There is a shared belief that if every individual can learn how to be more resilient, then they will be able to tackle any tough challenges that may come up in their relationships, their jobs, and their lives.
Resilience has been widely described as the ability to keep going when it gets hard; it is used synonymously with words like grit, toughness, strength, and champions. Champions are resilient, right? They don’t let anything get in their way to victory. Or you might have heard phrases like, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. These phrases and ideas are well-intended however they do little to encourage someone in a tough spot to activate their inner resources to take action. Most of the time, phrases like this keep us feeling not good enough, discouraged, and without value. Some of us have spent years or decades working hard at healing and making our marriages and lives better. So when someone says, “You just have to be more resilient in your marriage” when you feel like you’ve been trying to do that for so long, it’s likely you might feel even worse.
We work with so many struggling couples who have said some version of “I have been trying to work on my marriage for years and it isn’t getting better!” This is so painful.
If this is you, I want to encourage you with this: It’s more likely that in your marriage, it is your individual capacities for resilience that are crossing wires rather than you are just an unfit match. While it is true that resilience is a very important part of overcoming adversity, everybody has a different starting point and a different amount available to them. Resilience is not a free-flowing honey pot or something that we can tap into whenever we want – it’s replenishable, yes, but it’s also limited! With that, let’s talk about 3 ways to understand resilience in a way that is helpful and empowering for you and your marriage:
1. RESILIENCE in marriage is a DEPLETABLE RESOURCE
It was a huge “ah-ha” moment for me when I looked at resilience as a depletable resource, or as something that could run out. In my 10+ years studying psychology and mental health, it has never occurred to me that there was an explanation for why I couldn’t be tougher, rise up, or get my sh*t together that didn’t include the sole explanation that I must be doing something wrong or am just not good enough. If that idea feels grossly familiar to you, check this out: I was reading an article about assessing and determining the impact of childhood trauma and came across this sentence: “Childhood resilience can quickly lead to adult resistance”. If you have ever wondered why you keep trying so hard and it’s not getting you anywhere, it’s in that sentence. Researchers have found that the more often a child is called upon to be resilient, the more likely that same child might resist using resilience in adulthood when it’s needed. So, in simpler terms: The more children have to be resilient and find ways to survive trauma when they are young, the less likely they’ll be willing to face challenges as an adult. To apply this to marriage, resilience is EXHAUSTING, and having a childhood where you were called on to be strong over and over and over is exhausting, too. If you are struggling to find it within yourself to truly face the things that haunt you, that makes sense. An adult who faced little adversity or had a lot of protective factors as a kid is more likely to feel available to muster up all their grit and resilience for when the going gets tough. You or your spouse might experience a real and powerful response when leaning into challenges because you may have had to be resilient for so much of your life already that now you are depleted and exhausted. The story that history is telling you now might be: “I’ve been strong and resilient for so much of my life and it hasn’t made it better” It’s not an excuse; it is, however, an explanation and understanding is always the best place to start.
CONNECTION CHALLENGE:
Prolonged suffering can’t be explained or wished away by a lack of being “stronger”. Our challenge to you is to ask your spouse for a conversation to talk about how your past childhood of having to be an adult before you were ready is creating an aversion to having to be an adult right now. It might help offer some insight or some missing pieces.
2. RESILIENCE in marriage is not a synonym for DESIRED OUTCOME
While resilience can help you reach your goals, it also might lead you to a completely different path. Resilience is not only about activating your inner strength but also about activating your inner value. Strength and endurance might be what it takes to achieve your goals, but value is what it takes to set goals that produce peace, joy, and satisfaction in your life. If you’ve been pouring all your energy into fixing something that isn’t getting fixed, consider whether those goals meet your values. Resilience can be used to sustain misery or it can be used to create new possibilities; the choice is yours!
For example…
-You may have spent the last 15 years being resilient in a job you hate because the paycheck is good. If so, it might be time to consider the value of being miserable or treated poorly, or if it might be time to look for an open door somewhere else.
-You may have spent the last 3 years practicing resilience in keeping your marriage together after years of disrespect and your partner is using their “resilience resource” to continue to stay the same and not change. Resilience can be achieved by physically keeping your marriage together, but value is what will help you decide if it’s worth it to you to keep going in this direction.
3. RESILIENCE in marriage requires you to TRY SOFTER, not TRY HARDER
An author and therapist, Aundi Kolber, wrote a book called: “Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us Out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode- and into Connection and Joy”. The mental health application part from Aundi that I want to share most is this: Trying harder leaves us burned out, without internal compassion, and without much of a will to keep going. The answer to fixing your marriage isn’t to “try harder” or even to “be more resilient”. Healing from the trauma, pain, or abuse in your life doesn’t come from shaming or gaslighting yourself into hiding the true depth of impact of your experiences. The answer is to “try softer”; to quiet down the parts of you screaming to get a grip and to focus on the parts of you saying this is the truth of my story that matters the most; this is what I truly value and what I want to create next in my life. The answer is to gently embrace and allow yourself to experience peace and acceptance of your own values so that when you choose to use resilience, that grit goes into something you truly feel is worth the battle. Resilience is not your enemy, shame is!
We are all using resilience to accomplish something in our lives. The question is, are we using it to accomplish something we value and feel proud of? We can exhaust ourselves working toward something we think we are supposed to want or are supposed to try to make happen. We beat ourselves up over the lack of enoughness we experience, then show up empty to the parts of us we truly care about. The truth is that using resilience as a constant resource is exhausting– at some point, you will run out, and once you do your nervous system will experience a season of resistance against needing to be resilient again.
So, here’s the question: What are you using your resilience resource to accomplish and is it something you truly feel is worth it? If it is, that’s great! (Just remember to take time to rest and replenish your resources). If it’s not, then it is time for you to pause and ask yourself “What am I accomplishing with all my energy and hard work, and what part isn’t working for me anymore? What DO I truly value?”
CONNECTION CHALLENGE:
Talk with your spouse about where you are both feeling exhausted in your lives AND your marriage. What is resilience accomplishing for you and what values might you be compromising in the process?
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Written by Anna Collins
Anna Collins lives in California with her husband and four children. She is passionate about her marriage, staying at home with her kids, writing, coffee, good conversation, and game night. Her life dream is to someday write a book and see it published.
