Marriage Is Hard.

You have no idea how good you have it right now, single girl

In Los Angeles in 2021, I went from loving LA and certain we’d never live anywhere else to no longer being able to stand our deteriorating neighborhood. I could not authentically picture remaining anywhere in California. I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach on the daily. My husband was born and raised in the area we were living in, and he had no plans of moving. I would pray several times a day for God to show me how to live there. I was not okay, and it was painful.

I had already imagined where we could live in North Carolina, because we had friends and family who had moved there. We took a wonderful summer trip there, and while delayed on a ramp waiting to get on the plane back to Los Angeles, while I was having a bad hot flash, my husband snuck up behind me and whispered in my ear. “Great trip, babe. But I can’t imagine living here.” My heart sank and joy leaked out through the bottoms of my feet, which felt heavy as we made our way onto the plane. I found a seat through a heavy fog of disappointment, saying Hail Marys.

I turned my impatience and resistance over to God, and practiced compassion for my husband’s resistance to change. I spoke to God regularly, saying “Lord. This man won’t budge. Show me how to live in LA and not lose my mind.” The decline was obvious and I had a good reason to dislike LA. But I had pivoted from our shared plan, and that had to have been hard for my husband. One day I started hearing a song play in my head like it was a radio, and it continued for several days in a row. When that happens, I like to look up the song and spend some time with the lyrics, in case God is getting my attention.

The line that got me was,

“I’d rather live in his world, than live without him in mine.”

I realized I couldn’t stand LA, but it would be way worse to live without my husband.