Fixing Problems: A Tale of 1000 Stitches

 

It takes less effort to fix problems early on than it does to put off the work.

I’m knitting a blanket.

Late last week, I began a section that was all the same kind of stitch. I went on autopilot and wasn’t paying close attention. At the end of the first row of that section, I had a feeling I’d missed something. I glanced back and didn’t see anything off. Apparently I didn’t look closely enough. I should have checked again a row or two later, because sometimes you can’t see mistakes until you’ve laid a little more yarn down.

A few days later, I finished that section and started in on a section with a pattern. I discovered that I had one stitch less than I needed for the pattern. I counted the row several times to be sure. I looked back at the last few rows, hoping to find a hole (evidence of a missed stitch) just a row or two before. Nope. It was eight rows back, at the beginning of the row–right where I’d been when I had the feeling I missed something.

It would have been nice to just pretend the missed stitch had never happened. (“Hey! It’s personalized. It’s how you can tell it was hand-knit!”) However, I knew that the hole would mar the value of the blanket. I knew that when I looked at the blanket, the hole would be all I could see.

I considered unraveling the whole blanket and starting over—but I’d already put so much work into the blanket and I didn’t want to have to do a complete do-over.

I marked my missing stitch.I knew what I needed to do. I marked the hole with a piece of contrasting yarn so I could see it easily while I worked the problem.

A more experienced knitter could have repaired the errors without having to un-do anything. A braver knitter could have ripped back eight rows and picked up all the stitches. Not me, though. I had to unknit all eight rows. It was over 1000 stitches (1056, to be exact). I had to painstakingly lift each stitch off the needle, one at a time, until I got back to the hole I’d left when I wasn’t paying close attention.

It took me several hours. When I finally got back to the hole where I’d missed a stitch, it took me five seconds to fix.

Only five seconds to fix. More than two hours to undo everything in order to apply that fix.

Ugh.

flourish

Maybe you aren’t a knitter. Maybe you don’t do any craftwork at all—but I think most of us have had the experience of realizing we’ve missed something in the process. Have you ever missed a spot when you’re painting? Have you neglected to write down a bill you’ve paid? Have you put off maintaining a car or appliance? Have you forgotten to pretreat a stain on a shirt, only to pull it out of the dryer and realize that now the stain is set in and will be even harder to get out?

How often do we face something similar in our marriages?

We don’t notice something, or we put it off until later—and then we realize that we have even more work to do than if we’d done it right in the first place or worked on things earlier.

What does my night of 1000 stitches suggest that we do with problems in our marriages?

Pay attention. When you think there may be a problem, do more than glance at it. Unwork what you need to until you get to the point where you can determine whether there was a problem and actually work it.

Don’t think you can avoid doing the work. I often want to think that if I avoid dealing with the problem, it will go away. I know it isn’t true, but I want it to be true and sometimes pretend that it is. I knew that I wasn’t going to enjoy the unknitting—but I also knew that doing the work was the only way to fix the problem. When I faced problems in my marriage and began to suspect that I needed to work on things, I avoided it because the work sounded so hard. It turned out I was right. It would have been easier had I take care of it before my habits became as solidified as they were.

Expect the untangling to be time consuming and frustrating—and valuable. Sometimes undoing something requires even closer attention than going forward more carefully. It takes me longer to lift a stitch off a needle than it does to put it there. Fortunately, there is value in the un-doing. When I undo my knitting, I try to figure out what I’d done that caused the problem in the first place so I can work harder on avoiding that problem in the future. It’s usually being on autopilot that leads to my knitting errors. The work I’ve done on myself and my marriage hasn’t been easy, either, but it’s been very valuable. As I’ve unraveled who and how I am as a wife, I’ve learned so much about

When there’s a problem, deal with it as soon as you realize it’s there. If you suspect there might be a problem, pay close attention for a while. Sometimes a problem’s existence doesn’t emerge until you can see it as part of a pattern. You might need to pay attention to other aspects of the marriage to help confirm that there is a problem.

It helps to have a milestone. I marked my knitting hole with contrasting yarn. This was partly to ensure that I got to the right spot. It was also to help me quickly see my goal so I could measure my progress. When I was working so hard on my marriage, I would set myself one small goal at a time, and I was always sure to figure out how I would know when I got there. When I was working on learning to say “yes” as the default to sexual initiation rather than “no,” I thought about how that would look for me—and I decided it was when I no longer had to take a deep breath before answering. Knowing ahead of time what to look for made it easier for me to recognize when I’d arrived.

flourish

When we avoid dealing with the marriage problems, not only do they not go away, they usually get worse—and then we have an even bigger mess on our hands. And no matter how wonderful everything else is, when we look at our marriage, the mess is all we can see.

Fortunately, when we work on our problems—even if that means painstakingly undoing lots of habits and patterns and putting in lots of time—we can watch something strong and beautiful begin to emerge.

 

It takes less effort to fix problems early on than it does to put off the work.

Image credit | Chris Taylor

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10 Comments on “Fixing Problems: A Tale of 1000 Stitches”

  1. Love your analogy. I hope you don’t mind if I refer to your post. Your blog has been one of the inspirations that has allowed me to rebuild my marriage.

    God Bless.

    1. Feel free to refer to my post. I ask that you give me credit and link to me, but if you think it can help someone, then please share!

  2. Yeah, leaving marriage problems to lie is not a good idea. I have a friend right now that has allowed some problems to fester for years, and now she and her husband are struggling. They are having to go back and undo a lot of the cycles they have built because of not addressing the issues. It can be changed because of the grace of God.

    1. I’m sorry your friend is going through this with her marriage. Perhaps the process of going through this together will result in stronger intimacy for them.

    1. Thanks, Lori. I just had to unknit another row this morning and am moving forward again. It says a lot about continual growth. 🙂

  3. Hi Chris, Thanks for your post. I’m glad I found it.

    I’d like to start addressing the issue(s) in my marriage but I’m having a hard time identifying them. It’s like the feeling you had about “something was missing” but in my case it’s more “something isn’t right” without knowing where to start because I’m not sure what it is. Any ideas on how to begin?

    Candace

    1. I’m glad you found the post, too, Candace. 🙂

      I wrote a little about where to begin in this post and this one, but you may also want to take a look at some of the posts linked in the New? Start Here section of the blog.

      There is no wrong place to start, so just start where you are. I began working on sexual intimacy because even though I didn’t feel it was a problem, I knew that my husband did. I picked the thing he’d complained about the most (my lack of engagement during sex) and decided that working on that would have the best chance of making an impact. I just as easily could have started with something that wouldn’t have had much impact but that would have been easier and given me a confidence boost.

      Even if you can see only one thing that could be better (even if doesn’t seem wrong but could just seem better), you can start there. Work on it until you can see that you’ve improved. Then, take a look for one other thing to tackle.

      Has your husband expressed disappointment or sadness about any aspects of your marriage?

    1. You’re quite welcome! It’s amazing how much easier it is for me to understand knitting analogies than, say, sports analogies. 🙂

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