Are You Willing to Fight for Your Relationship?

Often, one's character speaks louder than words.

My friends Heather and Glenn are recently married. They dated each other for several years before either was ready to commit to marriage. Heather was burned in two serious relationships by men who decided she wasn’t worth fighting for. 

She was skeptical about committing to Glenn. Until he told her one day about his experience in Navy SCUBA school.

Years earlier, Glenn attended the five-week course in Florida to become certified as a Navy diver. Only 29 of the 40 recruits graduated, the rest opting out when the physical and mental challenges grew too extreme.

For more than a month, Glenn ran five miles a day across a hilly course, swam miles in the ocean, and did countless push-ups and sit-ups. He dodged stingrays on the ocean floor and swam the length of a ship beneath its hull at night in pitch black water. 

But it was one test in particular that pushed Glenn to his limits.

Unbeknownst to him, it also secured him his future wife.

One day, Glenn was required to swim underwater with a limited supply of oxygen. At one point—he didn’t know when—two instructors swam up behind him and ripped his breathing apparatus from his mouth, then attempted to yank off his oxygen tank. If they managed to rip it away, he would fail the course. 

Glenn desperately clutched the straps securing his oxygen tank as the men tried to tear it off, all three thrashing and spinning head over heels in a storm of bubbles and silt. Through his goggles, Glenn saw several classmates give up and desperately kick toward the surface. 

After fighting for just under a minute, holding his breath the whole time, the instructors released Glenn and he rocketed to the surface, gasping for air. He passed the test and received his diver certification.

When Glenn told Heather this story, something clicked inside her. It told her that Glenn would never give up. 

Unlike the previous men in her life, he would fight for what he committed to. 

That night, Heather told Glenn she was ready to fully commit to him. If he wasn’t, she would fight for their relationship nonetheless. They attended marriage preparation counseling. Six months later, they were standing at the altar.

As stressful situations go, being attacked underwater with no oxygen for almost a full minute ranks pretty high. Marriage can be stressful too. It is a wonderful thing, but at times it also tests your limits in every way—mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and physically. 

Many fear they don’t have what it takes to endure, so they are reluctant to take the leap. Others commit without realizing what it will sometimes take. 

No one can know for sure, of course, exactly what a lifelong union will bring.

But it is guaranteed to be filled with both amazing blessings and grueling challenges. 

When I got married, I was determined that it would last, no matter what came our way. I was also naive, idealistic, and unprepared in many ways. Marriage was better than I had imagined and harder than I could have realized. 

Financial struggles, trying unsuccessfully to have children, struggling with personal insecurities, failing to put one another before ourselves…we experienced it all. My spouse’s affair was simply the final blow that collapsed a house that had already been burning for too long. She wasn’t a bad person. She was just hurting and scared like me.

We did not pass the tests. Seven years after our wedding, we divorced. A few years after that, a Church tribunal granted us an annulment. 

I didn’t know if I was ready to risk loving again. I didn’t know if I had the strength to manage it. 

Eventually, time and self-reflection and prayer got me to a place where I was willing to at least consider it again. 

I met someone new. We took our time. Having grown a little stronger and wiser over the years, in fits and starts, we finally decided to date with the intent of eventual marriage. Today she is my wife.

It is a reality that sometimes we make mistakes in relationships. We get starry-eyed and become slaves to our endorphins and rush into commitments we never should have made. 

One sad night a few months before my first marriage collapsed, we both admitted to each other that we probably would not have gotten married if we’d taken more time to get to know each other. It was heartbreaking. It was also the first step to being real about our situation.

No one should rush into a commitment like marriage. But when you have discerned you’re ready—through enough time together, prayer, and wise counsel—then you should be ready to fight for it.

It may seem impossible, but it’s not. Countless couples endure hardships and stay together for life. 

The success stories are just as true as the tragic ones. 

When we trust God and continually submit our relationship to Him, He carries us through. “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God” (Mark 10:27).

When I heard Glenn’s story of surviving his Navy diver test, it encouraged me too. It gave me hope and reminded me that a healthy, happy relationship is possible, though it won’t always come without a fight. Trials will arise and some tests may seem unpassable. But with God, we can endure and triumph. 

We can fight. And then we can break the surface and breathe in the air and sunlight. The test isn’t the only thing. The victory is real too.