When I was first married, I loved everything about our first home. It was a small apartment in the center of the city with access to everything we needed. However, a couple months after moving in, our towel rack in the bathroom broke off the brackets. Every time we went to dry our hands, the rack would fall to the ground and to temporarily fix it, we had to slide the handle back into the brackets. Obviously, this only fixed it until the next time one of us went to dry our hands.

After two years of this nonsense, I decided I was going to attempt to fix it.. again… In other words, I stood there looking clueless at this towel rack thinking about any possible solution. Nothing I tried worked, so I put it back in the brackets and left the bathroom feeling annoyed that this was the way it was going to be.

My husband arrives home from work shortly after and goes in to wash his hands. Moments later, I hear, “clink, clink, clink” as the towel rack falls out of the brackets onto the floor. I chuckle to myself as I hear him saying something under his breath. Next thing I know, my husband charges out of the bathroom, heads for his tool box, grabs a few tools, walks directly in front of me and says, “This should have been fixed a long time ago” while he waves his drill in front of me. Literally, two minutes later the towel rack is fixed and my husband is putting away his tools.

I’ll just pause to let you imagine the look on my face while sitting on the couch those two minutes…

“You mean to tell me, that for two full years, we have been picking up the broken towel rack and temporarily fixing it when this entire time you knew how to fix it?!” I didn’t actually say that, but I was definitely thinking it. I sat there extremely confused:  should I be happy that it is fixed, or annoyed that it took two years to take two minutes to fix it? I never did make up my mind that day.

Marriage is like that sometimes. When a disagreement or conflict arises, it is so easy to just “temporarily fix” the issue. Maybe we say the right words to buy us some more time, lightly apologize to move on quickly, or completely shut down communication by denying that there is even an issue. Maybe we don’t want to address the problem at all, because we have waited too long to fix it and are afraid we have missed the window of grace. All of these reasons fall short of God’s design for unity in marriage and will work tirelessly to keep us from experiencing the freedom found in establishing peace with our spouse.

The broken towel rack has made a profound impact on my life and in my marriage, because of how relatable it has been in other more important areas of our relationship. When addressing a problem that arises, one of the first things my husband and I do is self-examine ourselves to see if we possess the “tools” needed to resolve the issue. What can I do to keep this situation from lingering? Am I being too harsh because I don’t understand? Am I shutting down communication? Am I denying the issue even exists? Am I taking offense to my spouse’s point of view? Am I holding unrealistic expectations? If I can say yes to any of these, then I know I have the responsibility to take ownership of my actions so we can move forward in discerning the remaining “tools” needed to mend the conflict.

Living in freedom means being fully dependent on God and inviting Him into every aspect of our marriages. It means taking unstable emotions to the Lord first, before working on a resolution together with our spouse. It means accepting God’s grace for ourselves, so we’re able to extend grace to our spouses later. It means being willing to admit when we’ve messed up, even if our spouse refuses to take ownership of their actions. When we shift our focus onto the Throne, we eliminate the need to defend ourselves before our spouse, and are able to move forward in pursuing peace and reconciliation.

I encourage you to ask God to reveal if you have a “broken towel rack” hanging in your marriage that you keep temporarily fixing over and over again.

And my advice? If you do, don’t wait two years to fix it.