Our marriage will last because he leaves me...and I'm okay with that!

The running of our family depends upon separation, and without a willingness to be vulnerable and trusting, our marriage would never last through this phase of our lives. I look at those magical couples who are with each other more than they are apart (most often the kidless-dog-owning-ones), and I am partially awe-struck and generally impressed, but I think the major emotion I feel is one of sadness. For a while I was sad that it wasn’t us. Although I hadn’t spent any childhood energy on fantasizing about my husband or our relationship, I think somewhere in the depths of my heart I had hoped that once I was married I would be “with” that person forever. My current sadness for those have-to-be-together-all-the-time-couples is that statistically many of them may never see the other side of married life, and have a chance to enjoy the confidence that comes with knowing you are loved and honored even when you are not in the physical presence of your spouse. I see heart-linked couples and they sometimes seem more concerned about continually reminding each other that they are connected than they are about simply enjoying each other’s company.

Now granted, I know that not every husband is completely honest about what he might be doing when he is not with his wife, nor does every wife make only faithful decisions when faced with temptation. I count myself among the lucky that I am in a relationship based on open and genuinely honest communication. I have come to trust my husband with every fiber of my being, and he generally does exactly what he says he is going to do. I, too, try to be true to my word, and we’ve even talked openly about what it would mean if one of the two of us wanted to cheat on our marriage. We both agree that if there was a desire to be adulterous, there would be nothing that the other spouse could do to keep it from happening. It is so hard to imagine him stepping out on us, that I don’t even think I can fake what it would feel like. My ability to identify with the “cheating wife” is also such a foreign concept that it is easier for me to just talk about why trust works for us.

My husband and I have been married nearly twelve years, and he has worn his wedding ring one day. For our wedding and reception, his band was on the ring finger of his left hand, but starting on the first full day of our marriage, and every day since, he has kept his ring on a gold chain around his neck. He has been to bars, he has been around single women, he has gone to raucous parties and that entire time he has gone with a naked hand. My seven-year-old daughter asked him one day how anyone knows he is married if he doesn’t wear his ring on his hand. His answer was simple, “It doesn’t matter if anyone else knows I am married, it matters that your mom and I know we are married.” It’s true, and I am starting to understand the depth of that statement more and more.

I do a lot of things alone with our kids, and on and off through the last couple of years, I have allowed negative emotions to creep into my thinking about what that must look like to the casual observer. I know that my oldest overheard a family talking about us at church and one of the kids whispered, “I think they don’t have a dad.” My kids know they have a dad…they have a great dad, and I know I have a husband…what does it really matter what anyone else thinks? Our lives are goofy, and for two months of the year we have a long distance, commuting relationship. My husband lives 900 miles away while I hold down the fort with the kids. For one month we are high-fiving each other as we both head out of state to work on the weekends and a parade of family and hired help keep the schedules running and the house afloat. For four months we work together from home during the week and then evenings on the weekend I am home alone or running kids from here to there. For maybe one month total through the year we are the “typical” married couple with our own work to do and we come together for the weekend as a family. Normal is most definitely the exception in our house, and I feel blessed that I am finally starting to embrace that.

What does it mean to be “with” someone without actually being “with” someone? That’s what forced separation has taught me. It means that you know someone out there makes decisions that include you. It means that you make decisions with that person in mind too, and there is a movement toward a common goal that happens every day no matter where we are. Some people never get to this point in their relationships, and for that, I am sad for them. I no longer prescribe to the ideology that everyone deserves that family picture that looks polished and beautiful but that is based on the gloss more than the goodness. What everyone deserves is someone who loves them unconditionally and who sacrifices for their goals and dreams. What everyone deserves is a chance to confidently go through life knowing that they’ll never be hurt on purpose. What everyone deserves is a chance to be missed and the joy that comes with reuniting. When a marriage is based in truth and grounded in love there is not one way that the family photo looks from day to day, and even if I have to photoshop my husband in, I know he is my husband, and I am his wife.

True Love is... Freezing Your Butt Off

New cute shirt. Check

More than five minutes spent on hair. Check.

Make-up actually applied. Check.

Kids dropped off for the night. Check.

Hotel reservation. Check.

Outrageous expectations. Checked at the door.

This time of year, time alone with my husband outside of our condo is rare and precious, so an arranged date night is exciting. I get pumped up about the night out, but I am not fanatical about it anymore. I used to build up these rare dates to such a level that I was often disappointed and then frustrated about things that were out of my control. Last night’s date could have been a night out with friends for drinks ending in hot romance at our hotel. (fill in your own fantasy here) Instead, we spent our night out with friends for dinner and then we were pulled away by a work emergency for my husband. We spent the rest of the night rambling around in a run-down ’82 pick-up truck, tossing full boxes of food in and out as we transported food from one broken freezer to a sub-zero warehouse.

Granted, we live in Minnesota in the winters, so it is somewhat expected that some of our dedication to one another would include exposing ourselves to freezing temps. When the driveway is covered in snow or the windshield caked in ice, it is loving and kind to be the warm-hearted soul who chips away at the ice or shovels the snow for the spouse who stands huddled in the doorway. It happens in our house, and more now than a few years ago. I must note that the spouse who is huddled inside is not always me.

For a while, at the beginning of our marriage, I had this inaccurate impression that it was the husband’s job to take care of the wife. Every girl wants to be taken care of and to feel loved by a doting husband, but what I have found, is that every guy, and most definitely my guy, feels that way too. Most men, in fact, need women to dote and care for them much more than we women need them. Men suffer most when they are not in a marital relationship and women suffer most when they are in an unhappy relationship. Studies have concluded that men have a longer and healthier lifespan when married, and I am starting to understand what that means for me as a wife to that needy man. Don’t get me wrong, my husband is an incredibly efficient man who can do practically anything, but I have spent some time the last few years accepting my role as a helper, and our overall relationship has improved. Luckily, with the sacrifices I started to make, my husband began to sacrifice willingly too.

This week it was me throwing boxes onto palates and helping to get things stacked inside the walk-in freezer, but he too has frozen. Last year when I was coaching a soccer game in pouring rain, he suffered through the game, huddling the kids under a large trash bag and all out of support for me.

I was, and still am, a little disappointed that our date was changed, but I’m glad that I have gotten better about accepting each shift in expectation as a new experience, and that those shifts are not necessarily bad. We had fun laughing about the twist our “date night” had taken. We acknowledged how great it was to be out and about late at night without the kids, and we both chose to simply make the most of it.

I am finding happiness in the little things, letting go of unrealistic and fanatical expectations. Each moment is a gift, each conversation worth relishing and... freezing can be good for a marriage too.

If you want to be happy…
For an hour, take a nap
For a day, go fishing
For a month, get married
For a year, get an inheritance
For a lifetime, help someone.