How to Stay Married: Saying "I do" and Meaning It.

More than half of the people who say “I do” will eventually go back on their word. Once the honeymoon phase ends and real relationship challenges set in, marriage can feel impossible to hold together. Although my husband and I have only been married for a few years, we’ve endured more than many couples face in a decade. And yet, through those struggles, my understanding of what marriage actually means has deepened.

For me, it began with Lynn Andrews’ Medicine Woman and a conversation about the “marriage basket.” The invisible weight of expectations, conflicts, and roles we carry into partnership. I realized that the meaning of marriage isn’t found in avoiding those burdens but in the willingness to shoulder them together. Our hardest lessons, our deepest conflicts, were not meant to divide us but to invite us into shared growth.

That’s why this is important. Because I believe tremendous spiritual growth can come through the willingness to face what marriage really demands. If you don’t want to become another failed statistic, or if you simply want nuggets of truth to hold onto when you finally say “I do,” read on.

The Marriage Basket

When I first read about the marriage basket in Lynn Andrews’ Medicine Woman, I was captivated. I had picked up the book almost by accident, wandering through a spiritual store, expecting a story about connecting to Spirit. Instead, I stumbled into a lesson that felt divinely timed; one that mirrored the very struggles inside my own marriage.

Andrews writes about being confronted by a sorcerer named Red Dog, a figure who forced her to face the weight of power, conflict, and the tension between masculine and feminine energies. It was through him that she came to understand one of her deepest truths: our enemies are often our greatest teachers. Reading those words struck me, because in my own marriage, the “enemy” wasn’t a person out there somewhere. It was the dynamic inside our relationship, the battle between control and fear that played out between us.

At the time, one of our deepest conflicts revolved around religion. My husband and I were shifting in opposite directions, and the change brought a kind of spiritual identity crisis that seemed impossible to accept. Suddenly, the basket I thought was supposed to hold love and harmony was filled with weight I didn’t want to carry: fear, control, loss, and the unraveling of certainty.

Not long after reading Andrews’ story, I began to see the basket more clearly. I understood that much of my conflict came from trying to control what went into it. I wanted to decide which expectations belonged, which beliefs we would share, and which ones needed to be discarded. But control, I realized with the help of my therapist, was only a tool I used to manage fear.

My husband’s basket was different, but no less heavy. His was filled with fear of loss. Fear that embracing his truth and stepping into a new identity might cost him the life he had built: the wife he knew, the family we had formed, the sense of stability he trusted. Where mine overflowed with control, his brimmed with loss.

Together, those baskets collided. They knocked against each other in painful ways, exposing just how much unspoken weight we had both been carrying. But here is where Red Dog’s lesson began to make sense: the very thing I wanted to resist, the “enemy” of conflict, of change, of facing my own control, became the greatest teacher. The marriage basket wasn’t meant to be avoided or denied. It was meant to be carried, to teach us both where we still cling, where we still fear, and where we are still willing to grow.

The Meaning of Marriage

The meaning of marriage has evolved throughout it's history.

Marriage, for us, began as what it was originally created for initially. An agreement between two people. A decision made out of commitment, and the belief that we could build a lasting and beneficial partnership together. We signed the papers, exchanged vows, and promised to choose each other through the good and the bad. But what we didn’t realize at the time was that marriage isn’t just a legal or emotional bond. It’s a living structure of two spirits coming together as one. Over time, like the history of marriage, we found that structure in religion. It became the guide we didn’t know our spirits needed, helping us understand what we expected from one another, the importance of honesty and how to support one another through the roles we each play.

Expectations

I thought marriage meant we would talk through everything first. That when something big changed, we’d discuss it together. So when my husband began changing spiritually without telling me, I felt blindsided. I had no idea he was even interested in religion, and since I’m not religious myself, it created this deep sense of disconnection and fear.

That experience made me realize how many unspoken expectations I was carrying. Like expecting he needed my permission to seek a relationship with God. I had ideas about what a husband should do and what a wife should be, but I’d never actually said them out loud. Not even to myself, because I wasn't even aware I had them. They were inherited beliefs, formed from what I’d seen growing up, on the media i grew up on, or what I thought I needed to feel safe.

When those expectations weren’t met, it didn’t just hurt; it exposed me. I had to face the parts of myself that still felt unsafe, unseen, or unworthy of love. At first, those moments sent me spiraling. I’d sink into frustration, fear, and victimhood. But over time, I started to see those lows differently. Now, when I find myself dropping into that space, I know a lesson is coming.

Instead of resisting, I sit with it. I talk to my spirit, to what I consider God, the Creator, that quiet energy that exists within all things, and I ask what I need to learn. And almost always, the lesson is communication. Learning to express what I need, what I feel, and what I expect. Not expecting my husband to just know.

