My husband and I like to joke about the way we looked at being an adult when we were growing up. He says he couldn’t wait to be a grown up and have all the money he wanted and be able to do whatever he wanted to do with it. I couldn’t wait to grow up and make my own decisions for myself and not have to have someone else make them for me. I am sure if you think back to your childhood you might be able to relate.

Then we grew up and realized what we thought adulthood was, wasn’t that at all. We don’t make money to do whatever we want with it, we make money to pay bills and support ourselves. And sometimes making decisions for ourselves isn’t all that great, sometimes making decisions can be pretty hard. There are definitely times that I wish I could curl back up in my little safe corner of the world and not make decisions and have them made for me. Can anyone relate? (Insert emoji raising her hand here).

Life can be hard. There is no doubt about it. Growing up isn’t as easy as we once thought it was. And sometimes when life is hard, marriage gets the brunt of it. There are a lot of things in life that can cause our marriage to take a hit, but the hit our marriage takes is all dependent on us.

Marriage is being on a team, and you can choose to be on each other’s team, or you can choose to be on opposing teams. When life throws all it has at you and your marriage, there is a side waiting for you to pick.

I had this thought in my head that all marriages would take this hit that shook them to the core. Why? Because I had seen every marriage before me do just that when growing up. Pornography, adultery, violence, abuse, lying, and the list goes on. The picture of marriage before me never looked like being on the same team. It always looked like being on opposing teams but trying to find some common ground in the middle. Trying to recover and make things work.

But that isn’t the way marriage was meant to be lived. Marriage was meant to be lived out on the same team. So when life got hard, you fought it together. When you didn’t understand something, you sought to understand together. When your feelings were hurt, you had a safe place to turn to. Marriage is being on the same team and working through life’s hardships together.

After a weekend away and an entire day of traveling for me, and a weekend of taking care of a sick baby and an energetic toddler for my husband, we both found ourselves in the ER with our baby girl until close to midnight. As I looked over at him and asked him how he was doing, I expected him to respond in frustration. But he didn’t, he looked at me and responded calmly, “I’m good. This is life.” And he’s right. Life is messy, life is hard, life is exhausting, life can send you on a roller coaster but the best part about marriage is having a teammate to do it all with. Hard doesn’t have to be your marriage taking a hit. Hard can just be life.

When life is hard we have the choice to live it together or live it separate. When life is easy we have the choice to live it together or live it separate. The only way a team survives is when a team works together, on the good days and the bad.

In that moment I had a thought. I saw before me what could be hard for our marriage. And I saw us working together as a team. I saw us there taking care of our baby girl and waiting for answers. I saw us doing life together and I thought to myself, this is what’s hard in marriage, life. But when you look at life as a team, your marriage can grow from it. When you look at life and try to conquer it alone, that’s when your marriage can take a hit. Don’t let hard take the team out of marriage. It’s amazing how much closer you can become when you work together as a team.

Seasons of life will affect your marriage differently, but if you remember that through every season you are meant to work together as a team, your marriage can grow. I wouldn’t want to do life any other way. I am so thankful for my teammate.

Have you seen how working together as a team can impact your marriage?