I can fail.
Sep 23
The Three Loves: Jenny’s Version Part 1
I have an awesome husband who lays down his life for me in different ways every day. As I read and pondered over his three loves strip my eyes were reawakened to our story from his heart and point of view. And it is true. For him, it really worked that way.
Yet as much as I loved the strip and the sentiment, I found myself in a little funk for awhile. I knew I had to post a response, but I just couldn’t get my finger on it. After several days, it hit me. This post brought up a lot of old pain for me, because for me, it didn’t work that way.
For me, friendship was the start. We were friends for over six years before we started dating. But year two of those six years I was head over heels for him. That died down in time, and we really remained good friends with no romantic expectation or even hope for the other. I totally moved on. By the time year six came and we finally had “the talk,” old feelings I didn’t know I still had erupted to the surface and didn’t really leave again (except maybe here and there during the hardest spots in marriage, but that’s another story). Along with those feelings came hurt I didn’t know I carried towards him.
My hurt was actually misplaced. David never owed me special attention during those years. But by the time we officially decided to start dating, my eros for him was overflowing all over the place and it was hard to contain. I was pretty much ready to get engaged right away.
He was not. Boy was he ever not.
He explained himself very well, and I understood up to a point, but I couldn’t see past my own needs and desires to really GET IT. Now with nearly a decade of marriage under our belts and some perspective at last, I can see clearly from his eyes and I shake my head at the two people in wildly different places God chose to bring together at that time.
The Blow
When we first got married, I assumed with childlike simplicity that in time, David’s love for me would trump his same-sex attractions and we’d be good.
Although it was a process, I still remember the moment when it hit me for real that this wasn’t going to go away any time soon. He came back from a gathering where a now happily married woman who was somewhere on the queer spectrum gave an analogy that David totally related to of what it’s like to be married and gay.
“It’s like dancing with your shoes on the wrong feet.” You can do it, you can get pretty good at it, but there’s just an awkwardness there.
What struck me is how much he seemed to own the analogy as he shared it with me. While it caught me off guard (aren’t we just learning to dance, still stumbling our steps, but with at least our shoes on right???), it brought him comfort.
And then I got it. His SSA isn’t going away any time soon, is it?
It took awhile to sink in, but now I see clearly that same-sex attraction sticking around does not reflect poorly on me. Turning my husband straight is not my goal. Accepting him, walking with him, challenging him as needed, whatever it takes to be his partner for life.
Realizing this set me free. And a wife set free releases the husband in countless ways. And we’re good.
photo by blmurch cc
Honesty
As we build up this blog together, we have been periodically researching who else is telling their stories online. We are refreshed to see more people telling their stories (links to come in good time). I still haven’t found any spouses in my shoes telling their stories in depth. What I did find was this, a site dedicated to straight spouses of LGBTQ spouses, primarily providing support for those who have been betrayed.
I have to say, I am deeply grieved to read so many stories of heartbreak.
And I am thankful that to this point, that is not my story to tell.
I was the first friend David ‘came out’ to in college. Years later when we took some time to pray over whether to begin a relationship or not, I knew (in concept, if not in all the practical details) what I was getting into. As things got more serious he begged me to count the cost of marrying him, which I have, and periodically, still do.
You aren’t perfect, Babe, but you’ve always been honest with me. So thank you.
The Importance of Friendship in Marriage
In our early years, David and I put a lot of internal pressure on ourselves to keep the eros love alive in our marriage. And rightly so. Marriage is greatly helped weather the trials and challenges of life with some much needed sparks along the way.
But as we have really settled into life together, and thankfully, as the eros part has increased for him over the years, I feel greater freedom to enjoy our phileo friendship, which we have always had, long before we started dating. I think this is something more taken for granted in marriages where both are straight. In our situation, we have carried with us the burden to ‘prove’ our marriage isn’t a sham (which it never was, but the pressure is always there).
The eros isn’t gone, but we have nothing to prove to people. We are married, we are one, we are committed. We love each other, in eros, in phileo, and in increasing agape.
photo by americanartmuseum
man hugs
Post up rules only for the ones giving hugs:
- We are ALL broken children in need of a father.
- Full contact: cheek, chest, tummy, bulge. Everything. If baseball athletes can do it, so can you.
- Boundaries will be crossed. Pranks will be pulled. Boys will be boys. Just let it be.
- Affirmations: if they picked it, they need to hear it. Say it until they know you mean it.
- If they say (or scream) anything to you, they need to hear themselves say it. It may be uncomfortable. It may even be wrong. Just let it happen.
- We’ve all heard enough words of judgment. Just for a minute, let’s get to know grace.
- If the guests want to give hugs, let them.
- This is more for you than it is for him. Let change happen.
What affirmations would you want to see on the list?
I am real.
Sit tight, this might take a while.
Outpouring
It was a defining moment during our first year of marriage. He sat on our black futon couch in our cozy living room, a size or two smaller due to more boxes of our stuff than space to unpack them all. He was sipping at a glass of water as we talked about whatever newlyweds talk about. There was definitely some tension in the air. And then it happened.
I said it. What the words were, I no longer remember. But whatever I had been stewing about, had only expressed inside my heart and mind, but not with words direct enough for another to understand, came out unfiltered. They were not covered with love to smooth over his lack, but unable to be any more than the state of my own heart- raw, ragged and hurt.
He usually has a long fuse with me, but in that moment that long fuse ran out. Not the type to take out his anger (at me) back onto me, he took it out on himself and dumped his water over his head.
I was speechless. Did my husband just dump a glass of water all over himself? Why the hell did he do this?
