A Marriage Narrative | How Burnt Hot Dogs Changed My Perspective of Marriage

It was one night last summer when my husband came home after being away for about 12 hours delivering packages and searching for full-time employment during a season of unemployment. When he arrived home, he came and took a moment for himself. While he was catching a breath, I put his food on the stove to be warmed. On this night, we were eating chili dogs per our daughters’ request. I was thankful for this meal request on this particular day because I was exhausted. I waited around for my husband to return so that his food wouldn’t be left unattended on the stove. When he did return to the living area, I went to bed because, as stated earlier, I was tired, but evidently, so was he.

I may have been asleep for nearly two hours when I woke to smell of smoke. The smell had made its way through our closed bedroom door. As I exited our bedroom, I walked into a smoke-filled living area. We live in an apartment so our living area including the kitchen and dining room is about 700 square feet. I hurried into the kitchen to find a blackened pot without any sign of water or hot dogs. I removed the cause for my awakening and placed it outside then I opened our side door to allow air into our apartment. During this entire time, my husband was still asleep. I shook him a bit to help him wake, and when he did- my anger appeared.

I was so ANGRY. All I could think about were the what ifs. I was mad at my husband. I was mad at the dog. I was mad at the THREE smoke detectors. I was just mad. Until, I wasn’t. Amid my anger I was reminded that I woke up. I woke up, and the smoke hadn’t snuffed out all of our air.

As I was thinking about what could I share about marriage, the story above came to me. I had to stop and ask myself, “What does burnt hot dogs have to do with marriage?”

Three Lessons I Learned About Marriage from Burnt Hot Dogs

The things we can see aren’t always what destroys, but the things we can’t see tend to do the most damage.

I wasn’t mad because of the burnt hot dogs or the pot. Anyone who has come to visit us has no clue that the area they were sitting in a home that was filled with a nice amount of smoke. Our neighbors don’t have a clue that this event occurred even though our apartments are attached to one another. There wasn’t a visible fire, but there was a real danger of us losing oxygen. The invisible stuff is what would’ve taken us out even if the apartment never fully caught on fire. This is also true in marriage.

Oftentimes, we focus on what we can see. Are we earning enough money? Are we nice enough to each other? Does my spouse help around the house? If we can answer yes to whatever the questions are, then there might be a sense of safety in the marriage. What we see can very well be true, but I’ve learned during my marriage there can be many things that aren’t said that could possibly be snuffing out a marriage.

About five years ago, we were not in the best place. On the outside, we thought we were fine. We didn’t argue. We touched each other often enough. But what we couldn’t see were each others thoughts. We had no idea the underlying layers of frustration that each of us were feeling. Too many words weren’t being said, and we were focusing too much on external things. We weren’t leaning into our faith and were going at everything alone, not even consistently as a team. We found ourselves constantly trying to keep too many balls in the air and several were of no importance. But when the things we couldn’t see in one another became visible, all the balls fell and the opportunity arose for us to have a better marriage after 10 years of marriage.

Just because we can’t see pain, frustration, fear, etc. doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and it could very well be slowly tearing at the fabric of your marriage. Be intentional about paying attention to the unseen as much as the seen.

Anger and frustration may come, but realizing all the air hasn’t been snuffed out leaves room to continue working together.

The same way I was mad after awaking to the possibility of my husband not breathing, I was also mad when I realized our marriage wasn’t in a good place. I wondered how did we end up here, and it was very similar to how we ended up with burnt hot dogs. We were both tired. But in the case of our marriage, we were tired of not truly knowing what to do, and we were too comfortable in the life we had made which left room for conflict we hadn’t foreseen. It’s often when no one is paying attention that the enemy decides to infiltrate our relationships. No one is on guard and both parties possibly think, “There’s no way (fill in the blank) could happen in our marriage.” No marriage is safe from harm so while there is still a bit of life in your marriage, you have to choose to work at it. Marriages can’t tend themselves, but instead need both individuals to put forth effort. Now, during different seasons it may appear that one person is putting in more effort than the other, and that’s okay as long as effort is being put in by both people. In our marriage, we have taken turns being the stronger person depending on the circumstances.

If you’re in a crossroads in your marriage, remember if there’s just a bit of oxygen or love there’s still time to make the most of your marriage. It’s not over until it’s over. As with God waking me before anything tragic happened, He also was generous and allowed both of us to wake to the errors in our marriage and gave us the opportunity to work on bettering our communication and truly seeing one another as people with feelings and expectations.

We must see the humanity in our spouses.

My anger that night caused me to turn from my husband. I felt like I couldn’t trust him with our lives. I didn’t really think about the way he felt because it was his fault. I learned two specific lessons from this thought:

1. I don’t need to trust my husband with my life because he isn’t the giver of life. I need only to trust the Most High God with matters of life and death.

2. It’s not a matter of fault. We all make mistakes, and it hurts when our mistakes cause us to be discarded.

It’s so easy to allow our feelings to dictate our thoughts and behaviors, but our feelings will not always lead us down the right path. My feelings led me to behave selfishly. After time passed, I realized the error in my thoughts and behavior. My husband is a human just like me. We both will make mistakes. We both will hurt one another unintentionally. We both will desire to be love and wanted even after making our mistake.

This probably was the biggest lesson I learned. It allowed me to put in practice something that I know, but don’t always accept.

Those burnt hot dogs weren’t just burnt hot dogs, but also a mini-lesson on marriage.

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Latonya Moore

Latonya Moore writes regularly about parenting, homeschooling, and pursuing her best life on Joy in the Ordinary. When she isn't writing, homeschooling, or enjoying her family, you can find her teaching classes on Outschool. She also blogs at: www.joyintheordinary.com

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• A Marriage Narrative | How Burnt Hot Dogs Changed My Perspective of Marriage - February 18, 2018