Why A Missed Workout Class Could Be a Real Problem

I was recently laid off at work.

My last day was my eighth anniversary at that company. During that time, I had a routine that didn’t require explanation or discussion. I would wake up around 4:15-4:30 every morning with my work clothes packed in my backpack the night before. My gym clothes were laid on the bathroom counter to speed up my preparations. I was at the gym by 5 A.M. when it opened.

I had a routine. Since the layoff, I have been self-employed. My days have no regularity about them now. Everything requires a discussion with my wife so we're on the same page. The digital family calendar we had discussed purchasing for years was quickly ordered on Amazon.

After finishing my workout set, I got ready to walk out of the weight room and through the changing rooms to the sauna. It’s a familiar routine, one I have completed with metronome regularity for nearly a decade. I was certain I had told my wife the previous night. Certain until the phone rang.

I answered it, and my wife asked, “Are you at the gym? Will you be back in time for me to get to my workout class?” “Um…yes,” I replied. More discussion followed, but the bottom line was that I had not clearly communicated the night before that I would be going to the gym early. I made last-minute plans, reverting to my old schedule without telling my wife.

Don’t Stop Talking

Missing a workout class or making an unscheduled trip to the gym seems pretty innocuous, and it probably is at first. It was easily resolved. I apologized to my wife for messing up her plans, and we moved on.

I am forty-one this year. I have lived long enough to have seen many of the friends I started out in life with end one, two, or three marriages. People you thought would be together forever won’t speak to each other except at pickup and drop-off.

So what happens?

Somewhere along the way, communication breaks down. We stop talking. We allow the busyness of life to be an excuse. We spend more time in a dark room with backs to each other, the faint blue glow of cell phones illuminating opposite sides of a cold bed. We squander a parent’s precious window between bedtime and finally falling asleep on “me time” with Netflix or doom-scrolling.

It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

I can’t write a few bullet points in a blog and solve issues in the home. Entire careers have been spent on trying to solve this problem. However, I think there are a few “rules” we can follow that will help.

• Clearly define expectations. (Amos 3:3)
• Take a moment, if needed, before opening your mouth. (James 1:19)
• Make sure what you’re saying builds up the person and doesn’t tear them down. (Ephesians 4:29)

If I had to go back and look at every difficult time in our married life, I think I could find, at its inception, some hazy expectations. Things I wanted from my wife or for our life that I was either incapable of communicating or too afraid to say. When things didn’t go the way I wanted (big surprise), anger and resentment began to grow.

“Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?” Amos 3:3

It seems silly to have to even say, but so many of us carry anger and hurt for this very reason. How can we walk together when we never actually agreed to meet?

Stop Before You Speak

My sitcom-dad-like ability to not listen is a problem. I think I know what needs to be said without ever really hearing what is going on. I can fix this.

So, like Tim Allen in Home Improvement, I charge in, sure that I can make things better. I don’t stop to listen to what my wife has to say, to make sure I know if a response is even needed beyond a hug.

All I should do is “…be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” (James 1:19)

It’s game night with friends, a group of young couples hanging out together and sharing life. Kids are in the background destroying one of your homes, and there is always that one guy.

You know. The guy who “jokingly” tears his wife down piece by conversational piece. He has all the subtlety of a Vegas billboard. His contempt for his wife is palpable, and he destroys his marriage with ten thousand cuts.

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up... that it may give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)

Build Together

I finished writing this morning. This morning marks fourteen years that my wife and I have been working on these things.

Nothing is easy. It all takes careful cultivation for this relationship to keep growing instead of dying. There is a reason romantic movies always end when they first get together: all is scintillating and new. No one wants to watch the conflict resolution of deciding who should change the third diaper of the morning.

If my wife and I did not address the gym communication issue, if I decided I was too proud to accept culpability, and if she decided to let resentment towards me fester, it would be easy to have a very different result.

Let Scripture and the wisdom in it define your relationships.