Looking back, I guess I’m thankful he didn’t take it out on me directly. He didn’t hit me, he didn’t yell at me. He didn’t punch a hole in the wall as I’ve heard men are prone to do. That would have really scared me. But while I’m thankful he didn’t scare the living daylights out of me, his action on himself has remained a puzzle to me for years. I conveniently forgot about it over time as our communication (and relationship in general) improved. It certainly didn’t happen again.
But it’s funny how time changes how you see a thing. When he first dumped that water on his head, I was afraid I’d married the most dysfunctional man on the planet. We were committed to the marriage, but I was definitely afraid I had made a mistake. I saw him as the one with the most issues, and my needs, especially emotional ones, always felt legitimate, and deserving of being filled. By him.
And there was the crux of my problem. I was so overcome by the cries of my heart for a specific picture of marital bliss, I couldn’t see past myself to actually hear what he was trying to say to me or peek into his heart, full of legitimate needs and desires of his own. Now I know the things I thought I wanted were but a shadow of the real thing. I know even today, my heart joins my husband’s in our cries for the real, which we have been tasting more and more, but to some extent, our daily reality, and even many of the things we think we want will continue to be a shadow of the Real Love we are heading towards.
I now see David’s water pouring incident as a cry for help, a cry for an outpouring of love beyond himself, to the One who delights to love us with the real thing so we can stop destroying each other trying to get what our partner can never provide on their own. Now I think he did the best thing he could have possibly done, a symbolic way of saying “I can’t give you what you want. No person ever could. Let’s look up together to the one who can.” Of course, at the time, he wasn’t necessarily that optimistic. His symbolic act was pointing to a love more like this:
And as we can attest by the years following this incident, when we are covered in this awesome love, and as we learn to walk the day to day in this love, marriage, family and life is absolutely amazing. This is becoming more and more the new cry of my heart. It is not yet our daily reality, but we have tasted enough to say THIS IS WHAT WE WANT.
What if? Didn’t I? Who am I to judge? Is nothing impossible for God?
*I usually only post extremely well-processed things on here. Even with this care, I know too well if the wrong-minded people get their hands on my words without my heart, there is SO much room for misinterpretation and we constantly write with the risk of having our words used against us.
**In stark contrast, this post is under-processed and I am using this blog as a place to attempt to process this externally a bit. Why? I’m not sure yet; I just somehow feel (at this time) that it will be helpful.
So here goes…
What if my husband were to find himself entangled in a same-sex relationship, both physical and emotional? Could I forgive him? Would we get over it? Is it perhaps something that he needs to do to see firsthand that it’s not going to fulfill him after all?
We’ve known for years he needs to be in emotionally healthy, but close relationships with other men. He needs it. It’s a legitimate need. We both want more of this.
But the truth is, I know his type. I know which kind of man is dangerous territory for my man, and I’d be lying if I said I had no qualms about him meeting such men, particularly one on one. (Now there are a few men fitting his ‘type’ who are mature, trustworthy, and not in the least attracted to my husband physically, who I have no qualms about him meeting. I’m talking about men of unknown character and relationship to us.)
And my instinct is to keep my husband away from such men.
And then I feel guilty. Are my fears (and his) somehow sabotaging this key to growth? Do I not trust him enough?
Even King Solomon in all his wisdom, gained some of it by trying things out.
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
According to these verses from Ecclesiastes 2, he learned by experience.
Personally, my strongest convictions have come from doing the wrong thing and learning ‘the hard way’ that it didn’t bring the life, love or fulfillment I was seeking.
So in my strange logic, I wonder at times if David simply needs to get out there and try out what he has always wanted, but has chosen away from.
Why the fact that this is adultery and betraying me and our family doesn’t seem to bother me in these moments of wonderings is strange to me. The idea that this would ‘bother’ me is actually a ridiculous understatement. It would devastate me and I would leave at least temporarily, and strongly consider becoming those parents whose communication mainly consists of working out child care arrangements for weekends and vacations.
But on the other hand, if he were to explore this, I can easily imagine that we would still be there for each other as we always have, processing what is going on together and more than likely getting out of the entanglement rather quickly.
Wouldn’t it be smooth sailing from there?
And yet, I can’t imagine that it would. According to the Maker we love, our marriage bed is to be kept just for us. David ‘going there’ would cause damage of a different flavor than the damage I caused with my experience before we married.
But isn’t our Redeemer just that, our Redeemer? Doesn’t he take our mistakes and turn them into good, ‘for the good of those who love him?’
But then, is holding a seasoned believer of twenty years to the same standard of a naive teenage girl really our Redeemer’s way of working? I don’t think so.
But then, we know we will not be perfect in this life. So we will continue to need the reality of our Redeemer as desperately as in our youth.
All those influential men who have fallen in leadership, is it just an inevitable end? Ted Haggard comes to mind. I know he has found redemption after his fall. His wife has forgiven him. He probably walks with more humility now than ever before possible. Maybe it wasn’t inevitable, but it wasn’t the end.
But though I know our same Redeemer would walk with us through that path with the same grace, I would never choose to walk that path on purpose.
But being driven by the fear of ever having to walk that path may inadvertently lead us right there.
So I’m back where I started. How to encourage him to grow in healthy friendships with men while keeping it ‘safe.’
I need to cling, and it’s not to David. I need to cling closely to the One who tells us whether a risky step is putting our feet in the river before he parts it into dry land, or if it’s stepping into dangerous waters not meant for our frames.
In clinging to him, my confusion is cleared up by his light. In clinging to my Redeemer who is alive and well, I am free once again to operate in love and not in fear.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them… There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. -1 John 4:16b, 18
I want to live in love. I want to live in God. But most of all, I want God to live in me. The little bits I have tasted this have been amazing. And yes, such living does drive out fear. I want more of this, and in this love, I will find the answer I’m looking for, or maybe see more clearly that there are better questions I could be asking.
