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Surviving Hard Seasons: The Power of Imperfect Short-Term Fixes · Doing Marriage Well

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  Doing Marriage Well for September 17th, 2026 Surviving Hard Seasons The Power
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  of Imperfect Short-Term Fixes Have you ever left something broken because it's
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  slated for replacement?
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  Or it's not right, but it sort of works, and it will be gone in six months, so you let it be.
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  You put up with something annoying because you don't want to put in the time
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  and money to fix it when all of your efforts will be wiped out later.
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  Lori and I are years into a very slow building process, and we've faced a lot of these issues.
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  One of them, I don't recall what it was, got so annoying that I did a halfway fix.
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  It took a fraction of the time and money I would later spend to do it right,
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  but it made our lives so much easier until I got to the real fix.
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  I told Lori it was a two-year temporary and the term stuck.
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  Two-Year Temporary acknowledges that there will be a major rework down the road.
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  It's better than duct tape and bungees, but not too involved or expensive.
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  Most importantly, it reduces an ongoing frustration a great deal.
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  For us, two-year temporary has to be safe, functional, and not ugly.
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  At least once, it was just about covering up something ugly that would later
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  be removed. The ugly was still there, but we didn't have to look at it.
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  How could you apply the idea of two-year temporary to your marriage?
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  An easy example would be if one of you was finishing school while the other
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  was working a job they hated.
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  It's not the life or marriage you will have.
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  But that doesn't mean you have to just put up with everything.
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  Pick a couple of things that really bother you and figure out how to easily
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  and inexpensively make them somewhat better now.
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  Having a baby can create a similar situation. A difficult teen is another one.
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  Other examples are a long-term illness or having to care for an aging parent.
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  All these things can derail your life for a season.
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  You have to do what needs to be done in difficult times, but don't surrender
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  completely to circumstances.
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  You may not be able to do what you want the way you want, but you can find a
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  way to have something along the same lines.
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  If your spouse needed the bedroom and bathroom to be wheelchair-friendly for
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  a year, you would get that done for them.
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  How do you do the same thing for your relationship? How do you meet the emotional needs you both have?
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  How do you remain emotionally intimate? What changes do you need to make?
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  Ironically, we are more likely to do these things if our situation has changed
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  permanently than if they change for a season. Fight that tendency.
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  Short-term fixes can be very good, and half of what you want can sometimes be more than enough.
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  This is Paul, and sometimes doing marriage well means doing what you can.