August 2010

You may not recall that on August 13, 1988, it was a Saturday.  It was also somewhere between 90 and 150 degrees in the mountains of North Carolina.  But I still recall melting away in my WOOL tuxedo. . . bathed in sweat, and waiting for my beautiful bride to come down the aisle.  People thought it was touching how I was crying throughout the service, as my father who was one of the pastors of the service (my father-in-law the other), handed me his handkerchief.  I was using it to mop my face, not my eyes (not that I wasn’t a little tearful, just not buckets!).

My mother-in-law, God love her, had matched the bridesmaids’ dresses to the stainglassed windows, and by golly, those windows were going to stay closed!  Well, they did, and we did survive the service.

I still smile about that.  But 22 years later, Kathy and I are still married.  Not just married, but happily married.

Many people wonder about me, writing and teaching on marriage.  They wonder whether I do what I say (I try), and whether my marriage is healthy.  Sometimes, people imagine I must be the perfect spouse (FAR from it!), because I “know so much about marriage.”  Just remember that knowing about marriage and knowing about your own marriage is not always a perfect match.

However, I believe we have a very strong and good marriage.  Not because we do it perfectly, but because we keep on trying!  And that is part of what I have learned in these last 22 years.  I am learning as I go.  Sometimes I learn fast, and sometimes I learn slow.  But my commitment is to keep moving forward.  That is what makes the difference:  we are committed to working through and staying together.

Do we have disagreements?  Absolutely!  Every marriage has its struggles.  The difference between marriages that make it and those who don’t is NOT the absence of struggle.  It is the commitment to struggle together, to stay together.

Which leads to another opportunity for growth:  In these 22 years, I have discovered the great gift of forgiveness.  Living so close together, the only way a marriage can survive is if both people decide to forgive, over and over, for slights that are accidental and sometimes even on purpose.

One day, I truly realized that not forgiving was doing ME the damage, not the other person.  Sure, it was hurting the relationship, but it was ME doing it.  What I really needed to do was to let it go, stop dragging it around, and decide to move back into relationship.  Thank God my wife is naturally forgiving and gave me something to see.  And given my propensity for hard-headedness, I gave plenty of opportunities for Kathy to demonstrate it.

I often hear people say “I just don’t have that loving feeling anymore.”  Thank you, Hollywood, for selling us the story of falling madly in love, and always feeling passionate!  That isn’t reality, but it is our measuring stick.  We assume that not having those feelings means the relationship is in trouble.

Problem is, there are times that I forget what I have.  Sometimes, I get busy, distracted.  I take for granted my loving, lovely wife.  I stop looking at her with those loving eyes.  But then, I pause for a moment and look into those eyes, or I see her do something selfless and loving, and I fall in love all over again.

In the meantime, I keep acting loving.  I learned that, too!  Love is a verb, not a feeling.  The feeling follows on the heels of acting loving.  And the feeling returns, when you stay committed to being in the game.  Two people acting in loving ways toward each other is unstoppable!

I believe, both from my practice and my experience, that the same two people can either drive each other crazy or be crazy about each other.  And the choice, known or not, is theirs.

No marriage is perfect, because there are no perfect people.  But the task is to keep perfecting, keep trying, keep playing, and keep the commitment.

Thank you, Kathy, for being my partner, friend, confidante, and love for these past 22 years!