In the Trenches
“Why does love always feel like a battlefield?”-Jordan Sparks
Cliche pop song aside, throughout my life I have said something like this many times. Relationships and love feel like war sometimes and marriage is no different.
While that sentiment sounds depressing I think I need to state that I truly believe there is incredible beauty in the fight. I think a battle is worthy of the fight when one knows the importance of what is on the line.
I have been asked by many friends and many girls that I have mentored, “how did you know that Peter was the one??”
Unfortunately there isn’t a simple answer to that.
I met Peter when I wasn’t looking for a relationship. A little background for those of you who don’t know our story, Peter and I met when we chaperoned a high school/ college missions trip to Mexico. That trip changed everything. I didn’t take an ounce of makeup on that trip because it wasn’t about that. In fact I think it might have been the worst I have ever looked!! There were many days we would get back in the van and I would be soaked in sweat, covered in dirt and cement. We lead these students, we worked side by side as leaders and eventually grew to be friends. We got stranded at the airport coming home and spent more than 72 hours traveling home. It was incredibly stressful to be responsible for getting a large group of young adults home to their families safe and sound. It honestly took some time for me to admit my feelings for Peter, even though everyone else saw it and felt it, I needed some time to allow myself to fall for him. It was final.
It was the real deal.
I knew it would require me to get in the trench.
It was the absolute best decision I have ever made. He was and still is worth fighting for.
He was the one for me for many reasons, but the main reason is that he was the first guy I didn’t feel like I needed to be anyone else to be with him. He loved me for exactly who I was. It was a new feeling for me. I was so used to making myself into the person I thought other guys wanted to be with. Peter fell in love with the real me and I fell in love with the real him.
We have been married now for over 5 years and have been blessed with two beautiful and sassy little girls.
I can honestly say that we are closer now and more in love today than we were on the day we said “I do.” Why is that?
Because we are willing to get into the trench.
You see, Peter and I couldn’t be any different. If you are partial to the Myers Briggs, you would know that there are 4 letters. Peter and I do not share any of the letters. We are completely opposite! It makes things super challenging at times. There are times that it literally feels like we are speaking a different language…and sometimes we are.
So how do you fight fair and thrive in marriage when things feel like a battlefield?
You get in the trench.
Trench warfare was used when the fighting was so extensive that it requires soldiers to “dig in” and attack from a protected place.
A protected place…
I was talking to a good friend of mine about choosing the person you are going to marry and the only thing I kept saying was, “you have to find the person you are willing to battle with, to fight for and to trust enough to get into the mess.” The image I kept seeing in my head was a trench. The only thing I kept saying was that Peter was my trench buddy and it stuck.
Peter is my person. No one has understood me the way that he does. No one is more patient and more willing to get into a trench with me than he is. When you say “yes” to someone, while it’s very romantic in the moment I think some people do not understand what they are saying yes to!
Marriage is the most beautiful warfare, make sure you are prepared for the trench.
It matters who you choose. I am starting with this because I think it is so important to talk to my single ladies and my ladies who are in long term relationships. It matters who you end up with. Do not settle. Have you ever heard that cliche quote that basically says, “Someday, someone will walk into your life and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else.” I know I know, bare with me though… It’s true. I will say this, I think I could have “made it work” with someone else. I do believe that God knew that Peter and I would be together and that is how He designed us, but I also know that it is a choice to be with someone forever. You can “make it work” with anyone the question is who do you want to get in the trench with. Who do you want to share your world with, parent with, be the most vulnerable with and bare your soul to. Let me tell you… It matters. I am a journal keeper. Some of my past journals can be quite embarrassing. After some of the more heavy breakups happened I noticed a pattern in some of my lamenting…and yes… it was that dramatic.. I lamented… “I thought he was the one”. Now I am allowing myself to take one for the team so to speak to say this. You will know. I thought I knew… but you will KNOW. My sweet dad would always encourage me when I got frustrated in seasons of singleness by saying, “you could be married right now.. seriously, you could go out and find a man who would agree to marry you…it wouldn’t be the right guy.. but you could be with someone. It’s about waiting for the RIGHT one Kris.” I always rolled my eyes a little when hearing my dads lofty opinion of me being able to get any guy right now…. but the sentiment is true. Do not put life time expectations on people that you are only supposed to be with for a season. Sometimes relationships come into your life to teach you something. We think in our loneliness that we have finally found it and try to put roots in something that wasn’t supposed to grow. Always remember in relationships, if you haven’t made a lifetime commitment to this person you are technically dating someone else’s spouse of future boyfriend/girlfriend. Do not settle for the sake of your loneliness. It matters who you pick to get into the trench with. I only say this because I have been there.
