Danka's World

I’ve been reflecting lately on what it means to be a good wife.

Oh here we go. I think if you asked a room of twenty women what it means to be a good wife you would get twenty different answers. Nevermind what the men think. Nevermind God.

I’m on the lifelong learning plan.

I hope that when I’m eighty or so, the last puzzle piece of how to be married will fall into place for me. Until then, I keep plodding forward. And sometimes it does feel like plodding. But any movement forward is better than none. Right?

My friend Angella at Dutch Blitz keeps reminding me about marriage. She writes a regular thing called Committed: The Ties That Bond. Without her keeping the topic at  the forefront of my mind, I think I would be content to let the time slide by, moving from one family dinner to the next, waking from one deep slumber just to survive the day and settle into bed for the next, without stopping to examine what is really going on here. Her writing always gets me thinking. Sometimes it is encouraging and makes me feel like I’m doing something right. Other times, not so much.

Books get me thinking too. I was flipping through a book just a few days ago and the author (who was a Christian wife of an atheist man) mentioned that despite her deep loneliness she was happy to be able to serve her husband for Christ. She was thankful that she found God and she was thankful that God loved her husband so much that he included her as part of His plan for her husbands life. That she was able, as the closest person to him in this life, to love him with God’s love and minister to his needs. She wanted to model God’s love to her husband and hope that one day, he would catch on and fall in love with God himself. She admitted that she occasionally fell into pits of worry about her husband ever seeing heaven, but she tried not to focus on that.

That humbled me. Because I, for the most part, have had the opposite point of view. I remember as a young lady I would see a few older women around the church who were married to men who didn’t believe in God and who refused to have anything to do with the church. The ladies would sit together. They attended church faithfully ever week, alone, but with each other to fill the empty spaces next to them in the pew. They would come to Bible studies and small groups on their own. I remember gripping Matthew’s hand in church as we sat side by side, watching them with pity and a deep sadness. I couldn’t imagine how they did it. I thanked God I would never be like them. That was probably my first mistake.

When Matthew began to pull away from the church I didn’t understand it. A former professing atheist myself, He was one of the people who talked me into coming in the first place. I didn’t understand why he suddenly didn’t want to come and I put a lot of pressure on him. Oh yeah, I tried the guilt trip thing. I tried anger and accusation. A real winning strategy to be sure (hangs head in shame – sorry Matthew! Thanks for putting up with me!).

Lately though, I have changed my tune, because truly? I hate hypocrisy, and I don’t want him to have to stoop to that for my benefit. I don’t want him to put on a show. Not coming to church at all is better than showing up with a fake smile on his face and hating it on the inside. Whatever he is wrestling with in regards to church involvement, he needs to sort out with God.

That’s my current position. But I still have become one of those ladies who I previously pitied who comes to church alone. And you know, it’s not as bad as I thought. I still get to worship God with other people who love him too. I still am growing into and along with my church family who I love, building relationships and serving God and the community together. I still get to serve and participate. I still get to learn. But I have to admit, I have been feeling a little bit ripped off. And I’m starting to get the feeling that my attitude has been all wrong all along. Because it’s been all about me. And what I want.

Have I been praying for him? Occasionally.  But a lot of the time, I feel at a real loss as to just what to what to pray for. If I examine some of the things I’ve been asking, I have to admit, they’re pretty selfish requests wrapped up in some flashy packaging that looks like real concern for my man. Have I been serving him? Sometimes, but grudgingly so and on my own terms. That’s not real love, people.

Another thing that got me thinking was the interview with Matthew that I posted on this blog recently. None of it was new to me, but hearing it, then writing it down and then typing it out and reading it really seared this idea into me: we have almost nothing in common. I’ve been mulling that over. We’re not blind to this reality and we never have been. Right from day one we have recognized our differences and tried to celebrate them. Even when there’s not enough understanding to be enthusiastic about the other person’s difference, at the very least we have tried to give the other enough freedom and space to enjoy the things they love that we don’t understand. We don’t fight. Ever. I think that’s a good thing, because I hate to fight, but I know there are those who would disagree. Some people think battling it out over the issues is healthy. They might be right. I don’t know. But I happen to like not fighting.