It’s one of the biggest myths we’re taught: “If he wanted to, he would.” The truth is, not everyone was raised to understand how to love you in the language that you need. That’s not neglect; that’s humanness. As women, we have to learn to ask, not in a condescending or controlling way, but in a way that allows our partner to know us better. Because asking isn’t weakness. It’s intimacy.

“You have to help your partner come through for you. Tell them how you'd like them to be. Help them win.” — Terrence Real, Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship

Honesty

Honesty is one of those things people romanticize until they actually have to practice it. I think most people, deep down, are afraid to be honest. Men especially. They often say, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you.” And I get that. But honesty withheld for comfort is still dishonesty.

For me, honesty has always been both my gift and my curse. I’m an open book. I overshare. I don’t hide my feelings well, and for the most part, I’m okay with that. But not everyone can handle that level of transparency. Some people love it; others find it triggering, because when you live authentically, it mirrors back the parts of them they’re not ready to see.

Being honest in marriage means being willing to say the hard things, and to hear them too. It’s not about brutal truth-telling or trying to “win” a conversation. It’s about emotional transparency: being honest about your triggers, your fears, and your desires, even when it feels inconvenient and upsetting.

It’s also about timing. Sometimes when something hurts, it’s tempting to hold it in, to tell yourself it’s not worth bringing up. But unspoken truths don’t disappear. They pile up. They fester until one day, everything comes out in a flood of anger. I’ve learned that it’s better to speak things as they arise, even clumsily, than to carry quiet resentment.

And when truth hurts, which it often does, I try to remember something Carolyn Myss teaches: “Relationships can introduce you to the parts of yourself that might otherwise remain hidden.” That’s what honesty does. It exposes what’s hidden, not to wound us, but to help us grow.

Determining Roles (Religion as Framework)

I think the hardest part of my husband’s religious transformation wasn’t the change itself. It was the religion. I’ve always believed that a lot of division in the world comes from religion. I’ve dabbled in many paths, Christianity, yoga, energy work, and found beauty in all of them, but I’ve never been one to attach myself to a single doctrine.

When I was younger, I turned to Jesus as a way to heal from my childhood. Joyce Meyers’ Battlefield of the Mind changed my life. It taught me that my thoughts are powerful. That I shape my world through the energy I hold. Later, yoga and spirituality became my teachers. But eventually, I found my peace in the understanding that energy itself, not religion, is my language for God.

So when my husband embraced his religion, it startled me. I didn’t know where I fit in that picture. But over time, something shifted. I began to see that his religion gave him structure. A moral compass for how to be a husband, a father, and a man. It became a mirror for him, showing where he could grow without me having to hold the weight of the mirror.

And that was freeing for both of us. I didn’t have to be his teacher anymore. Or try to control his perspective. His faith guided him in ways that allowed me to relax into my feminine role; to feel cherished, supported, and safe.

I saw the beauty of the religion reflected in others too. One of my friends shares his faith, and I’ve seen how her father treated her mother; like a protected queen. I can value that. Because even though I’m not religious, I can appreciate that his beliefs remind him that his wife should be honored through his actions.

I think that’s the meaning of marriage for us now. A balance of faith and freedom. His religion grounds him; my spirituality keeps me open. And between those two forces, we’ve built something that feels both sacred and human.

Understanding Conflict

Because I grew up in a high-conflict home that didn’t handle things in a healthy way, this has been one of the hardest areas of marriage for me. My husband has been patient while I’ve learned to recognize myself in those moments. To see when it’s not the grown woman reacting, but the scared teenage girl who once fought with her father, desperate to be heard.

When I get angry, it’s not subtle. My whole body vibrates. It feels like my blood is boiling and my energy has nowhere to go. It’s embarrassing, honestly. When I was younger, I used to physically fight people when I got upset. I don’t do that anymore, but that same intensity still lives inside of me. I just have to meet it differently now.

My husband has seen that full side of me, the messy, unfiltered, emotional side, and still chosen to stay. That kind of love humbles you. It shows you the parts of yourself that are still learning how to be safe in love.

For me, conflict has become a mirror. It reflects exactly where I’m still healing. The old patterns that surface when I feel unseen, unheard, or unsafe. I’m learning to stay present instead of letting my body take over. Some days I do it well; other days, not so much. But each time we repair, I feel a deeper sense of safety.

Shared Issues

The biggest realization I’ve had in my marriage is that conflict always holds lessons for both people. It’s not about who’s right. It’s about what each of us still needs to see within ourselves.

Before this relationship, I didn’t understand that. I'm overcoming an avoidant attachment style, which means that anytime things got hard, I’d leave. If something felt uncomfortable or too intense, I’d convince myself it wasn’t the right relationship and walk away. It was easier to run than to face my own reflection. Easier to blame someone else.

