Love With The Lights On

I think it is ironic given the title of my latest blog that I write it as I sit at a small table in the darkness of my bedroom, with only a very small night-light for illumination. My husband is sleeping just a few feet away from me, and although he often accommodates my night owl ways by trying to sleep with the room light on, I’ve decided to cut him a break tonight. Thus, I am in the dark.

Tonight we wrapped up a final session with one of our latest Pre-Marital couples. My husband and I truly enjoy mentoring the soon-to-be married. Our experiences with them have been as diverse as the people themselves, and we’ve come to love them all. Every now and then, we get a couple that we just bond deeply with, case in point, our couple tonight.

For a concentrated period of time, they become part of our DNA, “our kids”. We invest our prayers, our hearts, and impart to them whatever wisdom God has graced us with. We tell them that our goal is to teach them to “love with the lights on”. We want them to take off the ‘rose colored glasses’, often associated with new love, and make the most important decision of their life with a truer picture of the person they’ve chosen to marry.

Our most recent Pre-Marital couple came to us with open and teachable hearts. They had concerns for their relationship, very common concerns. She stated: “I often don’t feel that he understands me, or what my needs are. When I am upset about something, he just seems to shut down, to withdraw…the conversation ends too soon, and I don’t feel cared for.” He responded by saying: “Sometimes she initiates important conversations when I am just too tired at the end of a long day. I try to hang in there, but if I don’t think that I can fix whatever is troubling her, I feel frustrated and I need to get away. I know that this upsets her, but I don’t know what else to do.”

I don’t know if this sounds familiar to you, but I can tell you from experience, that my husband and I hear this fairly often. When you break it down, what each person is really saying is this: “I DON’T FEEL UNDERSTOOD!” When you don’t feel understood, you don’t feel safe, and when you don’t feel safe you either go into self-defense mode (fight), or you shut down (freeze), or you get emotionally flooded and withdraw (flight).

In the case of this couple, she didn’t need him to “fix” her. She wanted him to understand how she felt; he could only do that by listening to her. We taught him active listening skills, and discussed what he could say and do with body language, that would make her feel heard by him (aka: cared for). We taught her the importance of timing in initiating an important conversation. She now knows that if he is tired, he most likely will not be fully engaged in the conversation, so she checks it out with him first. If necessary, they schedule the conversation for a better time. Ultimately they were able to see past their anger and withdrawing, and see what was underlining those responses. Bottom line; their eyes were opened to each other.

Now they seek to understand, rather than to be understood. How great would all of our relationships be if we took that approach? Love with the lights on means you see clearly one another’s hearts. You give your spouse a good motive until proven otherwise. You accept each other’s imperfections, and although you know what buttons to push, you choose not to push them.
I am just about finished writing now, and I look over at my snoozing man. Even though at this moment he is just a shadowy figure in my bed, I know my husband from head to toe, inside and out, the good, the great, and the sometimes not so great. In the end it comes down to this: I like what I see!