A Word or Two About Love…

I’ve been on this relationship vibe lately.  I keep analyzing mine and comparing it with other relationships good and bad in an effort to make sense of it all.  The latest subject of my analysis is a recent conversation with a good friend who just got involved in an apparently serious relationship.  This chick is excited.  More excited about it than anything else that is going on in her life right now.  I mean, it trumps the new dream job, the new place, and the recent trip to Paris.  So after listening intently (although more or less transfixed by my own disbelief) to her seemingly endless exaltations of this guy’s many merits, I managed to get a word in edgewise.  More or less I said something to the effect of, “you won’t always feel this way but if it’s really love then you two will make it.”  Her response was something along the lines of, “Oh Stacy, you know Immanuel is a wonderful man and you couldn’t be happy married to anyone else.”  I agree, but her comment felt kind of like a patient but firm brush-off.  I was simply making the point that I do not feel the way about my husband that I did when we first started dating.  In fact, my feelings (and I daresay his as well) have undergone many changes over the course of our 4 yr history.  I probably wouldn’t have wanted to hear anything quite so sobering when I was floating on my lovely cloud of magical-Immanuelness but I’d like to believe I was cautious about allowing myself to become that besotted. 

I felt like I  was playing the markedly less attractive, sarcastic side-kick in a romantic comedy…you know, the one where the beautiful leading lady can’t seem to find the right man and then ‘bam!’ he shows up right when she decides to stop looking and then everything about him just seems perfect.  So then she calls up her sensible yet cynical married girlfriend who warns her to ‘proceed with caution lest you fall into my pit of despair.’  Not my vibe at all.  I’m actually happy for her.  I’ve just never been one to fully run away with my feelings and I’m not about to do that to a good friend either.

 So after this rather surreal conversation, peppered with phrases like “I love my man!” and “He’s just so perfect for me!” I hung up the phone wanting to feel happier than I felt.  It’s kind of that uneasy feeling you get when you’re all psyched up for something to be a struggle but it turns out to be easy, something inside of you still needs to be careful, skeptical, ready for things to go south at any time.  The fact of the matter is, I don’t know this guy and I’m wondering what is so ‘special’ about him that can transform my friend so drastically in such a short amount of time.  How much of it is real and how much of it is emotional fog?

I am no stranger to emotional fog myself.  I have been guilty of it in many of my relationships, including my marriage.  It’s a wonder drug, really.  Like a powerful anxiolytic that bakes your brain into this sappy, dreamy, love-struck sponge cake unable to accurately perceive reality.  I know a certain amount of this is necessary just to get things started.  Most of us would just stay single forever if we could immediately detect all the flaws in a potential mate.  In fact, I know people like this and they are pitiful…convinced, but pitiful.  But I think it becomes dangerous if somewhere in the back of your mind you aren’t aware that the fog will eventually wear off…or at least prepare for the possibility that it will.  The fog can only hover for as long as the newness lasts…while everything is about putting your best qualities on display and graduating to new levels of intimacy step by step.  Then comes the gradual, imperceptible lifting of the fog that slowly unveils features, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies that you swear weren’t there before or that you once found so attractive but now drives you nuts.

I guess my real question is, can you really be in love with someone after knowing them for only one month?  After all, my husband said those words unexpectedly to me as we ended our first date, and I have no doubt he was sincere.  I could try to highlight differences in my relationship that justify such a bold early step, but I know that plenty of people would have cautioned me on this.  That’s probably why I kept it to myself for months before sharing it with anyone.  But I think that despite how certain Immanuel and I felt about our relationship from the very beginning, we knew we had to give it time to mature into what we believed it could be.  My stab at an answer is this…I think you can…or at least begin to construct the earliest remnants of love very early in a relationship, especially if you’re someone who knows what you want.  But I think it’s doomed to failure if you never move beyond the butterflies and fireworks.  If you never move to having disagreements and seeing each other tore up in the morning and working each other’s nerves how can you really get to know the core of this other person who you say you love?  If you don’t take the time to understand what makes them tick, what drives their passions, what quenches their soul…how can you really love that person?  If you never face a problem that can and should separate you but make the conscious decision to stay together, then how can you say ‘til death do us part’?  (Unless you’re planning to die real soon, then that’s a different story.)  Love is only partly driven by feelings; the rest is a series of lifelong decisions to keep loving that person.  That is what Steve Carrell meant in the movie Dan in Real Life when he said that love is an ability.  Falling in love is easy, but it takes tremendous skill to stay in love.