Likewise, we have recognized the importance of intentionally creating commonalities between us. When it became clear that we don’t enjoy a single hobby together, we decided golf would be it. We both like golf. So we invested in this idea, and we both bought clubs. But the idea is far from reality. We golf together approximately once each year. Because it is expensive and requires having the same day off and organizing a babysitter. We just haven’t put in the effort to make it a reality I guess. And that’s it. Our failed golf experiment has been pretty much our only attempt to have a common hobby. Well, that and the kids.

We get a lot of enjoyment out of our children. And we work hard together to raise them well. They’re pretty stellar kids and I think we’re doing a good job. I’m proud of us. But sometimes I worry about what is going to happen when they grow up and go off into their own adult lives. I’ve seen what can happen. I know that relying solely on the job of raising kids as something to keep us bonded is just a plain old bad idea. But here we are.

I read a description of marriage in some church document. It said something…marriage…ta da ta da ta da… a man and a woman… ta da ta da… united as one, physically, emotionally, spiritually and in common purpose… something, ta da ta da. It sounded like a good ideal and it sounded very, very difficult.

I got to thinking. Matthew and I have that first part down pretty well. The baggage we both have forced us to focus on developing a healthy sex life. I think it’s getting there. Yay for healthy sex lives! Wooooo! And other aspects of our ‘physical’ union are very good too. We have kids – healthy and happy ones. That is a feat in itself. We do a good job of sharing a physical world, time and space, a house, chores. We don’t trip over each other. We share all our earthly belongings. We don’t fight over money. We get along. Everything that is visible and tangible is good stuff around here.

But emotionally? Matthew prides himself on not being an emotional person at all, and I seem to have enough of the stuff for ten people. It’s very unbalanced and is not a union of any sort. Common purpose? Aside from raising the kids, we’ve got nothing. I don’t think.

It’s like, on the outside, we do it all right. It’s all good. It flows. It works. On the inside, we’re separated by a giant chasm and nobody is willing to make a move in the direction of the other. I can’t speak for him, but I feel like if I try and move close to where he is, I am going to lose myself. And in the process of that, I might fail on my mission and then I will have neither a marriage-oneness or a self. I’ll fall into that pit and crash, alone, to the bottom.

The Bible talks about love and about dying to self. Every day. Can I do it? I don’t know. Certainly not on my own strength. These are the times that Bible verses like I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me come in handy. It’s funny. In our individualistic western culture, I have seen that verse applied to situations where a person is trying to achieve some great feat of worldly success. Money! Power! Fame and Fortune! Prestige! Self-sufficiency! It seems to me, and I suppose I could be wrong, that considering what Christ’s own great feat actually consisted of – torturous death on the behalf of the people he loves but who turned their backs on him anyway – the verse is more accurately a promise to the powerless who are grasping tightly the last string of a quickly fraying cord of self-reliance.

I stand at the edge of this giant chasm and I look across to my husband on the other side. If I stay where I am, where I’m comfortable, where I feel somewhat safe and even dull, I know things will be… okay. We’ll just live in our little comfort zone of a shared physical space, and be our individual selves. I consider the alternative. Making a move. Abandoning comfort. What move will it be? Where will I end up? These things are unknowns. Most of the marriages I witnessed growing up ended up in divorce. I feel like I have no model. I read lots. I listen to my Nana talk about her life because she is growing old beside the man she loved from the start. How did you do that? I wonder. What’s the secret key?

The only real clue I have is Christ. After all, the Bible calls the church his Bride. At  the end of all time there will be a wedding! Christ died for his Bride. It’s a theme in love. Will you die for me? Christ died for his love. Can I die for my husband? Can I say goodbye to this Self that I have worked so hard to construct?

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

I’m afraid.

I’ve been thinking about women who I know who inspire me because of how they act in their role as wives. After some thinking, it dawned on me that most of the women I was thinking of are directly involved in their man’s work. That made me laugh a little because it made me think of when the Bible says the woman was made to help the man. I have always rolled my eyes at that verse. Yes. I love reading my Bible a lot. And yes, I roll my eyes at parts of it. Like I said, I’m a lifelong learner.

