Marriage Lie #1: If It’s Work, It’s Wrong
“I give up,” he said, throwing up his arms. He was ready to walk out on our session. Before he walked out, I asked, “Can you tell me what just happened? Why are you giving up?”
He told me, “It shouldn’t be this hard! Look, we have struggled throughout, this marriage. Not just now. Other times, too. I just believe that if you are struggling in a marriage… if things aren’t just moving forward… it isn’t meant to be. It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be this hard.” And he turned to leave.
I responded, “That’s a big fat lie you are believing!”
He stopped, looked back at me, and said, “You have ten minutes to prove me wrong.”
This wasn’t the first or only time I have encountered this lie. And let me be fair, he wasn’t meaning to lie to me. But he was. Really, he was repeating a lie he believed. He was telling me a lie many people believe. Nothing is as dangerous as a lie that we believe, but that is entirely false!
Unfortunately, there are some common marriage lies floating around and infecting many marriages. These lies complicate the relationship, distracting and diverting people from their hopes, dreams, and goals of marriage. It distracts them from the relationship they could have.
During my three decades of working with couples, I’ve heard these common lies over and over. I’ve witnessed the damage done. And yet, the lies are never told on purpose. It’s just that they are believed and repeated. They serve to justify actions and decisions, which is bad enough. But they also shape and form those actions and decisions.
These lies are often an easy (albeit wrong) answers at the expense of the relationship. They are short-cuts to discounting the relationship and the possibilities of the relationship. These lies betray and hide the path to a more satisfying and loving marriage. In fact, the lies are often the phrases repeated at the end of the marriage, to justify the ending.
What are we to do, then?
We can call out the lies and look for a better truth. We can challenge the beliefs and find a better future. So, let’s call out the lies and expose them as false. Let’s find the truth.
This first lie is destructive for several reasons. But the primary threat is this: when things get tough, the situation is interpreted as hopeless and doomed for failure… simply because things are tough.
Here is the lie, simply put:
If it’s work, it’s wrong.
Or to put it a bit longer: If you have to work on your relationship, then the relationship is wrong. It shouldn’t be this hard.
This is particularly true around marriage struggles and conflicts. Many people would acknowledge that you must put in some effort for any relationship to work. Sure, you need to spend some time together. Often, there is some acknowledgement that some effort is required.
But even there, many couples fail on even this level of maintenance. An older study of couples showed that, subtracting the talk about the kids, schedules, and home maintenance, couples averaged seven minutes per day of conversation. Seven minutes.
If you happen to make “date night,” and you happen to avoid talking about the kids on date night, you could blow right through a couple of weeks worth of convo right there!
Still, many people can see the importance of that level of maintenance (whether or not it actually happens).
So, this lie, If It’s Work It’s Wrong, kicks in more often when there is a struggle. A tough time. Tough conversations. Conflict and anger. Hurt and resentment.
When couples hit a tough spot — and they will — this lie short-circuits any effort to make it through the struggle. It provides a rationalization to dismiss the relationship as broken and hopeless.
The heart of this lie is the “Meant To Be” myth we seem to hold. It has infected many areas of life, and deeply infected many in the self-development world. The myth says that if you are on the path you are meant to be on, it will be easy and effortless. The struggle is an indication that you are on the wrong path. According to this myth, the struggle is proof that the path is wrong.
Therefore, if your marriage was really “meant to be,” there wouldn’t be any level of conflict or struggle. It would “just work.”
Except that is not how relationships (or life) really work.
Have you ever watched a baby learn to crawl, then walk, then run? It is not without struggle! In fact, until they master the skill, it is ALL struggle. Yet I have never seen a child, stuck on their belly, saying, “Well, if I was meant to crawl, walk, and run, it would just happen. Guess I’ll just give up on that!”
No. They struggle, repeatedly, until they get it right. They try and fail, only to try again. That’s the nature of growth and change. It often includes a struggle.
Or how about in other areas of your life?
If you want to get more fit, what do you do? Look in the mirror and say, “Well, if I was meant to be fit, I would be”? Or does it require effort? Have you ever struggled against a dumbbell trying to build your fitness and muscle? That is the only path to fitness — effort and struggle. The challenge builds the muscle. The effort builds the fitness.
What about in business? If a company is struggling, I have never seen it particularly helpful to say, “Well, if this business was meant to be, our product would just be perfect and customers would be lined out the door.”
Nope. Successful businesses are built on effort. They work to make a great product, and they work to find their customers. And they don’t stop! It is a continuing effort. Especially when you hit a rough patch, when sales are down or customers are unhappy. And the effort often leads to a superior product, a more effective company.
Or how about in a hobby or sport? Does success come because you are just a “natural”? Or do we get better by struggling with the skills, expanding our capacities by challenging our limits?
In her book, Mindset, Carol Dweck reminds us that believing in “natural athletes” or “natural” anything discounts the efforts that person put into their capacity — even if you don’t see it from the outside. People get better at what they lean into. What they practice. What they work at!