 I don’t pretend that Man and I are the perfect couple, although we get plenty of admiration.  If we look happy, it’s because we are and not because we are trying to.  Likewise, if we look unhappy, then…you know, we’re not…at least not at that particular moment.  Relationships are too challenging without the additional challenge of trying to fool everyone else into thinking that you don’t have problems.  And even the most best and saved of couples are breaking up these days so it’s clearly not about what looks good on paper.  Our marriage is hard.  He has a computer science degree that’s like a whole other language to me and I am 8 months shy of a medicine degree which is Greek to him as well.  I’m in the military and this alone has and will continue to turn our lives upside down for the next 8 years.  We spent the majority of our courtship and the first 7 months of our marriage living 7 hrs apart and since then I’ve been required to travel away from him multiple times for considerable lengths of time.  He wears several different hats as a leader in our church which is pastored by his parents, balancing commitments to many different people and ministries other than me. (Do I even need to allude to the host of potential issues for conflict there?)  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  We don’t even have a mortgage and kids yet.

I guess I just wish the notion of happily ever after would get flushed down the golden toilet for good after every female turns 10 years old because it’s not accurate or even possible in marriage.  It’s one thing to desire love and happiness in life, but it’s another to be completely deluded.  This belief creates false expectations and the illusion that if one doesn’t ‘feel happy’ anymore they should just call it quits and pursue their happily ever after someplace else.  I think it should be changed to ‘devoted ever after.’  If that’s too corny then create your own precisely worded yet palatable cliché.  I was just throwing something out there for you to chew on.

Someone once told me that God created marriage more to make you holy than to make you happy and that happiness is merely a natural byproduct of a healthy marriage.  My immediate reaction when I first heard this was staunch disagreement.  I mean, God made Eve because Adam was lonely and he needed her to make him happy, right?  But is that really what God meant by ‘it is not good for man to be alone’?  If you look at what really happened, she did something that challenged his role as spiritual leader in their marriage and further tested his personal knowledge of God’s instructions.  She exposed a weakness in his heart towards God as well as his lack of authority in their marriage. They both failed, and Adam even blamed her when God confronted him for answers.  This does not strike me as happily ever after.  Neither does getting cast out of a beautiful garden to fend for myself, having to sweat all day just to get a decent meal and having excruciating pain just to bring new life into this world.  Was this God’s original plan for mankind?  No…but he foresaw it.  And I think he knew that they needed each other to survive…to bring out the best and worst in each other so that He could strengthen them through their commitment to one another.  I think it’s a brilliant construct designed to push us, mold us, challenge us, and reveal our deepest of errors through the eyes of the one who loves you.  It’s a wonderful thought that perhaps God has chosen marriage as the ultimate training ground, working through our spouses as the single greatest means of influencing our character and decisions. If that isn’t worth having, then I don’t know what is.

                                                                                                                   JP

Birthday Blues

So, tomorrow is my hubby’s birthday and I will not be taking the 2.5hr drive back to NJ this weekend to celebrate with him.  Just to add some perspective here, let me explain that since our dating days, I have revered his birthday as I did Christmas when I was a child.  I normally spend months anticipating it and planning something fun or a great gift that I know he will love. Then I get to watch him enjoy his gift in that genuine and uniquely appreciative way he has about him.  Last year it was a surprise party at our apartment that I managed to plan secretly.  He still talks about how much he loved that party.  But on the day he turns 29, there will be nothing…at least from me.

Why this extreme departure from the norm?  Well, it all started with me planning this surprise trip to DC with our close friends.   He unknowingly made other plans for that weekend without discussing it with me and, in fact, had no celebratory plans in mind at all.  So I got furious and called everything off and refused to do anything for him at all.  Real mature, right? 

I can’t seem to let this thing go no matter how much I want to.  I forgive him but I kind of resent him at the same time.  It appalls me that someone can think so little of their own birthday and furthermore, deny their spouse the opportunity to dote on them.  Yes, I know that he is a product of his upbringing and is only mimicking what has been consistently demonstrated to him year after year.  I also know that he is not intentionally trying to make me crazy, but why oh why must I spell this out for him every year?  If I am perfectly honest, I will say that I have harbored this hope in the far corners of my heart these past 4 yrs, that he would somehow grow to appreciate my birthday as much as I appreciate his.  Every woman wants their man to make them feel special on their special day.  But year after year it feels like he just gives up before he even starts and then gives me something only because he doesn’t want to disappoint me.  I just don’t want to do this little dance anymore.  It’s the whole, “I want you to want” argument and it never ends well for the wounded party. 

