Patience in Relationships – Mental Health Awareness Week

Someone once said A relationship is like a house.  When the light bulb burns out, you do not go and buy a new house, you fix the light bulb.

I have a good marriage with Chuck.  Now don’t look at me like I have two heads.  I know it sounds odd in our ‘find and replace’ generation, to be putting good beside the word marriage.  I can hear a few whatever grunts already but rest assured, this is not some ‘how to have the ideal marriage’ post, so read on…

Yes, folks say our marriage is solid.  But remember one thing, it is not the validation of others that tells anyone whether or not they have a solid marriage.  It is something the couple must be convinced about themselves.  But I am grateful all the same. 

To be honest, what makes our marriage good is what I would call more of a quality marriage.  Because quality includes weathering the storms, exercising immense restraint at times.  Like every marriage, there have been opportunities that have come our way for us to think ‘why did I get married?’  While at the same time being grateful that looks do not kill, especially from me.

With a strong relationship, many things are possible.  When Chuck was eventually signed off from the mental health system, the consultant psychiatrist did acknowledge that his wife, aka me, played a role on getting to where he was.  And yes, I can still get my head out of the door….thankfully, because I got to go out soon.

The thing about relationships is the ability not to give up on each other.  And that takes Patience.  As much as I had to not give up on Chuck, Chuck too had to not give up on me.  Relationships  have to work both ways.  What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.  Yes, Patience towards the more ‘healthy’ spouse also applies.  No one is exempt. 

For someone like me, I was not born with Patience.  I can tell you that straight up.  In fact, in times past, I would pray that I would learn Patience.  During our pre-marriage counselling classes, I learnt that Patience was the key to making marriage work.  That made me break into a cold sweat.  How on earth would getting married to Chuck work, coupled with the fact that he had at that time a diagnosis of mental illness?

Well, today, of all days, my eyes landed on the book The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick and Alex Kendrick, one of the books that is listed on our recommended book list.  Guess what the first dare is all about?  Patience.

Patience is not something that a lot of us have naturally in us.  As I mentioned earlier, I know that Patience is something I work on daily.   But the Bible says Patience is a fruit of the spirit.  So Patience is right there in us; it is just that we act like it doesn’t exist.  No wonder, my prayers never worked.  And by Patience here, I am talking about our dealings with one other.

In The Love Dare, the book says Patience is the choice to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions to control you, and it shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.  It brings an internal calm to an external storm.

The thing about relationships is the ability not to give up on each other

How impatient we can be when for example, one person is tidy, aka me, and the other is,….(OK let’s be frank here)…Chuck can be a bit messy. I had to sometimes bulldoze my way through the ‘missiles’, (as I call them), left dotted around the house. 

Tidiness may be trivial to some couples but it wasn’t for me in the early days.  And that is why it is unfair to compare your marriage to someone else.  Other couples may have to deal with spending laxatives and other vices.  For me however, when the living room looked nothing short of a bomb site, it took a lot of monumental patience, especially on my part, to keep my lips together.   I learnt not to look at things, pretend that all those things that were left lying around in the most awkward places, were cartoons. Yep, pretend they were not real.

You see in the very early days of marriage, I learnt the currency of compromise.  And exhaling hundreds of short rapid breaths, to endure the ordeal of having to shut cupboard doors continually, throwing empty cartons left in the fridge, grrr(!!)…especially when you fancied eating the very thing that had been left empty that seemed to mock you with words Eat Me, and so on.  And it took monumental patience on Chuck’s part when perhaps he could not see the big deal in having a home that had to have the right cushions on the right armchairs.  LOL! 

The Love Dare says Patience says ‘Help me understand’ instead of ‘How dare you!’  I really fancied that ice cream, how dare you assault my senses by leaving the empty tub just when I have got out my bowl and spoon… No, now it has got to be I truly utterly understand….  Grrr!!! 

Patience is needed when you are married to someone who is challenged with mental illness.  In fact, I always say when Patience has had its day, you escalate it to long suffering!   There are the everyday somewhat annoying habits bits to get along with but there is also having to deal with the challenge of an illness that not many people seem to understand, or perhaps want to understand, or is the right word, empathize?

Likewise, Chuck was patient with me.  It did not mean that because I was the more healthy spouse as it was in those days, therefore, Patience was only needed on my part towards Chuck.  I am sure Chuck can list a hundred more items than I could possibly draw up concerning what he had to  be patient about.

So yes, I am doing The Love Dare for the next 40 days.    Each day has a dare.  And today’s dare on Patience is this:

“For the next day, resolve to demonstrate patience and to say NOTHING negative to your spouse at all.  If the temptation arises, choose not to say anything”.

I have not passed out yet, swallowing any negative words that conjure up. Yes, Patience after all is a virtue.  

(And no, there are no cupboard doors open or empty cartons, I think Chuck is weaned off those habits).   

Have you watched the movie by the way of the name why did I get married?  Hilarious but some very good pointers on what marriage takes.  Got any tips on Patience?  Share on our social media, Twitter or Pinterest or Facebook or below.  Thank you.

About The Author

Zoe

Zoe met Eze (Chuck) in the 14th year of what turned out to be an 18 year ‘journey’ with mental illness. They got married less than a year of meeting with Zoe fully knowing Chuck had a diagnosis of mental illness. In the 18th year, Chuck defied the odds of mental illness. A consultant psychiatrist signed him off the mental health system with a bill of NO MENTAL ILLNESS. The consultant was so amazed by Chuck’s astonishing recovery that he even questioned how Chuck was diagnosed with mental illness all those years before, in the first place! Today Chuck is free from medication, its dependency and hospitalizations. Zoe’s award nominated book, DEFYING THE ODDS, chronicles the highs and ‘lows’ of this journey. Zoe, often writing from the standpoint of a caregiver, clearly understands that mental illness does not only affect an individual challenged with the disease, but also families, marriages and society as a whole.

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