I recently read a story about a woman whose son got a gerbil. One day the gerbil got out of its cage, and every time someone in the family saw it running through the house, complete chaos broke out. Everyone would drop whatever they were doing and try to catch the gerbil. They would chase it around the house and under furniture, trying to get it back into its cage, but they could never catch it.

Eventually, the woman just gave up trying. She didn’t stop caring about the gerbil or hope something bad happened to it. She just stopped dropping everything and joining in the chaos every time the gerbil appeared. Then one day, the gerbil came out, walked right up to her, stopped in front of her, and let her pick it up and put it back in the cage, where it apparently lived happily for the rest of its little gerbil life.

I think I have spent a lot of my life chasing the gerbil. When there is a problem, I want to figure it out. When someone I love doesn’t know what to do, I want to help them figure out what to do. When something doesn’t make sense, I want to understand it. When someone doesn’t understand me, I explain. When something has been forgotten, I remind. When someone is upset, I want to help make it better. Those aren’t necessarily bad things. In a lot of areas of my life, those qualities have served me really well.

But I am starting to realize that somewhere along the way, especially in my marriage and throughout this healing process, helping turned into carrying. Supporting turned into managing. Loving sometimes turned into taking responsibility for things that were never actually mine to be responsible for.

Every time a gerbil ran across the room, I chased it. Why did he do that? What does he need to understand? How can I explain this differently so he finally gets it? What should he do differently next time? What is he missing in his recovery? Did he remember the appointment? Does he understand why this hurt me? What does he need to do to repair this? What does he need to do now?

I have spent so much time trying to figure things out for him. Sometimes he even asks me to. “What should I do?” has become a question I am realizing I don’t have to answer. He can figure it out. That’s easy to write it, but it doesn’t feel simple at all.

Galatians 6:2 tells us to “bear one another’s burdens,” but just a few verses later Galatians 6:5 says, “each will have to bear his own load.” I am starting to learn the difference. There are burdens we are supposed to help one another carry. That’s part of loving people. But that doesn’t mean I am supposed to pick up someone else’s load and carry it for them.

My husband’s recovery is his load. His choices are his load. Remembering his commitments is his load. Looking at his own calendar is his load. Finding information that is available to him is his load. Figuring out what to do when he doesn’t know what to do is his load. His relationship with God is his load. His fear, disappointment, frustration, loneliness and uncertainty are things I can care about deeply without believing it is my responsibility to make them go away.

I think that is where not chasing the gerbil gets hard for me. It isn’t just about deciding I am not going to fix things for him anymore. I have to be willing to live with what happens when I don’t.

If I don’t remind him, what if he forgets? If I don’t explain it again, what if he never understands? If I don’t tell him what he should do, what if he does the wrong thing? If I stop trying to move recovery forward, what if he doesn’t move forward? If I stop trying to make our marriage healthier, what if he doesn’t do his part?

And maybe the question underneath all of those questions is the one that scares me the most. What if I stop chasing the gerbil and nothing happens? What if I stop doing the things I have been doing and he doesn’t pick up his load? What if he doesn’t grow? What if he doesn’t seek God? What if he doesn’t do the work? What if our marriage doesn’t become what I desperately want it to become?

That’s scary because chasing the gerbil gives me the feeling that at least I am doing something. Even when it is exhausting me, I can convince myself that maybe if I explain it one more time, find the right resource, ask the right question, point out the right pattern or tell him what I need, something will finally click.

But maybe part of my healing is accepting that I cannot make it click. I can’t do his recovery for him. I can’t make him understand something he isn’t willing or ready to understand. I can’t make him remember. I can’t make him stop and think before he reacts. I can’t make him seek God. I can’t make him learn from his mistakes. And I can’t make him become a safe husband by explaining to him how to become one. I can only pay attention to what he chooses to do with the information and opportunities he already has.

That doesn’t mean I am giving up on him. It doesn’t mean I am giving up on my marriage. It doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens. I think for a long time I would have confused stepping back with not loving someone enough. Now I am starting to see that there is a difference between loving someone and taking responsibility for them.

I can care that he is confused without solving his confusion. I can care that he is anxious without immediately reassuring him. I can know that he is hurting without making it my responsibility to stop the hurt. I can want him to grow without teaching him how to grow. I can want our marriage to heal without taking responsibility for making it heal.

And maybe the hardest part is that I have to let his choices give me information. If I stop reminding him, I get to see whether he learns to remember. If I stop telling him what he should do, I get to see what he chooses to do. If I stop explaining the same thing over and over, I get to see whether he seeks understanding somewhere besides me. If I stop moving the relationship forward, I get to see whether he does the work that makes moving forward possible. That feels incredibly vulnerable because I may not like what I learn.

But there is another part of this that I am just beginning to understand. When I am constantly stepping in, explaining, reminding, fixing, researching, teaching and trying to keep everything moving forward, I may not only be doing work that belongs to my husband. I may also be getting in the middle of work that belongs to God.

Maybe my husband needs to feel confused sometimes. Maybe he needs to sit with not knowing what to do. Maybe he needs to experience the consequences of forgetting something instead of having me remind him. Maybe he needs to wrestle with God instead of coming to me for the answer. Maybe some of the discomfort I have been trying so hard to relieve is the very discomfort God can use to teach him something.

I don’t know what God is doing in my husband. I don’t know what choices he will make. And I don’t know what will happen in our marriage if I stop trying to keep everything moving in the direction I desperately want it to go. That is where this becomes about more than not chasing a gerbil. It becomes about trusting God with the outcome.

Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” I have always thought about that verse during the times when I couldn’t figure something out. But maybe there is another kind of trust God is asking from me now. Maybe it isn’t just, God, I can’t figure this out, so I am going to trust You. Maybe sometimes it is, God, I probably could keep trying to figure this out, but I am beginning to understand that this isn’t mine to figure out.

My responsibility before God is for my own choices, my own words, my own obedience, my own healing and my own heart. I can tell the truth without making someone understand it. I can have a boundary without making someone like it. I can walk away from an unhealthy interaction without convincing the other person that it was unhealthy. I can let another adult wrestle with a problem without jumping in and solving it. And I can leave room for God to work in places where I have been frantically trying to do the work myself. I think that may be the hardest part. I have to stop chasing the gerbil without knowing what happens next.

Maybe my husband picks up his load. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he grows in ways I have prayed for. Maybe there are things I learn that are painful. I don’t know yet. But I am beginning to understand that loving my husband does not require me to control the outcome. Trusting God does not mean believing He will make everything turn out the way I want it to. It means trusting Him enough to obey Him with what belongs to me and surrender what doesn’t. Maybe it isn’t giving up at all. Maybe it’s finally realizing that I don’t have to chase every gerbil that gets loose.

Some things were never mine to catch.