“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I think… Maybe… I don’t know. I’m just tired of you.”
“Tired of me? Of what?”
“No, no, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I don’t know what I mean.”
There are couples who always fight fair, talk things out amicably and settle all subtle disagreements with a listening ear and a hug. There are those who never utter a hurtful word to each other, who never cry out of sheer frustration, who never feel lost, isolated or vexed in their relationship.
As much as other people believe so, we aren’t one of those couples.
With an Iron-Man finisher husband who sold everything he had to become a missionary and a medical doctor wife who has been labelled an “overachiever” since she was seven, you’ve got yourself a pretty intense combination right there. Conflicts take grand amounts of willpower and self-control to de-escalate. When we fail to, things fly. Doors get slammed. One person walks out.
These aren’t things anyone is proud to share. But they are real, and they happened with frequent intensity during our first year of marriage, even with frequent application of speaker-listener techniques we had learnt in two marriage preparation courses we had attended together, even with lots of transcendent highs with elaborate surprises my husband would throw for me, to the envy of friends. My husband likes to joke when people comment what a great example of a couple we are, especially when we are invited to speak to youth groups, “Well it’s true we have improved in our communication skills- we used to fight with knives, now we just use our fists!”
In about 3 weeks, we celebrate our second anniversary, a milestone he promises to be just the first few of many more to come.
So when those words “I’m just tired of you” were uttered after I showed my concern for his lethargy that weekend, saying that I felt shocked, small and vulnerable was a huge understatement.
In the mission field all the way in Africa, wasn’t each other all we had? Didn’t we just spend a great day out together? Didn’t I just receive flowers from him a week ago, in a place where florists are almost non-existent?
I looked at his tired face and defeated demeanor, and was speechless. Trying but failing to find some sort of clue or explanation to that statement, which I interpreted to be mean, unfair and humiliating, a hot surge of anger welled inside of me, before I erupted. For all I had done to support, encourage and love him in the mission field, I felt unappreciated and unloved in an instant.
“What do you mean you’re tired of me?”
A huge fight in the night ensued, where we were both badly scraped and burned.
“Well, I’m tired of you too,” I bit back, venomously.
It was only the next morning when we took a step back that we realized what had been happening. The past few weeks had been filled with exhausting travel and packed schedules, sometimes in uncomfortable, unhygienic and unhospitable circumstances. While we prayed together every day and knew that we were a team, these stresses, only magnified in a developing country where things broke down and got delayed unpredictably and regularly, sometimes frustrated and discouraged us deeply, in ways we could hardly articulate. In a foreign place where our spouse is our only constant companion, and friendships with friends back home and with locals of such vastly different backgrounds pose natural challenges to build and maintain, one can easily pin one’s inner loneliness and frustrations onto the other, unrealistically expecting the other to fulfill those needs that only a wide community can fill. We were each other’s colleague, ministry partner, co-speaker, driving buddy, best friend and lover at the same time. Yet, there were needs we knew only God could fill.
This “tiredness” we were experiencing was a feeling, a temporal one. We grew to understand, that it was a part of the missionary journey, and it did not mean we loved each other any less. It was part of the normally heightened stresses a missionary couple faces when they start to labor together in a foreign land, away from a familiar community. It was a sigh of tiredness in a challenging place. But the foundation of our love, based on the commitment of marriage and the love of God, remained the same. Our marriage covenant still stood strong.
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant.”
We began to understand, that this was an opportunity to understand each other more deeply, to discover what encouraged and spurred each other on. We began to see, how in times of discouragement and vexation, we must learn to take each other’s words with a pinch of salt, and grow compassion for the hurt hurting behind the expressed hurtfulness. We began to see, how great a team we were working together, and that this was the devil’s way of sowing discord between us to hinder our good work among the communities we served here in Africa. I too, have said foolish things I never meant.
Learning to read each other better, is a skill we are learning to master: When he says, “I’m tired of you”, it doesn’t mean he’s fed up with me; it really means he’s had a long day and needs to be left alone to recharge and process an exhausting day. I am learning I don’t have to take it personally.
When I say, “ Go away”, it doesn’t mean I’m angry with him, it just means I am struggling through a momentary overwhelming sense of self-pity. He is learning that is when I most need a kiss and a hug, which he often gives. We are both learning, how to be not only each other’s best cheerleader, but also each other’s best translator.
“Okay, I can see that’s not what you mean. Do you mean…?”
“I see you’re feeling very hurt at the moment. Is it because… ?”
That week, my husband had gone through a particularly trying season of overcoming the struggles of missing the familiarity of people back home. Missing home, for missionaries, is a feeling which ebbs and flows, a battle that requires constant overcoming. That week, I had had a series of disturbing nightmares which tormented me relentlessly night after night, and a bad fall which left me feeling helpless and discouraged, while nursing painful physical wounds. We had heard from various missionaries, that it was not only the big challenges, but little challenges like these, that often caused missionaries to head back home even before their first term was over.
Hugging each other, we knew that this fight was not against each other, but a spiritual warfare against the powers and principalities of this world. Reaffirming our commitment as a team, as each other’s best friend and most committed prayer warrior, we knew that every battle we overcame together would only make us stronger, more united, more determined to serve God here with all our hearts, all our minds and all our souls. Having our loved ones pray for us that season helped us to receive the spiritual breakthrough we needed.
As we walk into our second wedding anniversary, hand in hand with each other, we are filled with gratitude at where God has brought us to, straight into the mission field, where together, we have marveled at the magic of seeing hundreds of birds and dragonflies and termites flying off into the glowing African sunset, where we have borne with bad traffic for hours under a scorching sun, squealed with amazement at monkeys and hornbills at our windows, and laughed and cried together in each other’s arms. We are learning, how to love each other more, by finding our all-sufficiency in God, by reading each other better, by showing each other more grace, more kindness and more compassion.
“If I were to choose all over again, I would still choose you, Beautiful. Are we a team?”
“We most certainly are, Team Tam.”