Catching My Second Wind - The Downhill Stretch

Catching My Second Wind - The Downhill Stretch

WHEN ASKED HOW long she and her husband, Bill, have been married, my girlfriend Kathy says, “We’ve been married for thirty-four years; twenty-nine of those happily.” This just cracks me up.

Growing pains are a given in a young marriage. While one partner is learning to understand and appreciate the finer details of what it means to need a new “outfit” (how can he not know what it means to accessorize?), the other spouse is gaining insight about the need for new speakers and a subwoofer (I quickly learned that music—especially the bass—can never be loud enough).

About the time you get the basics ironed out, careers take off and kids arrive on the scene. Life becomes a never-ending relay between round-the-clock work, soccer games, orthodontist appointments, house renovations, moves from coast to coast, and the occasional family vacation. But then, almost without warning, the kids leave home or the job is over. And the silence is deafening.

It is at this time that many couples roll over in bed and look at their mates for the first time in twenty years and ask (if only to themselves), Who in the world are you and what could we possibly have in common?

My first marriage ended after ten years, so I know the agony that goes with saying the d word. But when I hear of a thirty-year marriage that’s come to a slow, unbearable end, my heart just stops. Could this marriage that’s seen the good, the bad, and the ugly have made it if one or both partners had caught their second wind?

Marriage can be hard work—so hard, in fact, that we become fatigued in our fight to save it. And if you’re the only one battling the invisible foe of separation, it’s a weary, lonely, exhausting struggle.

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. (Genesis 2:7)

Is it time for some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in your marriage?