Back to the b-day boycott.  At first it was about punishing him (which, of course always backfires resulting in him being completely un-phased and me being utterly frustrated).  But in the last week or so, I’ve decided that it’s about desensitizing my apparently unwarranted over-exuberance when it comes to the birthdays of those I love and (more importantly) allowing my husband to celebrate in the way that makes him the most happy (even if that excludes my presence).  I am being unselfish by appearing outwardly selfish.  Go figure. 

So here I am alone in Silver Spring, Maryland…frustrated, hurt, and wondering why he is the way he is but loving him anyway.  Of course, if you know me at all, you know that the birthday thing is just a manifestation of a much deeper issue.  There comes a time in every marriage where your fundamental personality differences become more glaringly obvious than when u were blinded by the haze of dating, engagement, and the early blissful months of being newlyweds.  These differences can be refreshing, inspiring, even liberating from your own way of thinking but after sometime, it can begin to drive you up the wall.

Take my husband for example.  He is essentially, a self-reformed introvert.  After spending his childhood and adolescence deathly silent and withdrawn, he has purposed to come out of his shell during the course of his young adulthood.  He is compassionate, giving, even-tempered, rational, gregarious, and people-pleasing.  He is an idealist, whose opinions and judgments are so pure that they border on self-righteous at times.  For him, finding the good in all people is an absolute must and doing for others is infinitely more important than doing for himself.  So a day that should be devoted to celebrating his existence really is just another day to him and is best spent doing what he loves most.

I am on the other end of the spectrum.  I am a reformed extrovert.  I used to be the quintessential attention-seeking hussy who needed constant validation from other people.  Graduating from college and then giving my life back to Christ really toned my personality down.  Now, I warm up to people slowly and am apt to spend much more time observing and listening than talking in an unfamiliar situation and/or a group setting.  I relish my solitude.  Where my husband is revived by interaction with people, I find it emotionally draining.  In fact, nearly all of the things I love to do most require that I do them alone…reading, writing poems/stories, exercising.  I am introspective, emotionally volatile, and a total home-body.  My personal bubble is very small, so much so that Immanuel is probably the only person in the world I can stand to be around almost all the time.  My time is extremely valuable to me and I am very particular about how and with whom I spend it.

As you can imagine, the source of many of our arguments is my perception that he often places the needs of others ahead of his family and his perception that I ‘don’t like people’ but will have to learn how to better share him.  “I love spending time with you with other people,” he says.  And I get it, I really do.  He considers his church to be his family.  But my family is my family.  He wants to bond with other couples and reach out to children and teens and fellowship with distant acquaintances.  All of that is nice, but to me it’s exhausting and time consuming.  I’m not interested in befriending everyone we know.  I don’t have enough emotional arsenal to sustain that many meaningful relationships.  I am perfectly happy with having most people in my life as acquaintances.  I am all about nourishing the important relationships we already have and leaving room to gradually incorporate (or even out-corporate) people into/out of our circle of trust.  In fact, I am even ok with not liking people and with people not liking me.  That’s perfectly healthy as far as I’m concerned. 

What I am not ok with is the possibility of my husband not accepting me and somehow hoping that this part of myself that I am content with will change.  And so, when he tells me that I am becoming his ‘lady’ (which he means as a huge compliment in recognition of my continued growth in character) I actually feel like he’s being condescending without meaning to be.  It’s almost like being told that who I am right now is not good enough but will be someday.    

Don’t get me wrong, I am gladly perfecting many aspects of my character, like patience, self-control, and kindness but I don’t believe that this will change the foundation of who I am.  I am an introvert by choice and it suits me…not a social recluse, not painfully shy, not cold and unapproachable.  When people describe me as reserved, cautious, unassuming, “quiet at first but a great person once you get to know her…” that makes me smile because it’s how I want to be thought of…a person worth getting to know.  And it’s those that take the time to get to know me, or at least allow me to take my time getting to know them who will become the closest to me.

In fact, in many ways, I don’t even fit the classic picture of an introvert.  I love entertaining in our home and have taken tentative strides towards befriending people who have shown, at best, lukewarm interest in pursuing a friendship with me.  I attend church events and other events for my husband’s more distant friends where, on many occasions, I know no one but my husband.  I am on friendly speaking terms with anyone who attends our small church with any regularity and have no issue with him spending time on his own with his friends or to go play music or to mentor someone, etc, etc, etc.  So I keep asking myself, what is it that really needs to change?  I’m not saying that I am the perfect wife, but I believe that I have adapted to his way of life as best as I can considering how vastly it differs from mine.  And I still believe that I need to be the one who says “no” and prioritizes family first just as much as he needs to be the one who says “yes” and puts others first.  This is not an easy dynamic but one that I believe we will be continuously perfecting for the duration of our marriage.  But the goal needs to be to understand each other’s essential personality differences and find ways to meet in the middle so that neither of us feels as if the other’s emotional integrity is being disregarded. 