And honestly, I don’t think that was all my fault. Society tells women today that if a man isn’t treating you the way you think you deserve, or if a man brings out the worst in you, you should leave. That you “deserve better.” I used to believe that, wholeheartedly. Before marriage, I thought that if something didn’t feel perfect, it was a sign to move on. But what I’ve learned through marriage is that sometimes the person who brings out your worst is also the person helping you face the parts of yourself that still need healing. Not every trigger is a red flag; sometimes it’s a mirror.

But marriage means I no longer have to face that reflection alone. Sometimes my husband shares the exact same lesson, and sometimes he shares the exact opposite lesson.

"What we see ‘out there’ is what we are projecting from within ourselves. The other person merely mirrors back what we are projecting onto them; they show us the energy patterns that we are still holding. The world can only see us as we see ourselves.” David R. Hawkins

Willingness

I can say with full certainty that one of the key secrets to marriage is willingness. Marriage isn’t held together by romance, attraction, or even love alone. It’s held together by two people willing to stay open when it would be easier to bow out.

Willingness is the thread that weaves through everything else; through the hard conversations, the heartbreak, the rebuilding. It’s what keeps you humble, what keeps you curious, and what keeps you choosing love even when it’s uncomfortable.

Marriage will test every layer of your being. It will test your patience, your ego, your faith, your capacity for forgiveness, your emotional endurance, and your courage to try again. But if you stay willing, even through the pain, every test becomes an initiation into a deeper kind of love.

To Be Wrong

“The ego is constantly seeking to make others wrong. It does this to protect itself and to avoid seeing its own limitations. By observing these mechanisms without judgment, we begin to dissolve them. As we surrender our positionalities, the energy of love naturally arises.” David R. Hawkins

When I think back to a moment in my marriage where I had to admit that I was wrong, it was in how I handled conflict. I used to get overly emotional, blood boiling, energy spewing over, and then sink into this spiral of shame from my over-reactivity. That’s when I discovered Carolyn Myss’s Advanced Anatomy of Energy, which helped me see that what I was experiencing wasn’t just anger; it was my victim archetype.

Before you start judging that word, we all have a victim archetype. It’s built into our human experience. The victim shows us where we give our power away, where we’re choosing to stay small instead of taking accountability. My ego wanted to be right, to feel justified, to call my friends and get confirmation bias that I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. But when I learned to sit with my victim instead of letting it take over, I could explain to my husband why I felt powerless rather than just reacting to it.

Owning that I was choosing victimhood was one of the hardest things I’ve ever said out loud, but it was also one of the most freeing. Because the moment you take responsibility, you start to reclaim your power.

To Forgive

Forgiveness is something I’ve had a lot of practice with, starting with my father and the pain of my childhood. Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind taught me that forgiveness isn’t about excusing what someone did. It’s about setting yourself free from the poison of resentment. Holding onto unforgiveness doesn’t protect you; it only makes you sick.

In marriage, forgiveness has become an entry point to grace. It reminds me that we are both human. That mistakes don’t define our worth or our character. Forgiveness takes time. Even when you think you’re past something, a small trigger can bring it all back up. But when you forgive, you level the playing field. You meet each other eye to eye again, without the burden of past pain, and the relationship softens back into love.

To Let Go of the Past

I like to think that my husband and I have emotionally divorced each other twice already. We’ve let go of past versions of ourselves that were harming the marriage. Versions that were operating from fear, insecurity, and unhealed trauma.

And that’s what letting go of the past really means. It doesn’t mean forgetting it; it means learning from it. It means not bringing old wounds into new arguments. Because when you keep going back to what hurt you before, you stay anchored to it.

Where your energy goes, your life force flows. If you keep focusing on past hurts, your body relives them. Letting go is a daily practice. A conscious redirection of your energy toward the present moment, where healing actually happens.

For couples who’ve been through betrayal or infidelity, this is a mountain. I haven’t personally faced that in my marriage, and I don’t know if I would be able to walk through it. But I have deep admiration for those who do. Because rebuilding intimacy after that kind of pain takes a level of strength and grace that’s truly extraordinary.

To Get Help

If you didn’t grow up in a safe home, if you didn’t have healthy attachment models, therapy isn’t optional, it’s essential. I say that with love and experience.

It doesn’t matter how much self-awareness you think you have, marriage will expose parts of you you didn’t even know existed. So having someone who can walk you through that, someone neutral who isn’t emotionally invested in your spouse, is invaluable.

And I don’t think my marriage would have survived without it. We started with joint therapy sessions and later realized that what we needed most was individual healing. Taking therapy individually gave us space to work through our own triggers without projecting them onto each other. It also gave us the language needed to share our pains without causing more pain inside the relationship. Because if you want your marriage to heal, you have to heal you.

