaring.

Mary Beth was still sorting out the raw emotions of being a brand-new mom. We were both grieving the loss of our apartment and our stuff. Mary Beth's parents were doing everything they could to help us, and they couldn't understand why my parents hadn't been there all along to help too—even though I'd told my parents we were okay.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2003, Fall

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