Which starts with believing that the struggle is not only a part of the process of improvement in any area of life, but that it is worth it.
If a baby wants to get around, it is worth it to work on crawling, then walking, then running.
If you want to be in better shape, but don’t know what to do, you could just avoid the struggle. Or you could make sure the struggle moves you forward. You could get a book, watch videos, join a gym, find a trainer. You could learn to struggle in a way that works.
In my office that day, my client said, “So, you think we should just always be struggling? This is what I have to look forward to?”
When we find a lie we are living, we often look first to see if the opposite will work. If the lie here is, “If it is work, it is wrong,” the opposite lie is, “If we always struggle, it must be right.” Don’t fall for that one, either!
The struggle isn’t the point. It is just the path. The goal of the baby is not to just always be struggling to crawl, or walk, or run. It is to get around. But to get around — to get to the point of crawling, then walking, then running — you have to struggle.
Just to be clear, just struggling through a relationship (or anything else) is not the answer. The struggle, itself, is not the point. It is just the path. There is a goal you are working toward! Merely struggling for the sake of struggling is not that goal.
Better passes right through struggle.
No, my point is not that you should be in perpetual struggle, just for the sake of struggle. But for the sake of something better, you will go through struggle. The path to better passes right through effort and struggle.
Let’s say you want to see amazing vistas from the top of the mountain. The climb up may be tough. It may be frustrating at times. And the top may be even obscured at times during the climb. But struggling to get to the summit is so you can have views from the summit. Enjoying the climb is great. Just not always possible. Sometimes, it is a slog or a challenge. It may require you to endure tough moments for the sake of the end result.
Oh, and by the way, you might just pick up some new strengths, skills, and capacities from the climb. Then the view….
Years ago, I was part of an adventure racing team. The three of us traveled to several locales to race for multiple hours. Sometimes, the race would last a full 24 hours. And while I look back with great memories, they were not easy races. We strived and struggled all the way through. We were never really competitive enough to win. But that wasn’t the point. Our goal was to finish at a respectful time.
After one of those races, while I was nursing some bruises and contusions, my wife read me a quote that men often confuse misery with adventure. I’m not sure that is untrue. We were miserable multiple times. I can tell you stories of injuries, frigid water, stinging nettle, being lost in the rain…yep, there was misery. The point was not to win the race. It was to persevere as a team, do our best, and learn from the experience. Our goal — which is true for everyone who takes on a challenge — was to be a better person through the experience. And to have some fun along the way.
“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
— Carlos Castenada
It occurs to me that, in many ways, this is true for any struggle. It isn’t the point to struggle. But you will. The question is whether we can get to the other side, to something better. Can we allow the struggle to shape and form ourselves and our relationships? Can we be better than we were before the struggle?
Muscles, minds, and fortitude grow through struggles. And the struggles leave us more prepared for the next one. No mountaineer starts on Everest. They work up to it. They build their skills on smaller challenges.
Struggle in life is inevitable. And to the point of this article, struggles in marriage are inevitable. And those struggles can get us to better places. Better relating and connection. The struggle teaches skills to take on the bigger challenges of life. Unless we fall for the lie.
What do we do? How do we escape this lie?
1) Don’t believe the lie! You may have said it yourself. Maybe your spouse (or friends and family) have said it. Not to cause a problem, but because the struggle can be painful. And people don’t much like to be in pain or see others in pain.
2) Don’t repeat the lie to justify your desire to avoid struggle and conflict. Repeating a lie, either to justify or explain, does not make it more true. It just makes you believe it more. Which can take away hope, along with effort. (Check out my book about building hope when a spouse is hopeless.)
3) See the struggle as a path to what you want in your marriage. The point of marriage is not to struggle, but to find connection and love, companionship and warmth. Don’t believe the lie about struggle and give up on the goal.
4) Find better ways to struggle. Make your goal of conflict to better the relationship. It is not a struggle between you, but a struggle for a better marriage. Just struggling is not the goal. The goal is progress. (Check out my podcast episode on conflict in service of progress.)
5) Find help when you are stuck. Being stuck is not the problem. We all have those times. Staying stuck is the problem. Not knowing what to do is a natural part of life. There is nothing wrong with saying you don’t know what to do. You can then find help. But it starts with accepting you are stuck and you need some help. (Check out my System to help you get unstuck.)
Challenge is a part of life — and of marriage. It invites us to grow and expand. Don’t believe the lie that if it is work, it is wrong. It is work because that is what creates growth.
About the author: Lee Baucom, Ph.D., is a relationship coach. He is the host of the Save The Marriage Podcast, and the creator of the Save The Marriage System. His System has been used by over 90,000 people around the world to save and transform their marriage, even when only one person wants to save their marriage. He is also the author of a number of books on healing relationships and thriving in life.