To Rock the Boat

To rock the boat simply means being 100% honest. Even when it’s uncomfortable. It means talking about the messy parts, not just the curated highlight reel that looks good on Instagram.

When I talk about letting go of the past, I don’t mean burying it. Or pretending everything is picture perfect. I mean learning from it, and that requires conversation. Talking about your past relationships, your mistakes, your patterns. It all reveals something about who you are and how you love. Every relationship, big or small, carries a lesson, and pretending those lessons don’t exist keeps you shallow.

Rocking the boat means being willing to look at your own reflection and invite your partner to see it with you. Some couples spend decades avoiding that mirror, and that works for them for awhile. Eventually, those unresolved mistakes and pasts will resurface and they will be called to face themselves.

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” — Pema Chödrön

But that’s not us. My husband and I are here to learn, to evolve, to stay real. Even when it shakes things up. Because every time the boat rocks, we learn where the weak spots are, and we patch them together.

To Be Hurt Again

“We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship.” - Harville Hendrix

Being willing to be hurt again is terrifying, but it’s part of being alive. Every day you step out your front door, get in your car, or board a plane, you risk being hurt. But you still do it because life itself is worth the risk.

It’s the same in marriage. Once you’ve let go of the past, once you’ve rocked the boat and stayed open, you start to understand that pain is a teacher. You stop fearing it. You start to trust that your heart can break and heal and still stay open.

Through every low point, the soul grows stronger. Choosing to stay open, to love again, to trust again, to be vulnerable again, is what allows your relationship to evolve beyond survival into something sacred.

To Give Grace

In my 30s, grace has become my favorite word. Grace allows people to show up fully human. It removes the pressure to perform. It lets you see others not as enemies or problems to fix, but as souls who are learning in their own time.

Grace is the space between reaction and understanding. It’s the breath you take before judging, the softness that lets love reenter the room after a storm. It’s what keeps a home peaceful and what teaches children that mistakes don’t define them.

Matthew McConaughey once said, when talking about his parents’ turbulent relationship, that theirs was a “passionate love”.  The kind that fought hard, loved hard, and somehow always found its way back home. He told stories of his mom throwing knives, his dad dodging them and taunting, and yet, through it all, they remarried three times. That kind of relationship may not look perfect from the outside, but it’s real. It’s raw. It’s two people who refused to give up on each other, no matter how many times they had to start over.

Lots of people have witness our marriage in its lows. Some of those people understand the inner workings of a lasting marriage, and encourage us to hold on.

Others hold on to their past painful failed relationships and compare ours to theirs. Lots of people have judgements and a giggle with others about it.

But I know they will also witness us continuing to grow even more. Their judgements aren't a reflection of us, but of their own shadows.

That, to me, is the essence of grace. The courage to begin again without resentment. Grace is what keeps love alive after the storms have passed.

“Harmony, then disharmony, then repair is the essential rhythm of all close relationships.” - Terrence Real, Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship

Closing Reflection: The Quiet Strength of Staying

If I’ve learned anything through marriage, it’s that love is not sustained by perfection. It’s sustained by willingness. Willingness to face yourself. To grow beside someone who’s growing too. To keep showing up, even when every voice around you says, “You deserve better,” when sometimes what you really deserve is the chance to become better, together.

We live in a world that glorifies the exit. “Protect your peace,” “Cut them off,” “They're toxic.” And yes, boundaries are sacred, especially if one person is unwilling. But I also believe there’s a deeper kind of empowerment that comes from staying. Staying when you’re both willing to heal the parts of yourselves that never felt safe to love or be loved. Staying when you realize that your triggers aren’t warnings to run, but invitations to evolve together.

Every time my husband and I have separated, and every time we’ve come back, I’ve felt that deeper truth: grace gives marriage a pulse. It’s not the absence of conflict that makes love holy. It’s the presence of forgiveness, humility, and the courage to begin again. It’s looking at the person in front of you and realizing that both of you have failed and both of you have triumphed, and that somehow, that shared history, those imperfect chapters, are what make the whole story worth reading.

I think about Matthew McConaughey’s parents when he said they divorced twice and remarried three times. I see that passion not as chaos, but as devotion. Devotion to the lesson, to the learning, to the love that keeps calling you home no matter how far you drift.

So if there’s a secret to marriage, maybe it isn’t a secret at all. Maybe it’s the quiet, daily choice to be willing , to listen, to forgive, to start again, to give grace, over and over. Because the truth is, every “I do” will be tested. But when it’s met with real willingness, it becomes less of a promise you make once and more of a vow you live. Every. Single. Day.