When I walked into the arena I had no idea what to expect. I only knew there was a distance between my husband and I that I was desperate to fix. My husband and I assembled the three barriers we had been instructed to build to portray the obstacles in our marriage. I don’t remember if we talked, remained silent, or even agreed on what the barriers were, but somehow we built them, in the same mechanical, distant way we maneuvered through life the past years.
Then we were asked to take a horse through the obstacles we had constructed. I walked toward the brown horse. I had worked with the gentle giant of a horse before. Often he seemed to sense my need of affection and stood close beside me. Today he turned his head away. I touched his neck and urged him forward. He didn’t budge. I was amazed and puzzled. What happened next shocked me even more. My husband walked up to us. The horse turned toward him. Then with the horse’s nose at his shoulder he walked through all three barriers as I stepped forward and joined them, bewildered as we went.
We got to the end and my husband beamed. I looked at him and then at the horse. Suddenly I knew what had happened. I couldn’t fix our problems. They were not mine alone to fix. My husband who had been standing at a distance decided to step up and be an active participant, then the barriers where no longer an issue. It was his desire to be involved in our relationship that was the missing ingredient and suddenly the desire was there. How the gentle giant of a horse understood that or communicated it to my husband I will never know, but I am forever grateful that he did. It was a pivotal changing point in our relationship.