News

Every marriage could use a tune-up every now and then

  • Published
  • By Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Steven Richardson
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Chapel
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  In 2009, I took a six month “vacation” with the Army to Afghanistan.

As an Air Force Chaplain, I served as a “FOB hopper” to nine Army forward operating bases. It was a difficult deployment. I faced setback after setback as I tried to learn how to minister in the Army culture. Despite consistent tragedies and a few deaths, Soldiers were hesitant to get to know, or counsel with, this overconfident Air Force chaplain. Worship services usually involved one to two attendees while services at my home station before I deployed averaged around 1,100 attendees. Near the end of my deployment, I received notification that I was being reassigned after less than two years from my dream job as soon as I returned. I was beyond frustrated.

When I finally redeployed, I was expecting everything to be perfect. I had recently completed a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling and joined two other chaplains in writing a marriage retreat that has since been used by 20,000 Airmen and spouses with a 99 percent effectiveness rating. My wife was finishing her Master’s Degree in Community Counseling and working on her internship. We knew about communication. We knew about forgiveness. We knew about working through conflict. We really thought we were the experts at making a marriage work.

It turned out we were 100 percent wrong. I had a few expectations for my wife while I was gone; however, as she was taking care of three young boys, finishing on her degree, and working her internship, my requests were very low on her list of priorities. She also had some expectations of me once I returned. But due to my frustrations and insecurities, I wasn’t able to help her and support her in the ways she needed.

We argued fairly consistently. With all our training in marriage and counseling we knew how to make negative comments really cut deep. We knew we needed to work in our marriage, but with the chaos in our lives we just didn’t have time. Finally, we had to call a pause on the arguing. We agreed to ask one of our parents to come watch our kids as we took a weekend away to focus on our marriage. We worked on our communication, respect and priorities. We work on understanding especially on forgiving each other’s frailties and frustrations. This weekend led to many one-hour discussions in the subsequent months. But once we finally got our marriage heading in the right track again, we were able to truly support each other we conquered the other challenges in our lives. This crises in our marriage added to our passion for helping other military members improve their marriages.

On Saturday, May 11 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m., Emily and I will lead a free marriage conference on behalf of the Chapel. It will be held in Columbus, Mississippi, at the La Quinta Inn and will feature free lunch and free childcare on the premises. This is an opportunity to get a marriage tune-up. We realize your marriage is completely different than ours, and we would never pretend to be the expert in your marriage, but we just want to help. We believe every marriage, no matter the number of years or level of expertise, can use a little help every now and then. Call the chapel at 434 –2500 or email us at 14ftw.hc@us.af.mil to sign up. Don’t miss this opportunity to give your marriage a little tune-up.