Marriage Counseling and Racial Restoration

Relationships aren’t stagnant, they are alive and fluid. As one person grows and changes, it rubs the other person. Problems happen if when rubbed, one person chooses not to change and grow. The past year Caid (my husband) has done a lot of changing and growing. It started rubbing me, and I didn’t want to change and grow. It didn’t seem fair. Why did he hit the one place I just didn’t want to deal with right now?

Enter counseling. With an outside perspective, we realized that while we were both good communicators, we were not great at communicating the way the other person really understood. Caid loved sharing, and he shared by feeling through situations. I loved personal reflection, where I flushed out my feelings and put them into words, and then shared the words. Caid valued going through the process together, whereas I valued sharing the results.

We both thought we were communicating with the other person- but Caid would end up feeling like he was being left out of my process and just being told what to do, while I thought Caid just kept dumping emotions on me with no real solutions. The marriage counselor said bluntly, “You’re not good at communication if the other person isn’t getting it.”

We still mess up a lot, but both Caid and I are learning to share: not to get it said, but to find a way that the other person can understand what we mean. There has not been one time that when we finally get down to the heart issue, we don’t realize how much we love and care for the other person. We may not agree on it by the time we get to the bottom of things- but we feel loved and valued through the process- and are okay with the disagreement part.

Caid is black and I am white. That is just one part of who we are, and our relationship together. But I can’t help but see some similarities in current times.

The Black community has been growing and changing, and I think the white community has thought that this wasn’t a good time. That it isn’t fair to have to deal with this now.

I think in black culture it is more common to feel through situations to figure them out, and in white culture it is valued to get over your feelings and practically move on. Many of the things I have seen on social media have reflected this: my black friends asking us to listen and feel, while many of my white friends say let’s move on from the past and make a bright future.

The problem is that many in our black community are feeling left out of the process and like they are being told what to do: just like my husband felt from the way I communicated to him. The thing is: they are right. In many, many (dare I say most?) cases and places they have been left out of the process: the process of healing since slavery, the process of healing since their grandparents and parents were treated as inferior, the process of healing since they themselves felt racial prejudice. They are being told to deal with how it is because “I am not being racist to you now.”

This is not about making the black community “victims,” this is about sitting and getting down to the heart of things so that each person feels loved and valued. When have we done this on a personal level? When have we done this on a family level? When have we done this on a community level, state leve, or federal level? Here is another question: when have we done this on a church level?

As Consumerist Americans, we are so quick to attach a money value to the word “Reparations.” Maybe because money is easier to give and receive than working through the process of forgiveness. Of working through pain and misunderstanding to get to the heart of things. Maybe it would hold less baggage if we call it “Restoration.”

Do you know the restoration my husband needed to hear?

“Your way of processing things is just as valid and important as mine is.”

“Feelings are as valid and important as the resulting actions”

“The conclusions you come to are just as important and valid as the ones I come to.”

He did not want to hear: “I agree with you.”

“You are better or more important than I am.”

“Poor Caid, we can do it your way now.”

You can call it “Stopping and listening and realizing that what others have to say is important.” Call it “Reparations.” Call it “Working together to heal past hurts.” Call it Restoration. But whatever you call it- let’s do it.