new job descriptions

Funny story:  Friday afternoon I attended Justin's graduation from his two-month training at the call center where he works.  Justin has a ton of call center experience, but this was his first-ever graduation.  No kidding, they had baseball caps with the graduation cap squares on top, and everyone walked up to get their certificate of completion, the whole deal.  I was a bit sheepish -- it felt a little like attending someone's graduation from junior high school, but I wanted to have a mental picture of where Justin spends his workday and am not usually one to turn down extra time with him, so I went.

While sitting at one of the tables, Justin was being his characteristic funny, sarcastic self.  One of the girls said, "So, he's always like this, then?"  I smiled and said, "Yep."  Another piped in, "How do you handle him?"  I thought for a second, smiled even bigger, and quickly replied, "I laugh a lot."  I meant it.

I like the thought that Justin is his same self when I'm around, that there's not this pressure to be on "best-behavior" when I show up.  I like it even more that this is somewhat shocking to people.  A person being themselves!  And loved all the more for it!

I know guys who have this "best-behavior" mentality, in some respects.  They reserve the moments of being themselves for Guys' Night Out, or for golf outings, or for poker night.  They have no problem with swearing, but won't swear around their wives because they find it distasteful when those same words come out of the little missus' mouth.  They like sarcasm, but don't like when she picks up on it and her joking sometimes bites him a little more harshly than he expected.  They feel constricted by their new responsibilities, weighed down, but would rather talk about it with the guys than with their wife.

I know that all relationships work differently, but the thought of being in this situation makes me sad, for both people involved.  From my perspective, home should be where you are MOST yourself.  Your marriage should be the one relationship where you use the fewest filters possible, where you share the biggest and sometimes most ridiculous fears.  I'm all for guys' nights (and girls' nights) and poker tourneys, but I enjoy knowing that  Justin's real self doesn't need those occasions to bust on out.  (And I secretly like that he often doesn't want to go play poker unless I can come, too, even though I still push him to go). 

I married my husband because I like him when he's being himself.  

*****

That said, there were still some adjustments that I had to make, both before we got married, and this past nine months.  Some of them, I knew were part of the deal.  Others, well, they surprised me a little quite a bit.  

What follows was my first big shift from "me" to "we."  I had intended to write a little list, and at one point there really was a link to the story I shared above, but then this story came out instead.  It's painful, but a good'un.  What's the saying?  Thank God we're not what we used to be... thank God this ain't all we're ever gonna be. 

*****

Just before we got married, my mother-in-law Karin gave me a little present, and I thought it was pretty appropriate, given her relationship to my beloved: a book entitled The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands... by Dr. Laura Schlessinger.  Truthfully, I hadn't read any of her stuff before, but knowing of Dr. Laura as a Conservative with a capital-C, I was a little skeptical, although I thought it was sweet that Karin had given me the book.  I'm not saying my prejudices were correct, I'm just being honest that I put the book in the "To Read Later... Probably Much Later" pile.

About three months after we were married I busted the book out while waiting for Justin to get done with a very long dental appointment.  I settled into a chair at the Starbucks across the street and began reading.  If you've ever heard Dr. Laura on the radio, you know it's an understatement to say that she's not real touchy-feely -- but I teared up about halfway through the first chapter.  She wrote about how women tend to think of their needs as more important, and tend to downplay -- even sometimes outright disrespect and degrade -- their man's needs.  I read for another half hour, stopped, bought a card, and started writing to Justin.

I'm a "card" person -- Justin has a menagerie of cards and letters in his nightstand -- but this is the one card he read three times before putting down, the one that kept him silent a moment before he spoke, the one he said really meant a lot to him, with wavery voice.

The thing is, while we still really enjoyed our first few months of being married and while most days were pretty peaceful, I wasn't exactly a pro at being a wife (of course, NOW, I have it ALL figured out.  Just kidding).  That, and thanks to our little friend The Pill, I was slightly really emotional.  (This was really hard for me -- I'd never been one of those girls who was forever using PMS as an excuse to go on a bitch rampage -- but those first few months adjusting were truly awful). 

