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| The author and her husband have been married for 30 years. Courtesy of Christina Daves |
I still remember the two of us sitting silently on opposite sides of the couch. Years into our marriage, we were barely speaking. We were in couples therapy, and at one point, the therapist looked us in the eye and gently said, “You’d be better off apart.” At the time, I didn’t disagree.
We had drifted so far apart. Our marriage had quietly slipped into disconnection. We were still doing the work of parenting, keeping the schedules, managing the house but we were no longer showing up for each other. I don’t recall when the erosion started. There was no big fight, no dramatic betrayal. Just the slow, invisible loss of what matters most in a marriage: emotional presence, communication, and affection. We were roommates. And yet, we didn’t leave. We couldn’t. Because of a promise we made long ago.
We Made a Pact Early in Our Marriage
Long before the therapy sessions and the disconnection, when love still felt effortless and our future was a blank page, we made a promise: if we had children, we would never get divorced.
We both came from divorced families, and we knew the ripple effects all too well. We knew what it was like to grow up negotiating split holidays and tiptoeing through loyalty tests. We knew the feeling of never quite being home in either house. We didn’t want that for our future children. So we promised: if we were going to have kids, we were going to stay together.
And when things got hard really hard that promise is what kept us from walking away. There were times when we resented each other. Times we were unkind. But mostly, we were just numb. There was a two-year stretch when we coexisted without warmth or argument just silence and survival.
Reconnecting Was Slow, But Possible
For a long time, I believed the therapist was right. We probably would’ve been better off apart at least, that’s how it felt.
But that pact we made stubborn and idealistic as it may have been kept us in the room. And when you keep showing up, even when you don’t know how to fix things, something eventually begins to shift. For us, it was laughter. One day, my husband made a joke. I genuinely laughed. And it reminded me: we used to laugh like that all the time. We used to have fun. That was our turning point.
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| The author and her family. Courtesy of Christina Daves |
We slowly started remembering what it meant to be friends again. To reach for one another. To talk like teammates instead of adversaries. It didn’t happen overnight. It took practice. But we relearned how to be connected. We discovered that intimacy can return not magically, but gradually. Forgiveness, too, isn’t a single act but an ongoing process. And sometimes, love doesn’t look like butterflies. It looks like staying.
It Wasn’t Easy But It Was Worth It
This year marks our 30th wedding anniversary. I’m proud of the time we’ve logged, yes but more than that, I’m proud of the journey we took to rebuild what we nearly lost. I’m grateful we stayed not because it was easy, but because it forced us to grow.
We learned how to be better spouses. We’re more honest with each other now. We listen better. We forgive faster. We respect each other in ways we didn’t know how to in our earlier years. Our relationship didn’t get better because we stuck it out it got better because staying gave us the time and space to evolve.
Today, leaving is often seen as the answer when happiness fades. And sometimes, that’s the right call especially when there’s abuse or deep betrayal. But not all marriages are broken beyond repair. Some are just stuck. And when both people are willing to do the work, healing is possible. It’s messy, yes. It’s slow. But it’s also deeply rewarding.
The love I have for my husband today is nothing like the love I had for him when I was 28 and picking out a wedding dress. It’s deeper. Quieter. Rooted in history, shaped by hardship, and softened by mutual trust. We’ve walked through fire, and we came out holding hands on the other side.
We still have bad days, like every couple. But now, we face them together. We choose each other again and again. We laugh more. We talk more. And we’re better because we stayed.
We didn’t stay because it was easy.
We stayed because it was worth it.
