On husbands and selves

I met my husband three years ago. We met online, on a dating site for Christians, both signing up skeptical, curious, and a little bit hopeful. A week later we met in person, having fallen fast for one another as much as we could through e-mail messages and telephone calls.

Three years; half of that time married.

I prayed, in my idealistic and naive youth, many years ago, that if there were any life lessons I might be able to learn outside of marriage, the hard lessons, the lessons that a married woman would have to bring her husband and family through, that I would learn those lessons while I was single. If I could. I had seen a family near to me fall apart because of alcoholism and infidelity, among other things, and the resulting ripple-effect of pain was overwhelming. And I prayed that if there was any lesson of character that it would be good for me to learn while I was still single that I would do that, to save my family the pain of an ill-developed character while I could still do something.

It is an odd prayer, I'll admit it, and the likes of one I'm not sure God hears often, but I prayed it a few times, and I imagine that God was blessed by my desire to mature well and to save my future family pain. And imagine that God, in his wisdom, chose to answer or not to answer me however he saw best, and that is ok.

And so I learned lessons. I hoped that I would learn well each lesson, no matter how painful nor humbling each experience might be.

But there is something I didn't know, that there are some lessons that can only be learned in marriage, that some lessons can only hit close to home when they affect the one that you love with your life, your heart, and with every breath.

The hardest part of marriage, for me, is what I think about myself, how I feel about myself. My sense of self. My self-esteem. My self-hate, at times. The hardest part of marriage is looking at me.

So I have an ongoing, on-and-off identity crisis, and it hurts more intensely than any identity crisis from my singlehood ever could. And I don't know why that is exactly. Maybe it's because there is someone there, someone who knows me and who knows what I could be, or who I am at the heart of me, someone who sees clearly, through the eyes of love, the discrepancy between who I am and who I think I am more acutely than I ever could. Someone I cannot lie to as I would with myself about how I am really doing, or about how many times I have sold myself short, or been unfair to the true me hidden beneath the layers of who I pretend to be.

And every time my identity issues cause me grief, it can feel like a marital problem, maybe because we see me so differently at times. At those times our perspectives are wildly different, and it colours every issue whether seemingly related or not.

So my poor sense of identity came out of the bag again this weekend, and it made me sad. And at times it seemed like a problem between my husband and I, except I couldn't name one thing that he had done in error. Because he had been fair. And so had I. But we had a difference of opinion to some slight degree, and I couldn't figure out why it made me so sad.

Now I know why I was sad, because I percieved one opnion to be of an advantage to me, to my identity and my contribution to our home. But it took so long to figure that out. And I realized again how unfairly I treat myself sometimes, how lowly I think of myself, how I tell myself that my opinion is of no consequence.

Repeat after me, Shiz: I matter. My opinion matters. My self matters. I am a whole person in the union of two people, a whole person is my 500-member workplace, in my 15-member other workplace, and in our multi-million member Earth. But I am always, always a whole person.

You're ok, Shiz.

And to the man who greets me with grace at every turn, thanks.

~

I had problems breathing today, perhaps my 1st ever asthma attack. Those of you that pray please do so for me. I see the doctor this week.

Comments

[Jocelyn]

Oh, boy, do I hear you on that one, sister. I can't stand sometimes how marriage holds up a constant mirror in my face--and usually what shows is what *I* need to work on!

Praying for your dr. appointment to give you some answers.

[Closet Metro]

From one "short selling self" to another, Shiz, you're better than "ok." You're wonderful.