Sometimes marriage is like a rollercoaster. This is especially the case during people when you are growing. When dealing with big changes, like children, or trying to learn communication, dealing with porn or adultery, or when the marriage is unbalanced by only one spouse working on it. There are a lot of scenarios when marriage can have a lot of ups and downs.
Often people will tend to focus only on where they are. When they’re high, everything is good, and fun, but when they’re down in the dips, the world feels like it’s going to end. Life becomes a constant swinging from one end to the other. So, how do you deal with it.
Dealing with marriage highs
When your marriage is going well, you need to enjoy it. You also need to make it productive. When things are going well, this is the time to be productive. Set new habits, lay the foundation for better things. This is the time to store up loving feelings in your bank, to create good memories, to build momentum.
Have long talks about the future, about your hopes and dreams. Learn how to be more effective in your communication. Smile, love, laugh and enjoy the time, but don’t waste it. It may not last. I don’t mean that to sound pessimistic, but rather, to be realistic and realize that periods of growth often have their seasons of summer and winter.
Dealing with marriage lows
When marriage starts to get to a low, now is the time to draw on those reserves. To leverage the stored up happiness and joy. To reminisce about “remember when” and recognize that while things are difficult now, the seasons will come around again.
This is when you want that momentum, to push you through the low points. We use the highs to power us through the dips and valleys. If you can use the high time productively, you will notice that the lows become shorter, because you’ve built the necessary speed by laying the foundation needed to tackle adversity.
Don’t focus on the low point, in how you are feeling, but rather master your emotions. Tell yourself, and each other, that this is only temporary, that you will get through this, that you can weather it together. But, also pay attention to what’s going on. What started this dip, how can you avoid, mitigate, or at least handle it better next time. Focus on the things you learned when things were good, those skills in communication to help you through the darkest times.
Also, lean on your friends, or people you respect, who are past the rollercoaster stage. Those who have managed to get to a stage of stability so they can lend you their strength, their wisdom and their prayers.
Soon enough, you’ll find that you’re pulling out of the valley and climbing the mountain again.