Where Are You?

Identifying where you want to go for vacation is the most important step to making the trip happen. But that’s the case because of one important reason—you understand what city you live in. Knowing where you are and knowing where you want to go empowers you to take steps to travel between the two.

In relationships, identifying where we want to go (or who we want to be) is vital, but there is an equally necessary step—we must identify where we are. While everyone knows where they physically live, few (if any) of us live in a continual state of awareness of the state of our marriage. Most of the time, we don’t know where we are.

This is why the second step (see the first step HERE) in Designing the Marriage You Want is to identify where you currently are.

Where Are You?

Ask anyone about work, and they can quickly answer. Ask them about their kids, and they know what to say. But ask the average couple about their marriage, and there is a pause.

While we always know where we are physically, we rarely know where we are relationally, especially regarding relationships with our spouses. Understanding the condition of our marriage does not come naturally to us. This comes with two costs.

1. One spouse might view the relationship negatively while the other blissfully thinks everything is okay. How many divorces have been a total shock to either husband or wife?

2. Until we know where we are, we won’t know how to get to where we want to go. The practical work of designing the marriage you want only follows once you know where you want to go and where you currently are. Without the latter, the former is of no use.

So, where are you?

Here are a few ways to help determine your present location.

1. What’s your current direction? Sometimes it is difficult to know exactly where you are, but understanding if things are going good or bad, is more straightforward. Would you say your relationship is going in a good direction or a bad direction? And be careful about saying neither or thinking you are in neutral. Things in neutral rarely go the right way. Either you are headed the way you want or something needs to change.

2. Assessments have flaws, but they can often be useful in helping reveal hidden struggles. At Change The Odds, we have a basic 30-question assessment which takes a few minutes to take, but can be very telling as it gives you scores in three key areas of marriage. Take the Assessment HERE.

3. What season are you in? As time passes, it is easy to lose track of which season of marriage we are in. Each season is different. The honeymoon phase should be approached differently than the childbearing years. The start of retirement is a different time than raising teenagers. By identifying our present season, we are more likely to recognize present struggles, discover skills we should be learning, and better understand what expectations we should have.

4. What have you overcome, and what challenges do you still face? Few things are as empowering as recognizing things that we have overcome. Seeing past struggles transformed into present strengths gives us the courage to face present weaknesses without fear that they might take us down. It also reminds us that while we might not be where we want to be, we are not where we once were.

5. Take a look at your past week (or month or year). A good aspect of technology is that it gives us concrete data to consider. Scroll back through your communication with your spouse and ask a simple question—does this sound like two people in love? Obviously, the conversation will be full of partnership discussions and parenting debates. But is there love? Affection? Humor? Look at your calendar. What time did you spend together? What time do you have upcoming in which you are certain to be together? If you aren’t spending time together, you probably aren’t loving each other well. And for most of us, getting time together requires planning.

While there isn’t a set curriculum to determine exactly where you are, a little introspection can go a long way to helping you understand your present state. Once you know where you are and contrast that with where you want to be, you can determine how to get there.

You Are Here

For many couples, even if they know where they are, they struggle to admit it. While some are deceived, many are in denial. They won’t come to terms with where they are, what they are struggling with, or the work they need to do.

Not only much we identify where we are, we have to embrace that’s our current condition. We don’t have to be happy about it. We don’t have to stay there. But we must accept this is where we are.

Need help? That’s where you are.

Older? That’s part of life.

Not as connected as you wish? It happens.

Admit where you are, and then do what’s necessary to get to where you want to go.

The final step in determining where you are is ensuring there are no red flags in your relationship.

Red Flags

One part of of the process in determining where you are is making sure there are not any Red Flags in your relationship. Red Flags are not necessarily things that guarantee the death of the relationship, but they are issues that left unattended will keep you from experiencing the marriage you desire. Most red flags are like appendicitis. It’s an emergency that needs to be treated, but proper treatment nearly ensures recovery. Yet left untreated, the situation can be deadly.

Here are 10 Red Flags in a marriage:

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