What if I just don’t believe it?” some women ask me. “What if I’m really afraid that he’s screwing up?”
When we’re in the thick of our marital loneliness, the future does seem bleak, and you may not be truly optimistic about it. But you do have to act like you have faith that your marriage will improve. Therefore, one of the keys to success in surrendering is to pretend you have faith—or, as the old expression goes, to “fake it ’till you make it.”
You may feel like an actress at times, putting on a cool pose when you’re terrified and thanking him for things that don’t seem to be enough. But I promise, there’s no better time to do an acting job worthy of an Oscar nomination than when you’re surrendering.
The more you act like you respect, trust and appreciate him, the more you’ll start to believe that he deserves that treatment, and the less you’ll worry about trying to run his life. When you have faith in your husband, even when you’re stretching it, you will bring out his very best efforts and awaken his tenderness. You’ll begin to remember why you wanted to marry this man in the first place, and he’ll go to new lengths to please and pamper you.
Acting in faith is the flip side of setting up negative expectations. He will not want to disappoint you when he sees that you trust him to succeed in his work, feed the children something nutritious, and invest the savings wisely. Acting in faith means that while you might have the fleeting thought, on a bad day, that you should call a divorce lawyer, you don’t dwell there. If you have faith that you can have a happy, satisfying marriage, you don’t think about divorce lawyers for long.
