I am a broken man.
And I have been a broken man ever since I became a man.
My father broke me.
My mother stood by and watched.
But none of my childhood experiences would I change.
Not the kidnapping.
Not the starving when I was 8.
Not even the physical or emotional abuse.
If you ask people who’ve lost the ability to use their limbs in an accident, many will tell you that years after their tragedy, they wouldn’t change who they are or wish they could go back to who they were before.
I think that’s because two things can happen when you’ve lived through trauma or tragedy.
The first is that the depths of pain can allow you to feel equal depths of joy.
But the second is most important: your pain gives you a blueprint for how to create joy.
And I find that blueprint is surprisingly simple.
You basically do the opposite of what was done to you.
Most of us know exactly what hurt us growing up. We know what it felt like to be ignored or criticized.
Abandoned (like me). Controlled, screamed at, or emotionally manipulated. Lots of us were made to feel like we weren’t good enough.
You get the picture.
So in a lot of ways, we already know what not to do.
Doing the opposite is harder. Doing the opposite takes courage and decision.
It takes the courage to try to replace pain with joy. And the decision to try without knowing whether you’ll succeed.
I think that fear of failure is what stops so many of us.
So instead of creating something different, we recreate what hurt us.
I decided a long time ago that if I had to live through what I did as a little boy, I was going to make it mean something.
I was going to use it to build a marriage so joy-filled, so connected, so loving, and so chosen and cherished that it looked nothing like what I grew up watching.
And how did I build it?
With the courage and decision to keep following my own personal blueprint:
Do the opposite of what was done to me.
And today, I’m calling you to do something similar. I’m calling you to take an honest look at where your marriage is right now.
That’s not so you can beat yourself up. Or give you reason to blame your spouse.
But so you can decide whether pain from the past is running the show and threatening to destroy what could become one of the most joy-filled relationships you’ll ever experience.
That takes courage.
Thankfully, I’ve got a place for you to start.
It’s called the Marital Inventory.
Either alone or together, you’ll take a long, hard — but incredibly helpful — look at your marriage and figure out where you are, what’s working, what needs to change, and where to go next.
You can find out more here: The Marital Inventory Course
Your past gave you the blueprint.
Now you get to decide what you build with it.
In solutions and strength,
aka “Mr Chosen & Cherished”