My husband is not the man I married... and that's a good thing

As I began mentally drafting this post, I was standing in the kitchen, literally barefoot and pregnant, cooking dinner for my family, as the full-time stay-at-home homemaker and child-chaser.  Me - a firmly feminist-y, solidly egalitarian, educated-and-career-driven, more-liberal-than-my-family-realizes woman - momentarily embodying all of the stereotypes of traditional womanhood.

The irony was not lost on me - and I had to laugh, because in so many ways, this life, this day-to-day, is so radically different from who I was, who I thought I would be, and, in some ways, who I am - while at the same time, being exactly right for this season in my life and our family's life.

My husband and I got married 5 years ago, at the ripe, sage old ages of 26 and 24.  We considered ourselves "more self-aware" than many of our peers who had gotten married right out of college, "rational" and "not delusional" about the difficulties of melding two separate lives together.  Our premarital counseling reassured us that our "rose-colored glasses" score was relatively low.  All these things included, plus two (so long! ha) years of dating/engagement, I was fairly confident that I knew myself, and the man that I was marrying, and was set up well for marriage.

Ignorance is a funny thing, in hindsight, is it not?

Now, 5 years later, I can confidently say, my husband is not the same man that I married... and that's actually a really good thing.  Now, there are many similarities - he's still funny, he's still my favorite person to talk to, and he's still kind and compassionate, and deeply committed to me and to our family.  But he's way less extroverted than I thought he was - and needs far more non-talking time that I thought he did.  Running, which I thought he was into, is not really his thang.  At all.  The job that he has found that he loves, is very different than the job that he was in when we got married.  The things that he was passionate about then have shifted now - many of them stem from the same values, but the actual passions have been refined and refocused.  His gifts that I thought I knew, weren't necessarily the ones that he actually shines in now.

And lest you think this is a complaint about my husband, it's not.  I actually think it's a really good thing.  The same things could be said for me.  Who I am has also morphed, changed, and shifted (c.f. above).  And we're just babies on this marriage journey!

We should know each other well, when we get married - by all means, take the time to do so and do not use this as an excuse to hide yourself from your future spouse - but identity and self-awareness are not static; they have to be dynamic, because we as people are not static.  Who we are naturally grows and changes as a result of circumstances, life-events, challenges, and revelations.  We hopefully mature, and continue to grow.  That doesn't change simply because you hitch your life to that of another.  And while, yes, married, you do grow together, you also continue to grow and evolve individually.

Five years later, we have friends who are separating and divorcing because the person that they find themselves married to is not the person that they thought they were. Others who are deeply unhappy in their marriages, because the person that they thought they married is radically different from the person that they are currently married to.  And if I'm honest, there have been moments when I too have found myself lamenting, rather than celebrating, those changes that have occurred since we wed.

And yet.

And yet.  The beauty of it is that this is where the life in a marriage is.  New life - new adventure - comes from new growth, challenging though it is at times.  If we remained exactly who we were when we got married, we would stagnate, wither and fade over time.  Growth and change, individually and corporately, are absolutely necessary to cultivate a healthy marriage.  There is deep, deep joy in seeing someone else come more fully into themselves - and we never see that, if we fear growth and change.  I am so grateful for the beautiful gift that growing and changing together is!

What matters then, is how we grow and change.  More specifically, how we do that together, with grace.  Cultivating one another, allowing each other a "spacious place" to grow and develop, while not "uncoupling" ourselves from the other in that process.  Maintaining a synergy and covalent bond, as opposed to merely an ionic attraction.

How do we do that?  Well, that's what I'm still learning.  Any wisdom that I have therein is merely in process.  But the closest I can come is - to grow together requires grace for the changes that are happening in the other, and a continually willingness to engage in understanding, challenging, and blessing those, rather than just reacting to them.  Be a student of your spouse.  An observer, a scientist, and an excited participant in the process.   Expect metamorphosis, in yourself and in your spouse.  Sometimes there and back again.  Sometimes changes that transform.  Expect it anticipating a butterfly in a chrysalis, not a werewolf in a full moon.  Seek the beauty and the good,  expect that it's there, and seek to refine one another with that in mind.  And continue to seek out ways that you together can invest in and engage in your union - see it as something needs to be cultivated, fed, and focused on, in order for healthy growth to occur.

My oldest son went through a phase this fall, where he loved the song, "Lord Prepare Me."  The lyrics go something like this:

Lord please make me, to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, tried and true.
With thanksgiving, I'll be a living
Sanctuary, for you.

Picture that sung in three year old eloquence, with all the lisps and pronunciation skills therein, and it's adorable.  But I've had the thought, several times, as I listen to him blast it out, that this should be my prayer in life and in marriage as well.

In the midst of all our changes, growth and development, Lord please make me, to be a sanctuary - a safe place, a haven - pure and holy, tried and true.  Help me to be a living - growing, changing, re-finding and refining - spacious place of shalom, welcome, and home.