What are some major problems that drive families apart? Research shows that some of the top stresses in family life are the loss of a child (extremely likely for the marriage to end in divorce in under 2 years) losing a spouse or a loved one and of course money, among many other things. As we all have experienced trials and tragedies in our lives. Can you think of times when you and your family was able to work through a difficult trial? How did you all get through it? How did you personally respond? Did it bring your family closer together or did it push you all farther apart? Did you learn and grow from this trial or period of stress you all went through? These are often good questions to ask ourselves when we are either going through the hard trial or looking back at the hard trials that caused your family so much stress. But what even is stress? I know of a couple in my life that handle stress in very different ways, the wife always stresses to be the little monster inside of her that turns her into the hulk. And the husband just shuts down and let things go. How come certain situations in our lives cause us to respond in different ways? Well, let’s talk more about the process of stress and figure out what influences to react or respond in different ways.

                But first of all, we are all different, we have different trials and experiences, point of views and ideas. We all are going to naturally respond differently to different situations. Like when the wife gets mad and when the husband shuts down. But in these moments, we can’t just be thinking about ourselves… but how is this affecting their relationship with each other and their family. the wife lets her emotions fly while the husband keeps them in. How does that show their children how to respond to stressful situations? Sounds like they don’t cope too well as individuals and this could affect how they cope as a couple…). But what effects that way that we cope.

I think the first element has to do with the particular event that we face as a family. Like I mentioned earlier, all families go through very trying times and trials that cause tons of stress. But each situation is different, like the relationship between husband and wife at the time, it can be very good, or it could be very bad (possibly shifting the relationship to the opposite during the time of trial). Or there could be more stresses that the family could be going through at that time that makes the current situations even worse. What is most interesting about this concept though has to do with our mindset or perspective of each trial. I have known and have heard of many families that coped very well with so many difficult situations in their lives that resulted in bringing their family closer together verses letting it get farther apart. I have also known and have heard of many families who did the complete opposite and their family broke apart. I think the main difference in each outcome has to do with the family members looking outward instead of doing what is totally naturally and looking inward thinking of their pains and emotions. 

The next element has to do with the resources that are available to us at the time of trial. Who is there to support us? Do we even have a supporting family? Do we go to church and turn to our faith or do we go to work and avoid home to avoid the pain of the circumstance? Sometimes we choose resources that will give the wrong impression to a loved one because they don’t understand the intention behind the action that we do. But if families come together, they are more likely to handle the hardship of the trial together in their family unit and can come out even stronger because of the trial that they faced.

Going through trials is hard, but its also a chance to grow. Not only as an individual, but also as a family.