Cold Spell Dr. Juan Harrison
Cold Spell
It’s early January of 2025. A cold blast has just hit us with a rare snow possibility likely to hit us toward the end of the week. We can handle a little snow, not so much if we end up with a little ice. Everything pretty well shuts down until the ice melts.
Looking around at some of our marriages failing at close to a 50% clip tells us a number of them are dealing with a cold spell. Money is always a factor for a number of marriages. Today they said that credit card debt is at an all time high. Still, that doesn’t really explain the high rate of failure. Infidelity can be a factor, but maybe not as much as we think. Seems that marriages like the weather can have their cold spells too. Couples stop communicating. Verbally they may stop interacting, maybe speaking only in passing, unlike the early years of young love. Gone too may be the accompanying touch of a hand or an arm around a waist. Little speech, less touch. Maybe she goes off to her part of the house while he goes to his workshop, garage, or home office. Nothing wrong with a little separation. It’s actually pretty healthy for a marriage. Just not too much.
Sometimes it happens as the last kid leaves home and the house feels so much bigger. Those midlife changes bring on a whole new batch of issues as couples start to feel more comfortable financially, not feeling the need as much to fight the daily money battles as houses and cars get paid off. Dreams of becoming financially more comfortable can carry with it the need to not have to lean on one another as much as they did in the early years. Prosperity can bring with it a whole batch of troubles.
Those easier, more comfortable years of semi-independence quickly pass by, hopefully with the couple hanging in there, not letting complacency and a comfortable existence let them take for granted what they have fought to build and worked so hard to maintain. Before you know it, the senior years are peaking around the corner. Health issues may start to rear their ugly head. Regular doctor visits become almost a social event at times as you schedule appointments out of town with a good meal at a favorite restaurant or café. So much for your social life. At least now you find the need once more to be closer together as you help one another through these senior years of growing dependence on one another again.
For some, the days of two have become lonely years as widows lean more on family and close friends. Widowers may find the sleeping a bit tougher. Funny how life divides itself into chapters and seasons. Things are always changing. Life goes by too fast. Maybe that’s when we need to stop for a second and smell the roses, even if it’s January and you have to brush off the snow from a cold spell.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
