In the summer of 2001 I took my family on a two-week vacation to explore some national parks, including Shenandoah National Park, Mammoth Caves National Park, and Gettysburg National Park.

Our vacation in retrospect was much like National Lampoon’s vacation. Our trek around the country was one calamity after another. First, we picked the only two weeks of the year where the daily highs were over 97 degrees. Our air conditioning went out. The alternator broke on the car. We got a flat on our camper. We plowed into another car, and my wife ended up in the emergency room with every muscle in her body seized up. We then drove our somewhat smashed car another 250 miles before the engine block cracked.

We were 300 miles from home and stranded. We had run out of money from the previous repairs. We were at the end of our rope. How much more could happen in one vacation to one family? Our journey was interrupted.

Our broken-down marriage

This family vacation really was an analogy for our marriage: a journey started 18 years ago when I met my beautiful wife in high school. We married four years later as a young couple just out of college, and shortly afterward our son was on his way. Thus began our journey interrupted. What we didn’t notice was that another party had joined our marriage too with the goal of destroying it.

I believe that Satan’s tool of choice for attacking marriages is the rearrangement of priorities. He works on your weaknesses and natural selfishness and capitalizes on them. It’s so subtle yet so effective. Destroy our vertical relationship with God, and soon our horizontal relationships on earth will decay.

For me he worked on my intrinsic desire to succeed at all costs. I uprooted our family several times in the pursuit of the ultimate job, without necessarily discussing it with my wife. I put my career ahead of my wife. I expected her to want the same things. I took her silence as acceptance. Our marriage was losing power. We had a glitch in our journey, but after visiting with our pastor a few times, our alternator was repaired. We were powered up to continue our journey.

Oh, but we weren’t ready for the accident that happened about three months after going to counseling. My wife took a lesson from my previous behavior and made a career decision without discussing it with me. I became bitter and turned my back on her. I dedicated myself to my new love, my career. I also spent time with the kids, and I did household chores. My wife fell low on my list of priorities. She was not even higher than doing dishes or laundry.