3 Ways Navigating Mental Health Can Transform A Marriage
Anina and her husband have been on an incredible journey for the greater half of a decade. When grief and distrust began to erode their marriage, they turned to the people and the practices of Celebrate Recovery to help them find healing and restoration.
Here are 3 ways navigating mental health has transformed Anina and her husband’s marriage:
Healing In Community, Not In Isolation: When Anina’s husband began attending Celebrate Recovery to find breakthrough with an addiction of his, Anina attended to support him. A few weeks later, her husband suggested she attend for herself, to which Anina responded, “‘What for? I’m not an addict’…I didn’t know that it was for people like me also.” Rather than sit in shame, she found a safe space to experience breakthrough in her experience with anxiety, depression, isolation, resentment, and grief. All of that was uncovered in the communal space for her to practice vulnerability and self-discovery with herself, with her spouse, with God, and with the support at Celebrate Recovery.
Experiencing Breakthrough Individually And Together: When they began their recovery journey, Anina says, “I wasn’t sure that we could ever work [again]; trust had been broken, lies had been told, and I didn’t know if that was ever something that I could get past.” Their daily commitment to invest in their own recovery, as well as in their marriage, gave space for God to rebuild trust, heal a marriage that Anina doubted could be healed, and experience joy as a family again.
Helping Others Hope Again: In Celebrate Recovery, everyone introduces themselves the same way: beginning with being a believer, to root your identity in Jesus and not your pain, followed by what you struggle with (your hurts, habits, or hangups). When Anina first started attending to support her husband’s recovery, she didn’t know what she was there for, other than she’d been hurt. “So, the whole time, my prayer was just like, ‘God, what do you want to work on in me? What do I need to change?’” The kind of courageous curiosity that comes with praying those kinds of prayers unleashed Anina to discover her own story with God to a point where she can share her story with hurting people who need to hope again.
Anina’s story is: “There was a time in my life where I felt lonely and isolated and anxious. And through trusting in Jesus and allowing him to guide my steps everyday, I feel accepted and worthy and have peace in all of my circumstances, no matter what they are. Do you have a story like that?”
The key to recovery, Anina shares, is that struggling doesn’t magically go away. But if you approach recovery as a daily journey with God and with his people, your life experiences have the opportunity to experience transformation! Something Anina always remembers in her recovery “is just because I don’t see a way, doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a way.”