So, I guess my gift this year is allowing my husband to be who he is and accepting that no matter how much he may puzzle me, I chose him for a reason.  And for all of this, I don’t really want him to change that much at all; just perfect what he already has to work with.  There is a time to concede and a time to stand firm in who you are as an individual.  The lesson I am still trying to learn is when to do what and why.  I suspect Romans 14 is a step in the right direction:

      ¹⁹So let us then definitely aim for and eagerly pursue what makes for harmony and for mutual upbuilding (edification and development) of one another (AMP)

 ²²Your personal convictions [on such matters]–exercise [them] as in God’s presence, keeping them to yourself [striving only to know the truth and obey His will]. Blessed (happy, ^[a]to be envied) is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves [who does not convict himself by what he chooses to do] (AMP)

                                                                                                                              JP

Emotional Infidelity…

I was reading a devotional this morning about the importance of guarding your marriage against infidelity.  http://www.melaniechitwood.com/2010/10/slow-boil.html#comments

It blessed me so much that I wrote a devotional/confessional of my own.  Thanks Melanie!

This time last year, I found myself involved in an emotional relationship with another man.  That’s right, me…sensible, responsible, “head-over-heels in love with my husband” me.  Even now it’s embarrassing to admit it but hindsight has revealed more to me than I was able to see while in the situation.  It was during our first year of marriage, in fact, a few months before our one year anniversary.  Here I was starting only my second medical rotation at a new hospital in a psychiatric unit and sorely in need of a friendly face.  I was clueless and knew no one which made me very uneasy.  There was this male nurse who worked there…tall, mildly attractive, incredibly kind, and comforting.  He paid attention to me when everyone else ignored me.  He made sure I knew my way around and ‘handled’ any patients who were treating me inappropriately.  I could tell he respected me as more than just ‘the annoying med student.’  We became ‘work friends’ and I found myself looking forward to having conversations with him everyday. 

He made no secret of his attraction to me.  He was somewhat apologetic about it but very matter-of-fact in his observations.  If I wanted something, he made sure I got it…whether it was a snack from the cafeteria or a certain kind of pen.  I think it was those little things he said and did that began to have an influence on my feelings gradually over time.  I remember feeling genuinely surprised when I realized that I was developing feelings for him.  Somehow driving home from work with thoughts of him seemed acceptable, but when those thoughts intruded on my home life and worse, when I was with my husband, I became racked with guilt.  Immanuel and I were not having problems at the time.  In fact, we were extremely happy with each other.  I knew what a rare and wonderful man I had married and I appreciated all the things he contributed to our relationship that made me feel loved.  But this ‘work guy,’ let’s call him Dan, had stumbled on a crack in our relationship…a microscopic area of weakness that was founded on my insecurities about my appearance.  He satisfied that need that I had to be doted on and to be told in specific ways about my wonderful attributes.  He eagerly fed my ego while I smiled and blushed and politely told him he was exaggerating.  On my last day of work, I found myself at lunch with him stumbling through a confession of my feelings.  I told myself that I was doing it for him.  Letting him off the hook for feeling the way I knew he felt about me and telling him that I was flattered but in love with my husband and unwilling to be unfaithful to him.  Unfortunately, my little confession only gave him boldness and for the rest of the day he proceeded to tell me in whispers and stolen glances how much he cared about me…how he thought about me at home…how he wanted me in ways that he knew he shouldn’t.  I felt myself panicking inside.  What had I done?  My little ‘innocent’ game had fueled this man into unbridled lust and I was no longer in control of the situation.  Thankfully there was a way of escape.  I would not be working there anymore. 

