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Tears raced down my face as my husband, Rob, and I passed snow-covered fields along the Colorado highway on our way back home from a holiday visit with my parents. If anyone had told me when I was single that marriage would contain moments like this, I wouldn't have believed her.
"I don't know what's gotten into me, Rob," I said between sobs to my husband of seven months. "I've never cried like this before after leaving Mom and Dad's."
I'd been dry-eyed earlier that morning when we'd shared good-bye hugs with my family. Then, Rob had suggested I stay with my folks an extra week. He could drive home alone, and I could ride back to our home in Missouri with my brother, who'd caravaned out with us for the holiday but planned to stay a few days longer.
In a burst of gratitude, I hugged Rob. With a 12-hour drive between home-with-Rob in Missouri and home-with-Mom-and-Dad in Colorado, I knew we couldn't afford another visit to my folks until next Christmas.
Just as quickly as my excitement came, it died away. The image of Rob traveling alone to a silent house while I enjoyed the close friendship of my family troubled me. I felt as though I'd be deserting Rob. I knew I was making more of the situation than it deserved, but I realized I was setting a precedent as to where my allegiance would lie.
A verse I'd heard often at weddings leapt to mind: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife" (Mark 10:7, KJV). Silently I added, And a woman shall leave her father and mother, and cleave to her husband. All at once, I knew that leaving had been one of the hardest parts of cleaving.
"Homesick" is a word we usually associate with the feelings we experienced at summer camp or those first few weeks of college—not at a fifth wedding anniversary or the birth of a child. Yet even years after our wedding day, many of us are broadsided at the most unsuspecting moments with a longing for our parents and the comfortable life patterns of childhood.
But this emotion isn't necessarily bad. It's often an expression of our heart's expanding ability to love. Over the three years Rob and I have been married, I've learned to handle feeling homesick with these basic strategies:
Talk it out. One of the most difficult moments of my marriage was right after our wedding. As Rob and I dashed to the car, I caught a glimpse of Mom and Dad in the crowd. Suddenly I felt as though I was walking away from 27 years of the most unconditional love I'd ever known. Pulling out of the parking lot and into our new life, I was overwhelmed with sadness.
Moving across the country from your parents or bonding with your spouse can stir up natural feelings of grief, loss, or even guilt. The accompanying ache of homesickness is a reflection of a longing for things to return to the way they were.
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