Conversations about husbands

The conversation often turns to husbands, being a subject of daily living for many and a point of curiosity for the rest of us. Stories are told and re-told of hesitant forays into interest and first dates, of engagements and weddings. We talk about in-laws and other tricky ground; of the having of children and the yearning for children; of the multiplication and division of problems. Some say their husbands were their first ever experience of mutual attraction; some that in certain ways their husbands surprised them, upsetting what they thought they wanted (“He just kept coming, and coming….” “He said ‘no’ to me and it was so attractive.”).

They are still fairly new to this, these wives, still nowhere near my mother’s thirty-three years, but they are fully committed to the vows they made to God and their husbands, and they are learning, and they are growing (so is their love). It draws me, pulls me to want to be part of that conversation in another way, and I leave feeling joyful because I have seen the Spirit’s blessing on these friends.

I know now what I resisted for years, fearing as I so often do the idea of being like everyone else: I’m a romantic at heart—hopeful, not hopeless, because the best love stories here point to the best love story of all, the one I’m part of no matter what.

After a season in which I struggled with the notion that God probably wanted me to have a series of miserable jobs ended with a job I enjoy, I can’t hold on to the even more ludicrous idea that He is after sending me a man who bores me, who can’t keep up with me, who finds me ridiculous (in the negative sense), who doesn’t want me as much as I want him, who makes the whole endeavor feel like a duty to slog through. It’s a notion that reminds me of my brother, once as relationally ascetic as I have been, pleasantly surprised and amazed to discover even the silly little side things he could have seen himself foregoing in a wife were present in the woman who is now my sister.

I’ve found, after an honest appraisal of self and God, I’m not angry anymore when the topic of singleness comes up. Marriage would be an awfully big adventure. Then again, I’m in an awfully big adventure already. (In all circumstances, to be content.)