Letter to Newlyweds: The Dance of Miscommunication and Forgiveness

The first couple of years of marriage can be so much fun. You no longer have to say goodbye after a date. Instead of sending good morning and goodnight texts, you share kisses. Rather than talking about the future, you get to plan and live it out together as one. There is a newness to everything, which brings its own set of struggles as well.

My first piece of advice is to learn how to put God at the center of your marriage. Grace and I do morning devos, serve together, are in a couples’ small group together and pray before bed together. Having all of these activities in our daily and weekly rhythms really set the tone in our marriage.

Second, it’s important to understand the dance of miscommunication and forgiveness in marriage. When you get married, everything increases: time together, intimacy, discussions about money, and family matters. These things can often lead to miscommunicating. I struggled with sharing my feelings in the first couple of years of marriage, which often led to things just feeling “off.” We learned that you have the choice to either address the issues or sweep them under the rug. I thought sweeping them under the rug was a form of turning the other cheek, but I was wrong. I started putting my foot forward and learned to lead by sharing what was going on in my head and giving Grace some unprocessed, raw, and real emotions. Grace learned how to give me space to share, as well as living out the principle: “What is celebrated is repeated.”

Communication and miscommunication are just a part of life, so choosing to forgive and move on is incredibly important. I used to “forgive” but then stay “butt hurt” for a few hours (I’m still working on this). Grace and I have a core value of being Unified: We trust that our spouse has our best intentions in mind, because they are not the enemy. I can’t tell you how often we both repeat this. Marriage is your most important earthly relationship. It’s meant to make you more in the image of God, so get vulnerable, laugh until it hurts, fall on your face together, dream together, cry naked in the shower together, and run (maybe even sprint) together toward God.

Miscommunication happens, but forgiveness and joy are choices. Choose wisely.