The Counterintuitive Prayer That Saved My Marriage and Grew My Faith

Ten years ago, my marriage was in a miserable place. If you’d have asked me back then what was wrong with it, I would have pointed you to my husband. He wasn’t working. He wasn’t helping with the housework. He wasn’t doing…much of anything, it seemed, except play games all day.

My resentment was boiling over and the only thing really keeping it going was the fact that, as a Catholic, divorce isn’t an option. Death, maybe…but not divorce. I’d been praying up a storm that God would fix my husband and my marriage, and then one day, God told me to change my prayer.

God, Make Me a Wife Worthy of the Husband I’ve Received

That prayer stung my pride and seemed so counterintuitive to me. After all, the husband I’d received didn’t seem like much. Was I not worthy of more? But I chose to trust in His guidance. I began to pray that prayer every day.

At the time, I rationalized that since Christ was my true spouse, it made sense to pray for me to become worthy of Him. But taking that first step in growing my faith changed how I saw my husband and, because of that, how I treated him.

I began to see my husband as a gift I’d received from God, not a burden to be carried. This gift might not come in pretty wrapping paper all tied in a bow, but he was a gift nonetheless. To reject the gift is to reject the giver, and I certainly did not want to reject the giver.

Looking at my husband as a gift to be unpacked and unwrapped changed my perspective on him. What was I missing out on that God had in store for me if I looked past the wrapping paper and dove into the gift?

Recognizing Our Relationship as a Mirror to My Relationship with Christ

Whenever I struggled in my marriage, I would take it to Christ. He began to help me see that how my husband treated me mirrored how I treated Christ. I remember clearly one day I got into a fight with my mother and she ended the call by telling me that I ought to be the one setting the example in my relationship with her. I found that grossly unfair. After all, I was younger.

I went on a walk and talked to Christ about this. He reassured me that she was expecting too much of me, just as I’d felt she was. Then, He pointed out to me that I was doing to my husband what my mother was doing to me. My husband was a toddler in the faith and I was expecting him to be where I was. He was so caught up in trying not to disappoint me that he was frozen in fear and couldn’t move forward.

Christ told me to stop burdening him with the weight of my expectations. He needed to be free to move at his own pace, on his own timing, in his own way without being afraid that I would be hurt or disappointed that he didn’t do it my way.

Coming To Understand Men Better

It’s because of this journey to become a wife worthy of the husband I’d received that God began to help me understand better how men think and how they see the world around them, as well as what women do that crush men or keep them from becoming the best versions of themselves that they are capable of being.

One thing He taught me is that men value themselves by what they see reflecting back at them in the eyes of the woman they love most. For a young boy, that’s his mother. Once a man falls in love, it’s the woman he falls in love with who holds that power over him. When he has a daughter, she becomes that woman for him.

This gives us tremendous power over men – and a tremendous responsibility in what we do with that power. In revealing that to me, God helped me to understand that part of the reason my husband wasn’t doing much of anything is that he’d given up hope that he could please me. His inability to please me fueled his depression, and led to the lack of motivation I saw. He was using video games to try and escape the depression.

Coming to Understand Depression Better

It would take several years of praying to be a wife worthy of the husband I’d received before God granted me insights into depression, so that I could be an ally for my husband in fighting it rather than fueling it with my anger and disappointment.

To the observer, it looks like the depressed person is standing at the bottom of a pool and they are drowning. There’s a ladder behind them, but they don’t turn to reach for it and climb it. You can’t understand why.

You are on the other side of a thick pane of glass, being forced to watch as this plays out. You pound on the glass begging them to just turn around and get out of the pool before they die, but they can’t seem to hear you. Anger and helpless frustration build. You’re powerless to do anything about their condition.

What you can’t see are the invisible chains that hold the depressed person in place. Being screamed at to go to the ladder only serves to make them feel even more frustrated and hopeless in the grip of these chains. They want to go to the ladder. They want to climb out. But they don’t know how to free themselves from the chains that bind them.

They look, to your eyes, like they are doing nothing. In reality, every ounce of their strength is being poured into fighting these chains. They are struggling with all of their might to free themselves, and it’s a losing battle.

They only have to lose one time to lose their lives.  He’s got no energy left to do even minor things like self-care because all the energy he’s got must go to surviving these fights.

If you want a clear picture of what it's like when he's fighting depression, I recommend taking a listen to this song he wrote:

Learning to Fight the Chains, Not My Husband

In helping me to understand depression better, I gained an insight. The battle he’s waging against depression was very real. Screaming at him to fight harder and getting mad at him for not fighting were not helping him. He couldn’t fight any harder than he was and he was fighting each and every day for me. I just couldn’t see the battle.

God taught me that the only real way to help the depression was to fight the chains that bound him, not him. Fight against the demons that bound him by engaging in prayers for him. He might not have the energy to do it, but be like Aaron and his sons, who lifted the hands of Moses when he was too exhausted to lift them himself.

With that insight, my husband and I became more of a team rather than combatants. I became his ally and his advocate, rather than one more person judging and condemning him. I could admire the strength it took to fight that battle every day and the courage he showed in not giving up on it even when others, including me, gave up on him.

My admiration and respect began to show in my eyes, which renewed his strength, and the prayers that I prayed over him began to loosen the grip of the chains. As those chains loosened, he could rise up and draw breath.

Our Marriage Today

Nothing is perfect in our marriage, but we are more of a team than we’ve ever been, and our marriage is healthier than it’s ever been. He still struggles with depression, but it doesn’t take him under as often and he’s able to talk with me about it when he’s going through it.

Here's a song he wrote to express how he feels about our relationship:

Give It a Try

If you’re feeling hopeless about your marriage, I encourage you to give this a try for 90 days. Then, journal what happens next. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the changes that take place in your marriage.