A few of the ladies that I thought of are pastor’s wives. I could write a whole post about what I think about pastor’s wives. Of the few I’ve known, it seems to go like this: They each have passions and hobbies of their own. They have families and manage households. Some of them even have jobs. But they’d drop it all in a minute if they’re needed – what comes first is helping their husband in the work that he is doing. They work in the church and for the church and they work hard. And they don’t often get recognized. They certainly don’t get paid. I have often observed that when a church body hires a married pastor, they get two workers for the price of one.

Likewise my friend S is fully invested in her husband’s business. It’s his lifelong dream, and God has blessed him immeasurably. In return, the man, M, pours out all kids of blessing and love into the community through his business. Everybody knows his name around here. What people see less often is S who works diligently to run the office, and do the books and who sacrifices nights with her husband when he has to go back to the shop and work overtime. Most people don’t know that God blessed her with specific skills from her past before she even met M (she managed a restaurant giving her managerial skills and she even took some mechanic courses at the college) that equipped her to work hard alongside her future husband in the dream God gave him.

My other friend E is a teacher and so is her husband J. They both work, of course, and have different specializations. E is currently taking a “break” from teaching to be home with their third baby and get the kids off to a good start. But she is still an educator – a mover and a shaker in our community, coming alongside other parents showing them what to do and how to do it better, together, all the while continuing to earn an income to help with household bills. Additionally, she understands exactly what is going on with her husband’s work. She knows what’s going on with the system on a professional level, and also what is going on in his classroom(s) and with his students. She participates – helping him as much as she can and praying for him all the time. Like S, she also sacrifices time while he has to be elsewhere – right now he’s working on his Masters. I’ve seen it with my own eyes – E is a superb wife.

And there are other women too who for one reason or another, just can’t be involved with her husband’s work. But they do other things. My friend Sarah (the world’s finest esthetician) always presents herself and her husband to the public as a unit. She calls herself Mrs. W and she calls him Mr. W and presents their blog as a dual deal, although she does most of the maintaining of it. She talks in “we” language a lot, not “I.” Stuff like that. It’s cute and I love it. And there are other wives who do other things. And I feel like I really don’t fall into any of those categories.

When Matthew first decided that he wanted a job at BCLC, I thought it was a horrible idea. Because of my personal ideals and political leanings and all that stuff, I had BCLC marked in my mind as a “Big Evil Corporation.” Capitals with quotes. I know. It was that serious. They were a crown corporation no less, meaning their evilness was at least doubled. And one that is all about gambling and lotteries and tricking poor people into losing all the little money they had, which pretty much pushed the whole thing over the edge of “Danica’s Good Ideas.” “Danica’s Good Ideas,” as a category, falls into the same bracket of seriousness as “Big Evil Corporation” and therefore also gets capitals and quotation marks. Seriously.

At first, I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would find him a different job. God did give him another job. In a company owned by a Christian couple (Score one point for “Danica’s Good Ideas”).  A company going nowhere fast, in a job title that didn’t utilize his skills and where he had no room to grow and nowhere to go. And, when push came to shove, where the ultimate goal was no nobler than the one at BCLC – to make money. As much money as possible. It was not a good place for my husband, and it was not a good time for our family.

So, after applying for the job eleven times over the course of a year and a half, my husband finally landed the job he was dreaming of at BCLC. I, feeling that my lesson had been learned, gave up the campaign and said okay guys (Guys being both God and my husband) I trusting you both on this one, and I’m going to move on with my life.

But I didn’t personally invest in this decision. This falls into the category, the category that rules over most of our marriage, that says you go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll come home at the end of the night and sleep in the same bed.

Matthew’s been at the job for a while now and this is where I am, currently, with the whole situation: He is thriving and I’m glad to see it. He is growing and learning and becoming more of a leader (something I’ve known from the beginning of us that he is cut out to do) every single day. And in terms of where he is going in his career, the sky is the limit. That’s so awesome. This has great practical repercussions for our entire family as well. The pressure to ‘arrive’ at a career is off, relieving a great amount of stress. We are moving towards financial security for the first time in our entire lives. The bills are paid every month. We still don’t have all the extras we’d like – we’ve never been on vacation for instance – but those things suddenly seem like realistic future possibilities. I no longer leave the bank after looking at the account balance, feeling sick to my stomach contemplating all the outstanding bills and the empty fridge. As Matthew joked a few weeks ago: There are certain benefits to workin’ for the man.

