Relationships are an interesting thing. In relationships I discover a lot about myself. Relationships will quickly bring out how relationally mature I am. The less mature I am, the more expectation I will place on you. This shows up very quickly in marriages.
As an infant I expect the other person or spouse to fill all the missing puzzle pieces to my life. I may marry for the very reason that I think you have all the puzzle pieces I am missing. I am not mature enough to understand and raise my children, so I am expecting you to have that puzzle piece of parent maturity to know how and to raise the children properly. I usually don’t even think about how mature you are until I realize that you are not meeting my expectations. Then, as an infant I become upset with you because you are not compensating for my missing relational maturity puzzle piece and you are not raising the children the way I think they should be raised.
Infants and children have a very difficult time raising their children. Our society has in large part decided to not have kids for the primary reason that they are not mature enough relationally to be good parents. As relational children we are only interested in ourselves and taking care of ourselves.
There is a simple solution to ending the heartache and bringing life to the situation. I said simple, not easy to do and it is not a quick fix. It takes time and changing where I have been living on my stuck not so merrygoround. The answer is: Maturing Relationally.
Maturing Relationally is something I can do no matter how damaged I am or how old I am physically. And, maturing relationally is easier and happens faster the more mature I become. So, You are not the problem after all. I have the heartaches because I am not mature enough to understand the issues and do not have the skills needed to deal with them. Traumas are also an issue but, the more mature I become and put away childish maturity, the easier it is to see what I could not see before and actually find God in all this mess and begin to see things as He sees them. I begin to realize I am not alone and that I have a Constant Companion who is with me and working for my good and the good of others in and through all these heartaches on my relational maturity journey.
We have birth pains and we have relational maturity pains. The ashes of my messes become the fertilizer for my relational growth.