Amidst life’s busyness, it’s easy to get bogged down and feel a general malaise in marriage. One of the least fruitful things we can do when that happens is to wait for our spouse to make the first move. If you’re the first one to notice things aren’t as they should be, be the first to act. Notice, I didn’t say be the first to say something; I’m suggesting you be the first to do something. There’s a time to ask, but learning to run in Houston’s humidity gave me some fruitful thoughts about turning around a marriage that feels like it’s a slog.
Moving from the Pacific Northwest to Houston, Texas, meant learning how to run in humidity. Growing up as a Seattle boy, I knew how to run in all kinds of rain (and had three different raincoats for three different types of rain). But you can’t dress for humidity. All you can do is suffer.
On a ninety-nine (literally) percent humidity day, it felt like I weighed twenty-five pounds more than I did and that I was breathing with half a lung. The first three miles were painful. I still had three more to go, so I decided to do something counter-intuitive: I picked up the pace.
I decided that if I was going to be miserable, I should at least be miserable while getting in a higher-quality workout rather than merely slogging through another three miles. In the end, I felt exhilarated and encouraged that I actually got in a rather high-quality run.
Some of you may face a situation in your marriage in which you feel like you’re living in ninety-nine percent humidity. You’re just “slogging through.” The miles are slow, painful, and sluggish. It feels awful. You can keep plodding, or…you can pick up the pace.
How do you do that?
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