Even the corporation itself has been demoted, in my mind, from its “Big and Evil” status. All the people Matt works with – real flesh and blood people – are good people. We’re making good friends with some of them. Speaking business, if they’re after earning some money, you know what? So is every other business out there. They do give back. Genuinely and not for show. They are concerned for people out there with gambling issues – again, genuinely and not for show – and they spend a lot of money to ensure there are checks and balances and a system for helping problem gamblers. “Danica’s Good Ideas,” when it comes to my husband’s employment have dissipated into the air. He does what he wants. It seems alright, and I’m good with it.

But it still isn’t something I can really invest in. Even if I wanted to. And I don’t.

So I reflect on this ‘helper’ idea some more. Do I have any sort of a role as a helper? After much grasping, all I can arrive at is a little comfort to think of all the people my husband would have to hire to keep things running smoothly around here if I were to up and die tomorrow. A nanny. A housekeeper. A cook. But I don’t think he’d have much of a problem filling those roles. I feel entirely and easily replaceable. I don’t contribute anything of value to his purposes on Earth. Not any that I can think of. I’m sure he could even find someone else to golf with him. Even, to have sex with, if he needed that.

Last week I decided enough was enough. I asked our pastor’s wife for a counselling recommendation. I feel like I’ve been living to avoid marital death – divorce. But avoiding death and living life are entirely different balls of wax. Likewise, I figure, with marital life. I want to stop living in a way that simply avoids divorce. I want to do my part to invest in this marriage. To build it and grow it. Only, I don’t know what to do, and I still have some heart issues to work out. And I’d like a little help with that.

When I was going through our garage last week organizing a garage sale I found an old journal and I flipped it open. Most of it was interesting and funny and charmingly naive (I can’t wait to see how fifty year old me looks back on thirty year old me). But then I came to another page where the writing was different. Jagged. Sparse. Short. Young Danica was expressing some hurt and fear. And with shock I read the exact same frustration about a particular same issue I had been wrestling with just a few days ago. I looked at the date of the entry. Six years. Whenever I feel like that, I feel like I’m just on the edge of overcoming it. I just have to push through. It was a shock to look down on the page and see that six years ago I was in the same place. I considered that I might still feel the same pain on the same issue ten years down the road from today and my legs almost gave out right in the garage.

The issue in particular was something small and surfacey, but I looked at the old wound-words in ink, looking so physically different than the normal writing in most of the journal, and I got to thinking about what that girl back then wanted. What is the bigger issue for her? What does her heart crave? What does my heart still crave?

What do I want?

The answer didn’t come. But this is what I think. I think she wants to be married. What do I want? I want to be married.

I know I’ve told you in the past that growing up, I never wanted to get married and then I went and fell in love with Matthew so I married him. Sometimes, in the hard times, I look back on that decision and wonder if I didn’t make a mistake. If I was deluding myself to think I was capable. Marriage is not for wussies, and maybe I’m just too much of a wussie. But no. Too much good has come of it to regret it. And I do love the man after all, and I want to hang out with him forever. In the yard. In the bed. On the golf course. Whatever.

But you know what? When I consider the idea of not being married – whether it’s an idea I had when I was eighteen, or twenty-four, or an idea I have now, I think, oh, how to explain what I think…

This is what I think:

Now – I do want to be married. I want it so badly it hurts. I feel that for all appearances I am married, that we, in the physical realm of the world, are married. But I don’t feel married on the inside. And I want to be. Oh how I want to be.

The young mother in the journal wanted to be married too. But she was clinging to her Self and wasn’t willing to make sacrifices to tie that spiritual bond.

And I even think back to that young girl who never wanted to get married in the first place. I stop considering what she didn’t want, and I start to think of what she did want. I have to laugh. She totally wanted to be married, only she didn’t know what that was because she had never seen it. She had only seen failure and selfishness and death paraded around and called marriage. And she ran hard in the other direction.

Right into the arms of love.

If I learn how to be a wife by the time I’m eighty I’ll be glad. I’ve got fifty years to get there, and so I keep plodding forward, looking ahead of me at the couples who lead the way and show me where to go. And I look over at the man walking along side me but too many paces over. And I reach out my hand to him across the empty distance between us and side-step a little to start closing that gap.