I wish I could tell you that I took this out and let this thing die down immediately, but I didn’t.  Instead, when he asked if he could call me I gave in, telling myself that a phone conversation here and there couldn’t hurt anything.  This turned into another month of flirtatious text messages, secret phone conversations, and his desperate coercions.  He kept asking me to go out to dinner with him.  But I knew this was a trap.  I knew that if we spent anymore time together physically, a line would be crossed and neither of us would be able to take it back.   I kept trying to end it but found it difficult to do so in certain terms so he would call or text again and then I would give in and answer.  Finally, one day out of the blue he sent me a message that said, ‘I know you can’t give me what I want so I’m going to leave you alone.’  This turned into our last real conversation.  He apologized for confusing me emotionally and said that he could see that I loved my husband and didn’t want to be a home-wrecker.  I thanked him and wished him well.  It was as if the windows of heaven had opened up and intervened despite how badly I had made a mess of things.  I nearly did irreparable damage to my marriage and God still made it so that my foot didn’t slip…at least not all the way.  I am ever so grateful for the revelation that God placed in the heart of that man, who wasn’t really a practicing Christian.  But I think he knew enough to recognize that I belonged to God and took my marriage covenant seriously, more seriously than he took his. 

                That’s right, he too was married…and with two children.   In fact, this Caucasian man who was ten years my senior was on his second marriage.  I’m not sure what the grounds were for divorce in his first marriage, but I’m willing to bet there was at least a small element of infidelity involved.  It’s ok, you can shake your head in disgust at me.  I still do. 

                I had to admit to myself that confessing my feelings to him, though they were completely surface and physical, had nothing to do with him.  It was about stroking my own ego and wanting to hear him confirm what I already knew to be true.  What I didn’t think about was how it would affect him emotionally.  By removing that unspoken barrier, I had given him permission to dwell on his feelings for me and hope that I would embark on an extra-marital relationship with him.  I’m ashamed of the way I behaved now and embarrassed that this part of myself that I thought I had put to death when I came back to Christ still lingered and still had an appetite. 

                The part that truly breaks my heart is that as I attempted to disclose all of this to my husband, his kind heart wanted to think the best of me.  He never blamed me or stopped trusting me.  He never once exploded or showed anger towards me or this other man.  He just listened intently as I stumbled through the whole painful ordeal.  Then he simply forgave me and told me that he needed to do better since I had apparently punished myself enough.  “I just need to make sure you feel appreciated and loved even more so that it won’t matter what some other man says.”  Could I have been so gracious if the shoe was on the other foot?  Sadly, I think the answer for now is still a resounding ‘no’ but more than this, I believe with all my heart that the shoe would never be on the other foot because my husband is the kindest, truest, most honest human being I know.  In fact, as we concluded that talk he expressed concern for this man’s salvation and the state of his marriage.  He asked me if I had prayed for him.  The answer was no, of course.  I was too busy trying to get out of the kitchen without any burns.  And so, we prayed together, first thanking God for taking steps to protect our marriage despite my mistakes and asking him to minister to this man concerning his soul and his marriage. 

                Some months later, I got a text from Dan asking how I was.  I had erased his phone number after that conversation with my husband but I knew it was him just by the tone of the text message.  This time my reaction was so different.  No pounding heart, no tingling fingers, just a strong sense of caution that made me pause and deliberate if and how I should respond.  I then picked up the phone and sent him a string of text messages that told him I was glad to hear from him and that I had been praying for him.  I apologized to him for my behavior and told him that it was inexcusable as a woman of God to lead him on the way I had.  I wished him all the best in his marriage and in all his future endeavors and told him good-bye.  Although we never verbalized it, we have not spoken to each other since and I suspect never will in that way again.  Some part of me believes that our paths will cross again someday but I neither dread it nor anticipate it.  I’m so grateful for this lesson, even though it hurt and humiliated me.  It taught me that those demons I cast out some years ago are always looking for a window of opportunity in my life to return and wreak havoc on me and those I love.  Just because I’m saved and living for the Lord, happily married, and on my way to an amazing career does not mean that I’m invulnerable.  So I will tell you what I’ve learned to tell myself ever since this incident, know yourself and your weaknesses.  This is what you need to guard yourself against always.  That is why a year later, I am revisiting this and examining it.  I need to remember what caused me to stumble.  But now I know more than ever that God loves me and wants me to succeed…so much so that even when I do stumble, He will do whatever it takes to keep me from falling. 

Thank you, Lord for saving my marriage and for preserving the love between my husband and I.  I am undeserving, but that has never mattered to you.  So I will give you my best and allow you to expose the ways in which I need you the most.  For now, I have learned this lesson and will make you proud when I am tested with this temptation again.  All my love…JP. 

Application verses:

^“Now to Him Who is able to keep you without stumbling or slipping or falling, and to present [you] unblemished (blameless and faultless) before the presence of His glory in triumphant joy and exultation [with unspeakable, ecstatic delight]” (Jude 1:24 AMP)

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.” (Psalm 121:1-3 KJV)

Pages From My Life…

Oct 18 2010