For some reason I hurt very deeply when people I know give up on their marriages. Maybe part of it is that at one time when my wife promised to divorce me (by God’s grace she didn’t go through with it) I had many people in the Christian community encouraging me to just accept it and give her a dissolution, telling me that there wasn’t anything I could do. I am glad that I didn’t listen, but persevered in refusing to give her a dissolution or to give up on our marriage.

I am so frustrated that often I don’t seem to be able to inspire others to stand radically for their marriage even when it looks hopeless. My observation has been that in marriages that have reconciled one party or the other just got determined that they were not giving up. I don’t know how to inspire people to get that determined.