Elephants and Foxes in your relationship

No one likes to address an “elephant in the room” when it comes to problems and issues in our lives and relationships.  We put off addressing these things for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes, we fear the reaction we may get from those who are involved.  Other times, we dread the lifestyle changes that may be associated with addressing the issue. We certainly don’t want to hurt others, and we don’t want to get hurt either.  The elephant in the living room might be an addiction to alcohol, or pornography.  The elephant might be someone’s anger problem.  It could be mounding debt.  Elephants are often big problems that people know exist, but don’t want to talk about.  Sadly, there are many couples who live with elephants in their relationships, however, it is more common for couples to live with foxes than elephants. Little foxes can be just as problematic.

Song of Songs 2:15 has this intriguing plea to the young women of Jerusalem, “Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!”

The challenge is to catch all the little foxes that threaten your life and relationship.  Foxes are there before we are married, and they breed inside our relationship after we are married as well.  It is also true that foxes can sometimes supersize into elephants.  Most of the time foxes stay foxes and they have a way of wreaking havoc on our lives and relationships.

Little foxes are those things that are small, but reoccurring issues in your life and relationship.  Individually, they seem tolerable and forgivable.  They seem too small to make a big deal out of.  We even tell ourselves that overlooking these things is the right or “Christian” thing to do, however, there is a difference between overlooking a small failure and ignoring a fox.  Everyone has a bad day or steps off the path from time to time.  That’s a failure – but not a fox.  Foxes are consistent failures and character flaws that wear down hardened paths through the vineyard of our lives.  If you look closely you’ll notice where they run.  Foxes come in many forms; negativity, pride, sarcasm, jealousy, perversion, dominance, are just a few examples.

Two of the little foxes we had to chase down (among others) in our relationship were my (Todd’s) idealistic expectations, and Tami’s sarcasm.  Tami would use sarcasm when she felt overwhelmed and or unsupported.  The impact of this was that I would withdraw from Tami feeling disrespected.  I had to chase the fox of perfectionism that was hurting my wife and kids.  At times I would out-right express that their best wasn’t good enough.  Other times I would subtly suggest that something was not good enough or wasn’t meeting my standards.  My idealism was injuring my wife’s self esteem and my children were suffering from a lack of affirmation as well.  What about you?  Can you identify the foxes that are running paths of ruin in your life and relationships?

It is great to get rid of “the elephant in the room” when it comes to our lives andrelationships, but we have to go further and catch the foxes if we ever hope to be truly close, truly loved, fully known, unified, and deeply intimate with our spouse.  It’s time to catch all the foxes – those little foxes that ruining your vineyard of love.

“Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!”

~ Song of Songs 2:15 ~

Want help with your relationship?  Click here to contact Todd and Tami Hair at Love Ministries.