Without Words
I can't fully explain what it takes to be a husband. I used to think it was a natural progression, an evolution, from boyfriend, to cohabitant, to fiance, to husband. That worked for me for many years. I love my wife, she is the most important person in my life and I would gladly sacrifice anything to insure her safety, security, and happiness.
We have had a happy togetherness. Starting in high school we have always been together. I can't say the normal cliches about our relationship. You know; We have been through a lot, we have endured change, we have been through many trials, our love grows sronger each day etc... The truth is, we have been together since high school because we are good friends and have always enjoyed each other's company. This year, in two week we will have been together for 19 years.
So I find myself after nearly 13 years of marriage looking back on this year as our most difficult. We have been through a cross country move, uprooting our careers, our family, leaving our first home and friends to move across the void of the country to Florida. Once here things have not exactly been joyful. Family we saw leave Arizona were not the same once we arrived in Florida. We added to our family an beautiful and challenging surprise (read below for those stories), and have had to restart our careers with less money and less retirement.
So where does that take me now? Since the last baby, she has been different. I am used to changes in my wife. There have been several after she has delivered each baby. As a mother, there is no other person I would trust with my children beyond her. She loves each with tenderness, compassion, and humility. But, I would be remiss in reporting that the babies have not changed her physically, spiritually, emotionaly, and mentally. The third has had the biggest effect on her emotinally and mentally. She would report that physically she has been forever changed, but that matters very little to me. The changes in her body only serve as a reminder of how strong and feminine. (She is still so intoxicating as a woman. She knocks me out.) Somehow, the baby has had a changed her mentally in a way that I find far more difficult.
Every couple mounths it seems she sinks in to a depression. Although there are always triggers; ones that are sometimes within my control, but once she falls down that spiral staircase, there is no way to slow her descent. The reasons for her fall are always legitimate, but I am usually powerless to help her recover once there.
In October, or perhaps November, when she was there last, I realized that I was going to have to rise above my personal feelings of self sacrifice and individual desires to meet her at the bottom to lift her back to being on top. I discovered that my own masculinity required strength I never thought I had. I failed miserably. I argued with her, made my own needs more important and didn't truly hear what she had to say. But once she recovered, I worked very hard to improve, and also to pevent her from once again enduring the conditions that lead her to fall.
This past weekend, due to a couple of small tragedies, the staircase once again found its way to be underoot, and she again fell. Although I tried to catch her before the fall, she slipped from my grasp and when the dispair and crying began, I assumed a position of defense and considered my options for attack. Luckily, I was ble to slow down enough to realize that I needed to rise above.
The True Measure of Man
Masculinity is overrated. Being married, having all daughters, discovering your true value in life, often makes you feel emasculated. But that feeling is for the weak minded. Becoming a real man is less manly than most would give credit. It doesn't require skill on the court, or prowress in the gym. It doesn't require the the ability to shoot a gun or the strength to repell your opponents. It's not the stacks of money or the engine in your car. These cliches don't approach the real meaning. What's worse, I thought I new how to be a real man to my wife. I was wrong.
I always laughed at the idea that men couldn't change diapers or take their kids out on shopping trips. I laughed at the characatures of men on television as the bumbled around the house trying to take car of their kids or required help from strangers when they took their kids out for dinner. I laughed becuase I have always been willing and able to ake my kids out in order to give my wife a night to herself. She might spend that time recreating or doing the laundry. I didn't really care since I was doing what I could to keep the kids out of her hair. But this was all a facade. The truth was, although I was a quite able and adept at taking car of the kids, I failed to really take care of my wife. I believed that by giving my wife time engadge in a bit of peace I was being a good husband. What I missed was that my wife can't heal her wounds by being alone. Marriage is the joinging of two in a bond that creates one flesh. I did't realize that when she was troubled this means I am her legs, eyes, strength, and support. Being vacant and then aloof only serves to reinforce her isolation. To be a real husband and man requires that I see beyond the simple tasks placed before me and address my children's and my wife's needs; no matter how difficult and no matter how troubling.
Kids are easy to handle, handling a houshold is tough. It requires more than strength of character and a will of steel. It requires faith in a higher power and the ability to see your own faults; accept humility and overcome pride. It requires the strength of a million men and piosness of of one. Although a novice, it requires a husband. I am not worthy.