I got frustrated easily.  I nit-picked about the housework.  Rather than asking for help (a request that would have been honored pretty much immediately), I would turn myself into Housework Martyr, banging dishes and pots and pans rather loudly as I washed them, then declining his help when he'd immediately jump up from the computer and offer it.  In my tiny brain, it was too late.  He hadn't read my mind and anticipated that I wanted the dishes done.  His game was more important.  And so on and so forth.  Bitter, party of one...

(I know.  I sound like a horrible person.  But find me a new bride who hasn't pulled something like this one at some point or another, and I'll pay you money). 

As I sat there in Starbucks, thinking, I realized we only watched the movies I picked.  This is a small thing (except that Justin is HUGE into movies), but as I continued to think about other situations, us often doing what I wanted to do -- I realized I still had way too much me in my marriage.  I still thought of me first.  Always.  It wasn't that didn't really love Justin, that I never considered Justin's needs, it's just that I wasn't considering him first.  As the girl, I was a bit too much in princess mode.  If you know me, you know how much I hate admitting that.  But it was the truth.

On our wedding day, Dan gave us new job descriptions as he led us through our vows.  He said Justin's job to wake up each morning and ask, "How can I serve my bride today?"  Mine was to ask myself how I could serve my husband. 

I realized that my husband was way better at his job description than I was at mine.  And he wasn't getting very much credit for it.  I was deeply shamed to think that if Justin responded as harshly as I did sometimes to a misunderstanding or a misstep, I would be heartbroken.  My sensitivity was still often only for myself.  When my needs weren't met, I was hurt and angry; I was far too busy thinking about that to think about what Justin needed from me. 

I wrote Justin from my heart and let him know that I see all the ways that he serves me.  I named them, one by one.  I made sure he knows that I notice and that he's appreciated.  I let him know that he's been far better at his job description than I had been at mine, but that I was going to be better.  I thanked him for being patient with me, and for loving me despite the fact that I didn't have this all figured out yet.  Justin had told me only the night before that he still had a lot to learn as a husband, but I confessed that it was me who had far more to learn.  I said that I wanted to deserve how much he spoils me. 

It was a long letter, and hard to write.  To realize that you sometimes grieve the one you love most in the world, and that they continue loving you and serving you even when you're too self-centered to see it -- that's humbling.  Justin never complained.  Not once.  And thinking about that now, I still get that ache that I sometimes get right down in my sternum when something really nails me right in the heart.

An elderly man stopped as he was passing my table and asked me what I was doing, writing so furiously in this card.  I said, "I'm writing my husband.  We're newly married and I realized that I don't let him know often enough how much I appreciate him, so I'm trying to do that now."  I was a little choked up, and my eyes were a little more shiny than I wanted to show this stranger.  The man grinned at me, real big, told me congratulations and that he's a lucky guy, and squeezed my shoulder gently as he left.

One of the things Dr. Laura wrote that stuck with me (man, that's so not something I ever throught would come out of my mouth!) was this:  A good man is hard to find.  He's not hard to keep.  Meaning, essentially, that once you've found that good man, the things you need to do to keep him happy are fairly basic, if a woman is willing to put some effort into them.  There was story after story in this book of men, good men, loyal men, who were simply beat down and neglected by their wives to the point that it's not super surprising that they withdrew and became silent roommates rather than husbands and friends.  It broke my heart.  I never felt like I needed to worry about Justin going anywhere -- he's one of the most loyal and honest beings on the planet.  But making sure that he's happy -- that his needs as a person are met -- that has become one of my main concerns as his wife, his friend.  I never want his sweet heart to feel taken for granted.

I'm obviously not perfect at it, and Justin's learning too, but there's a lot of grace in this home, and we celebrate when we get it right.  I'm just really grateful that I got smacked upside the head early on by this book, and was able shift direction quickly.  I know our marriage has been better for it -- it's not super hard to enjoy your marriage when you're both serving each other and meeting the other's needs, all the while feeling like you got the better end of the stick. 

And the moments when that doesn't happen quite right -- well, love covers those too.