Everyone has baggage in the trench. Something I wasn’t quite prepared for was how marriage would bring up every unresolved wound and/or trauma I have ever been through. Somehow I thought because I was saying I do to the most incredible man that I had escaped the responsibility of, “dealing with my stuff”, because I didn’t need to anymore… I was a wife! I was so in love with Peter. He was my person and I had finally found him. While all of that is 100% true, I think I love him more now than I did when he put that diamond on my finger. Marriage for me was like a giant magnifying glass. Every insecurity that I ever had bubbled to the surface, one after another. As if saying ‘I do’ loosened the weights I had tied to each insecurity I buried at sea… one by one they surfaced and my calm sea become a very stormy ocean. If I can say one thing to my friends who are engaged or about to take the next step in your relationships… deal with your crap before you join with another person. You see, it was almost as if I had buried past wounds as landmines that Peter kept unknowingly stepping on. He would say one thing and and explosion in my head or heart would go off… I guess the only good thing about that was it forced us into the trench. It was naive of me to think that we could both live in the trench and never notice the astronomical amount of baggage living there too. Once you unpack that… you have room to breathe, to move and to fight more fair. You are much more protected when you have the room to fight and defend your marriage.
Trusting in the trench. There has got to be mutual trust when you get into the trench. Listen, sometimes battles get ugly, sometimes they are uncomfortable and you need to trust your partner. Deciding to get married isn’t something you should take lightly. If you cannot trust that your partner is going to see the absolute worst sides of you and still love you the same… it may be time to assess the relationship. There has to be trust in marriage battles. You have to know that even when the battle is hard, your trench buddy is going to put your heart first and fight as fair as they can. When you need to fight through the anger, confusion and communication fails… you have to be able to trust that your partner is willing to get into the trench with you on a daily basis. Do they have your back when you have lost your sight? Are they going to protect you when you cannot see through the fog and the haze? Let me say this… There is a difference in fighting your partner and fighting for your partner. It comes down to trust.
Only retreat if you have a safe place to land. If you have read my precious blogs you know that I historically call myself both the tortoise and the hare. How can one be two vastly different animals in one you ask? Well I’ll tell you! In every uncomfortable, emotional situation I both turtle into myself and run away. I stuff every emotion I am feeling deep down and then I high tale it out of whatever confrontation I have encountered. I retreat. Although in a marriage, this action shouldn’t be called retreating it should be straight up called fleeing. This has been one of the most harmful and frustrating things I do. It crushes Peter. You see, Peter values reconciliation greatly. He is the first to take steps toward healing after a fight, or the first to talk though things to gain clarity. I on the other hand would love to stuff it down like it never existed and run far away. I don’t want to have to deal with the ugly emotions. I don’t want to have to deal at all. However, just because the fight is hard doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be fought. There is beauty in fighting for something you are passionate about, something you love. Peter has had to learn to be patient when I retreat by giving me a safe place to land. He has learned that the retreat says more about my emotional wounds than it does about the importance of the fight itself. I see the importance of the battle, I just don’t have enough trust in my emotional durability to last the night… Unless my partner gives me a safe place to land. It is worth the fight when you know that the sun is 100% going to rise the next day. It is worth fighting through it when you trust that your partner in battle will stand by you no matter how scary the battle gets. When there is an assured safety, the fear of the fight gets replaced by strength and that’s when you can outlast the night.
Getting into the trench requires sacrifice. Marriage as cliche as it sound requires sacrifice. There are going to be fights that last days or there may be battles that last a season… It is worth the sacrifice to stay in the trench. It is not always pretty to be seen in your lowest most vulnerable moments. If someone gave me a picture of what I was going to look like during labor and then tell me that this hottie I was dating would see me like that… I would have ran so fast! When you do life with someone, every single day they are given the opportunity to see you at your most vulnerable. They see you struggle and strive, they see you hurt, they see you get hurt, they see you work, they see you win, they see you succeed and they see you fail. They will see you when you’re strong and they will see you at your weakest. The beauty of it all.. is find someone whose love will not alter based on the ever-changing nature of life. Whose love is firmly planted in rich soil that can withstand the storms and the winds of change. Who is willing to sacrifice for the good of the union and the good of the fight. Someone who knows when surrender is sometimes needed when you’re in a trench. The real beauty of the struggle is when you know that it is not in vain. I know that even when I hate him… I love him with every part of me & I know he feels the same. It requires humility, sacrifice and service.
