How Your Past Shapes Your Marriage (And How to Move Forward)

Hello and welcome to the Hope Relentless marriage podcast. We have Chad and Sarah-Gayle here and we are thrilled you are tuning in. It is incredible that you are taking time out of your day to invest in your relationship. It never gets old, and we want to commend you, because you are doing one of the best things you can do for your family, your community, and the world. Remember, marriages impact families, families impact communities, and communities impact the world. Today we are going to talk about how our past impacts our marriage.

At Hope Relentless we like to focus a bit more on the future, full of faith. Scripture talks about God calling things that are not as though they were, and we believe nothing is impossible with God. At the same time, our past does play a key part in who we are. Our past shapes how we see the world, our experiences, and our perspective. So today we want to dig into how exactly our past impacts our marriage, what cues let us know there is something worth exploring, and, since we are all about moving forward (Philippians talks about focusing on whatever is good, worthy, and noble), how to hold both of those together.

If you have been married longer than a couple weeks, you have seen how the way you were raised and some of your past experiences come into your present marriage. It is disappointing at times, because we want to start these new lives full of hope, and yet we fall back on what we know. A few areas worth thinking about: First, the family dynamic. However your family dynamic was growing up is familiar, and you can fall into it without intentionality. Second, your parents' marriage, or whatever relationship you saw growing up. Was it cold, was it loving? That is in your mind's eye of what relationship looks like. Third, the story you told yourself when you watched those relationships. Deep down, what story did you tell yourself? An example: you get hurt in relationships, because maybe all you saw was arguing and dysfunction, so the story became "relationships are dangerous."

Chad adds: look back at how you behaved as a teenager, those transition years from kid to young adult. Were you a rule follower or rebellious? Those patterns can be cues for how your past might be shaping your relationships today, specifically how your upbringing impacts how you show up in your marriage. Another area is past romantic relationships. Are there patterns or trends in the type of person you are attracted to, or in how those relationships ended? Some of those are painful, but we can learn a lot by reflecting on childhood and making connections to our current relationships.

Awareness is huge. A lot of those areas, just bringing awareness to them is tremendously helpful, because we can catch ourselves, and the more we catch ourselves, the more we start to transform that action or behavior. But sometimes there are deeper rooted areas we cannot quite identify. We can look at those areas and see how it was and how we want it to be, but sometimes we live out behaviors we do not know how to fix or why they are there, and it is frustrating. Examples: intense sadness or depression, addiction ("why do I keep doing what I do not want to do?"), or patterns around sexual relationships ("why do I keep putting myself out there this way?"). If you are at your wits' end, that is a sign of a deeper root that needs to be uncovered.

That is when you can look to more focused therapies. EMDR is popular and helps get to the underlying problem of why we act out in ways that may not be on a conscious level. There are also spiritual practices that help you sit with the Lord and learn what He would have you focus on, what has been covered that needs to be brought to the light. It is worth getting the help you need for the deeper issues. Chad participated in Celebrate Recovery and went through an extensive process; Sarah-Gayle went through grief recovery after losing immediate family members, learning to identify patterns and how past experiences show up in the present. If we are hiring someone, we look at their experience and past; well, we all have past relational experience shaping our current relationships. So become aware of patterns, addiction, lifestyle, moments of doing what we big-picture do not want to do. A pattern like that is a cue for something deeper worth getting help with.

A couple resources we like: last week we talked about What to Say When You Talk to Yourself , about self-talk and the subconscious, much of it rooted in our past and childhood, where we respect authority figures and take on their perspective without realizing it. Another is The Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, which helps us understand the power of language and how it is connected to our past. There is a story in it: as a boy, the author was placed in the class that was not for the smart kids. He went to the principal, who said the tests placed him correctly. From then on he did not feel smart, but it was incongruent with what he wanted, because he knew his mom wanted him to be successful. So he reasoned, "I am not smart, therefore I must study," and as he studied he became brilliant, earned accolades, and got into a top, prestigious college, and still did not believe he was smart. So in different circles he would hold back, unsure he was smart enough to add to the room, until he heard others and then added his voice. It shows the power of what we believe and how it impacts our present.

This points to a deeper idea: we are not looking for behavior modification. This man changed his behavior, he studied, but he did not transform. He did not change his mind about who he was, so the behavior only got him so far. Not until he could identify the limiting belief did he become the best version of himself in that area. The book breaks it down in more detail, and we encourage you to read it.

A personal example: the dinner table. Chad grew up in a home where mom and dad both worked, he and his sister did school and sports, but they consistently ate dinner together. The pattern was: when dinner is ready, everyone comes and sits down. Somewhere in there Chad picked up that one way you show respect for whoever made dinner is to come to the table while it is warm and sit together; not coming felt disrespectful. Fast forward, early in our marriage, Chad makes dinner and says "babe, dinner's ready," and Sarah-Gayle comes five or ten minutes later, finishing something, cheerful, "what's for dinner?" Chad is so frustrated, "I told you ten minutes ago, I already ate." It felt disrespectful and rude. But in Sarah-Gayle's childhood, her mom put dinner out in the late afternoon and family came as schedules allowed; it was never about respect or disrespect. So looking at our past, we could each understand how we were showing up. Sarah-Gayle was not being disrespectful, and Chad learned this can be a preference without processing her finishing a task as disrespect. Without looking back at where these patterns and perspectives come from, every single dinner could have become a point of conflict projected across the relationship.

We believe you are worth it and your marriage is worth it. That is why looking at our past, our present, and how our childhood is impacting our marriage matters. When I become a healthier version of myself and Sarah-Gayle becomes a healthier version of herself, it has a positive impact on our marriage. We like to say the "both and." In the dinner example, there are things Chad can own, being more patient, communicating ahead, "dinner will be ready around 6:45." And things Sarah-Gayle can own, recognizing that when Chad cooks it matters that we come to the table and enjoy the meal together. It is both and, and when we both take steps toward each other, it encourages and strengthens the relationship.

What we hope you hear is that we are not stuck in our past, and we are not doomed by it. On the contrary, we can move forward. It takes courage to look at the things showing up in your present that are not the way you want them, and diligence to get the help you need to address them, because they matter, and you matter. As we do that, we keep growing toward the marriage we all want. There is always hope. We are all a work in progress, and from strength to strength we go. One of my favorite verses is that there is no condemnation in Christ; God is not pointing the finger at you because you had a past. It is an opportunity. And a quote I love from Maya Angelou: "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." Take that into your week, and remember, there is always, always hope.