The purpose of this blog is to share a short conversation that occurred between me and a friend on a very dark day. That mornng I had visited with a divorce lawyer to see about ending a 21 year marriage, and then told my wife about it. That afternoon I had toured apartments looking for a new place to live. That evening I met with my friend. And that night my wife and I warmly embraced and told each other we would be with each other forever.
How could this have happened? Angry and bitter enough to divorce in the morning and joyful and content with marriage on the same evening?
I propose to you, dear reader, that the secret to loving your wife is to realize that she is crazy and that you are the only person in the world who can save her.
Now your wife may not be completely crazy like mine, she may merely be broken, or at very best, extremely fragile. But a key to the secret is that- it doesn't matter. If your wife is crazy, broken or fragile the same secret works for all of them.
In my case, my wife has been through severe psychological trauma, and is therefore full on crazy. She was sexually molested as a child, was abandoned by her father and brother, and has had numerous medical issues within the immediate family including the death of a child.
Her crazy manifests itself in two ways- attempting to look perfect to everyone but her husband (me) and taking out all of her rage on her husband. This makes being her husband a peculiar sort of hell. Because everyone who knows her thinks she is perfect, they assume that any complaints coming out of you are because you are a horrible husband to your perfect wife. When you protest that you're actually a good husband you are told by friends and marriage counselors that you are obviously not good enough.
The breakthrough this time was in being discovered by a friend in a similar situation. He too has been bearing the brunt of his wife's crazy. He however had found a particularly wise Christian female marriage counselor who had herself been through significant psychological trauma and really understood crazy.
This counselor had explained to him that he was the one person in the whole world that God had put on this earth to take care of and love his wife. You are that person for your wife. I am that person for my wife.
You see, crazy or not, I have always loved my wife. If I were to divorce her, I would destroy her. No one else would ever tolerate being treated the way I have often been treated. She might have another relationship or even another marriage, but those would be very short term. She would be condemend to a lonely life.
On the behavioral level, two things have changed. I have repeatedly assured her that there is absolutely no way I will ever leave her as long as we both shall live. And I have made her the all out focus of my attention, the way she used to be when we were dating.
The results are in- she's not so crazy any more. Sure there are lapses and she says and does things that make no sense to any man, but my response is "I'm sorry" and the less that is said the better. And the longer I ignore the crazy, rather than fight it, and stand by her side the less crazy there seems to be.
The special bonus has been in the bedroom. Twenty four hours after recommitting my life to her (and that is what the secret really is) we had the best most intimate time in the bedroom that we have had in years. She gave of herself in the bedroom as I had been giving of myself in our marriage for only one day.
So the secret to loving you wife is:
1. Realize her past has made her crazy (or at least broken of fragile), and ignore the crazy
2. Realize that you are the only one God has commissioned to make her whole, and commit your life to her in everything you say and do
You are on a mission from God. The plan and purpose of your life is to serve exactly one person- your wife. Once you get that down you can consider reporting for extra duties.
