Marital APGAR Part 5
Every marriage is different and contains its own nuances. If your marriage were a newborn baby, what would its APGAR score be? For those of you who don’t know, the APGAR score is what a doctor looks at one minute and five minutes after a baby is born. They check for five things: activity, pulse, grimace, appearance and respiration. I have adjusted the five categories tested in the APGAR chart to reflect what we do and how we respond to one another in our individual marriages.
Today’s topic covers APPEARANCE, or outside viewpoints about your marriage. Now, let me caveat this by stating that I definitely do not advocate allowing others to influence your marriage, whether it’s parents, friends or coworkers. However, if the shoe fits for certain issues, we have to be willing to wear it. See the chart below:
My husband and I don’t put up a front. If things are going wrong, I have neither the desire nor the ability to fake it until I make it. I tried that and almost lost my mind. However, the key is to monitor who you will be transparent with when you have something against your spouse. I wrote previously about having either a horizontal or vertical sounding board. If I have a problem with my husband, or if he has a problem with me, I’m not going to go out of my way to speak to someone who hasn’t been married as long as I have.
But I can’t lie…I have made the mistake of seeking advice from someone who had been married much longer than I had. Nothing wrong with that, you say? Well, the way this young lady chose to deal with her issues was quite immoral. I thought I needed a different viewpoint, but that kind of negativity is like a cancer. Although I would love to believe that I am incapable of adultery and the tainted tactics of manipulation that she employed, I exposed my marriage to those things when I sought her advice. Thankfully, her marriage survived, but the words she spoke to me were seeds of discontentment that grew and almost choked my own marriage to death. Although I didn’t act on my impulse, deep within I knew that without the anchor of wise counsel coupled with a spiritual foundation of my relationship with the Lord, I would have gone to the dark side.
So where do family members, friends and in-laws fit into this equation?
My family was not too keen on me marrying Mr. Restaurant Manager. They had good reason to be cautious, and I think even now, although things aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be, we still have a lot of growing up to do in many areas as a couple. I got married because I saw something in my husband that no one else could see. I would definitely not suggest getting married based on the potential you may see in another, because without discipline, respect, love and a huge dose of God’s grace and mercy, it will be difficult for you to live with mere potential. Even with all those things, there still is no guarantee that a person will meet and exceed their potential…your spouse is just as imperfect as you. I was one of the blessed ones…over the years, my husband has transformed before my eyes. Although there have been times that I regretted getting married so hastily, the changes and growth within me have all been worth it.
The key for me personally, and my husband and I as a couple has been to seek wise counsel from people who we know love us dearly, and aren’t afraid to tell us the truth, no matter how much it may hurt. Our pastors play a huge role and keeping a mirror in front of us, so we can see our true selves, and not what others—who may admire and appreciate the glitz and glamour of our relationship, but cannot appreciate all the hell we have gone through to get to this point—view based only on the surface of what they see from a distance.
My mom is a huge sounding board for me, as well. Before my father passed away, they had been HAPPILY married for 28 years. Couple that with the fact that my mom is a professional counseling psychologist, and you have a person who is wisdom personified. Yet, even with her, I have to be careful that I don’t harp on the negative things I feel towards my husband from time to time, because I’m still her daughter, and right, wrong or indifferent, as a mother, she is not always going to be unbiased when it comes to her baby girl. I have to be careful that I don’t use her as a sounding board, and then not update her on the positive changes that have been made to rectify certain situations. Although the circumstance may be resolved on my end, Moms is a thousand miles away seething without knowing that it’s all good over here.
Honestly, though, for my marriage, I would have to give this area a rating of one point. The people on the outside looking in see the fact that Mr. Restaurant Manager and I love each other unconditionally. Yet the people that we trust to keep us from trying to act like elephants aren’t in our living room know the whole story, and we have to commit to ensuring that those trusted people’s counsel is at least considered.
What about you? What would you rate your marriage in this area? Who have to trusted to mentor you in your marriage? Is their track record one that can be trusted? Tell us about it!
God bless!
~ Harriet
Harriet is a hilariously joyful married woman who resides in northeast Louisiana with her husband who is a restaurant manager. She works for a local University and along with her husband is the proud parent of a 3 year old son and a 10 year old stepson (who lives in NC).
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Anna
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