At one point on the missions trip to Cancun my legs were getting cement burn.. I didn’t even know that was a thing! We had been hand mixing cement and I had been pushing myself all week to work harder than the students we were leading. I wanted to show up for them and show them that if I was asking them to push themselves physically… than I would be there leading the charge. I tend to not always take care of myself, I make sure everyone else is ok before I check on myself. Peter saw that I was pushing myself to hard on one of the last work days and he instructed me to find some where to sit and rest. I hated resting, I felt guilty and weak. When I sat down, the numbness in my legs went away and I was in so much pain from the cuts, bruises and cement that covered my legs. Peter saw my struggle and knelt down in from of me. He took his water bottle and poured fresh water on my legs, gently wiping off the dirt and cement. (ladies… it was the 3rd day after shaving sooooo there’s that embarrassment for you… ) As I watched him care for me so selflessly I thought about Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. The beauty of humility in that moment impacted me to accept the love that I actually deserved. You see, until that moment, I was under the assumption that I was inadequate and I deserved to be mistreated in the relationships that I had been through. I thought that I was only in a relationship to make “him” look good. When you lead in your relationship from a place humanity and service, it changes the nature of the battle. When you lay down your own agenda you allow love to cover a multitude of sins. “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1st Peter 4:8)
There is beauty in surrender. Listen, I truly believe there is no one that is more competitive than my husband. I could be a little dramatic about it because I am typically the least competitive person out there, but Peter… loves to win. It’s actually one of the things that made me fall for him. He is just really cute when he is cocky. (no it doesn’t work when he is cocky during an actual fight… hahah) However, nothing makes me feel more seen, validated or understood than when he waves a white flag during an argument he had every right to bring a canon to. When I see that he values me and my heart more than being right… I feel so safe and seen and loved. See the beauty in surrender is not that you lose your power or advantage, it’s that you give up your strategy for the honor of the battle. A battle that may have had more casualties if the white flag hadn’t flown. There are certain things that need to be fought through and there are battles that need a white flag. Choosing to surrender is showing more strength than fighting every could.
Finding unity within the trench. A beautiful thing that happens in marriage is the unity. The united front. When you are serving each other in humility and have gotten through some of the harder marriage battles, you now can emerge united against the battles that life will ultimately throw at you. Except this time, you are stronger, braver, more resourceful and you are not alone. Marriage has a way of amplifying your weaknesses. That would be a huge problem if you didn’t learn to ask for help and lean on your partners strengths. When you are strong together in unity it is easier to get though the struggles of every day life knowing that your other half is fighting right beside you. You make one killer team. Learning to communicate is one of the best weapons at your disposal. Learn how to speak your partners language, this will take time and patience. Just know that your greatest weapon you have access to is praying for your marriage.
Not every season needs a battle. If you have ever heard the story of Christmas Day in WWI you would know that on Christmas day both sides met in no mans land to take a break from the war. I cannot imagine the peace that they felt for that one day after being exhausted. If you are in a battle season, know that peace and rest is on the horizon. It will not last forever and you will be stronger at the end of it. Recognize the hardship and the struggle. Deal with the emotions and the pain. Allow yourself to do the work towards restoration and remember the importance of the fight. There is a reason not all coal can shine like diamonds do.
It's worth it. I don’t think I need to really expand on this point, but I will end with this. Peter and I have had to fight through some hard battles. We have seen tough medical issues, stressful jobs, family hardships, loss, grief, pregnancy, undiagnosed adhd, changes is medications, anxiety, parenthood and everyday struggles. We moved two toddlers in the middle of a pandemic, away from our family and friends. We have been basically in a quarantine like state for almost a whole year now. When I say that we have been in the trench… I cannot stress it enough. It. Is. Worth. The. Battle. I love Peter more today than I did when I walked down the isle. He is my person, my trench buddy and my partner in this life. Our relationship takes WORK. I don’t regret that work for a single second. I am so glad that I got in the trench with that cute boy I once lead a missions trip with. He was worth the fight. Our Marriage is worth the work and worth the battle. Every day I choose to rise up and take my sword and fight for the person I love. It is hard work but the reward is worth it.
It matters who you end up with.
Peter Charles,
"I swear I couldn't love you more than I do right now, and yet I know I will tomorrow." - Leo Christopher
You were worth the wait, the tears, the pain and the fight.
Thank you for being my trench buddy.
Happy Valentines Day❤️
XOXO,
KB
