The evolution of man…

There is a popular sarcastic saying these days among those ~35 and under that goes something like “Adulting is hard.” If you know what I’m talking about you’ve seen the infinite number of memes out there on the subject.  My personal favorite is the grumpy cat version. “I tried being an adult once…. it was terrible.”  Being an adult is hard. I know I am not the only one that wakes ups and thinks “only 30 more years. Then I can retire and act like a 20 year old again.  

Now don’t get me wrong. There are so many more things I like about being an adult than I don’t. I live on my own/with my wife. I do whatever I want. I can enjoy a glass of bourbon and read a book. I play basketball with my friends. I am independent.  My biggest complaints are bills and waking up earlier than I’d like to. Those are hardly things to complain about. Up until I was about 23 I didn’t really have to think about any of those things. But here I am 29 married with a house and lots of bills that I can pay thanks to my job that I love.  That means that somewhere between 23 and 29 I had to really turn into an adult.  

So what makes being an adult so hard??  Honestly. What makes so many people say it’s hard to be an adult? Well when I graduated into the adult world the things that made it hard were living paycheck to paycheck under a pile of debt, for some a mountain, and finding a place to live.  But if that is the macro of finances and jobs and doing what it takes to stay alive, we can look at the micro. The day to day things that make it “hard.”

For me 90% of what makes my life hard in the minute by minute category is just making decisions.  When the alarm goes off I have a decision. Do I lay here for 20 min, or do I get up and get coffee and get going. Do I do the laundry now or hope I get inspired to do it later. Do I scrub this dish now or let it soak, because it’ll be easier after it’s been sitting in dirty soap water for 3 days. — it won’t be–  Really what becomes hard for us as we transition into being full fledged adults is learning to make decisions about everything. Mom and Dad aren’t here to tell us to pick up our clothes, and decide what we are having for dinner. They aren’t here to tell us that’s enough time on the computer and to go outside.

Every day I find myself choosing to do more and more “adult” things.  I choose to work on the house more instead of watch TV. I choose to read more instead of play video games. I choose to get dressed up and go out on a date instead of go to the bars until 3 am. Shoot, just this week I rushed home, put on some classical music and read a book. About  a half hour in I thought “I can’t believe I am this excited to be a 70 year old man.”  I think most everyone goes through these “growing up” phases in their own way. (some don’t go through it, and they tend to get left behind.)  We get older and our interests change. What makes us happy changes. We see the things we did as kids 5, 10, 20 years ago and those things no longer satisfy us. 

Our relationships work in the same way. At first it is fast paced, exciting, reckless even, young. It can be full of fun and challenges. You can’t sleep, you can’t work, all you can do is think about how much you love this woman. But that  immature Romeo and Juliet love fades. That “if I can’t have her I don’t know what I will do, but it will likely end with 7 people dead in a matter of 3 days,” type of love.It has to fade. Our souls, minds, and bodies crave something deeper. We all know the relationships the flame like Burning Man and then shortly after one or both people get bored and the relationship ends.

When the honeymoon phase calms down what does that look like?  Well boys, it looks like hard work.  This is the point where boys become men, and men become husbands.  At this point the invisible force of joy and excitement we call love has tempered down to a slight breeze and this is where “Love” needs to become intentional.  The great thing about this, is that there is now work, sweat, tears, and blood behind your words when you tell your wife you love her.  

Love is a tricky word.  We as a society pretty much love everything now.  I love pizza. I love food. I loved that movie. I love this song. I love these shoes. I love that actor/comedian/singer/celebrity that didn’t do anything to get famous.  This use of the word isn’t wrong, but it has no meat to it. It has no feeling behind it anymore. When was the last time you looked your wife in the eyes, studied them for a moment, and said with all the feeling of trust and heart and soul you can muster, “I love you.?”  DO it now! Go. I’ll wait. And when she asks what that was for, tell her she needed to know.  Wives, if you’re reading this nothing is stopping you from doing the same thing!

Right there you were faced with a choice. One of those hard adult choices. You either did or didn’t. You either chose to do just a little bit of work that would have been meaningful, or you chose to stay still and keep the status quo. My hope is that you made the meaningful choice. It’s an ideal choice. Little effort, maximum reward.

When Alle and I started dating we had that exciting whirlwind love.  I’d venture to say we still have it, but it’s more evolved. It’s intimate. It’s a knowing love.  It’s a sacrificial love. It truly is a love where we both focus on the good of the other.  That sounds so much more dramatic than it really is. It is a love that is fueled by little gestures and by speaking each others love language.

That’s why you need to figure out her love language.  This week I cracked Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages. If you haven’t picked it up and read it you should. It has great info in it.  Chapters 1-3 cover this same topic.  The maturation of a relationship.  He covers a small topic he calls “the love tank.” It is basically a metaphor for how loved your spouse feels. It’s a gas tank.  The only way to fill it up is by speaking your wife’s love language on a regular basis.  Guess what buttercup, you’re going to have to do some work here and figure out what her language is.  There are a few ways to do this, Google “love languages,” go buy the book, or most amazingly…… go ask your wife. Really. Go talk to her tonight and ask her what she needs to feel loved. I will continue to say this to my dying day, the more you talk to you wife about her needs, wants, and desires, no matter the topic, the healthier your relationship will be.

I was blessed to have married a woman that had already read this book, so when the topic came up about what I need to do to make sure she feels loved, she was able to rattle it off right away.  This was a key conversation for me and Alle, and thankfully, one that we regularly check in with each other on.  It took a while and some hurt feelings and some misunderstandings for us to get to a point where we can say freely “I need you to do this more,” or, “I feel really loved when you do/say this …”  

That’s hard work. Hard work for us both. I had to make the hard choice to initiate the hard work.  Alle made it clear from the beginning she was looking for a leader. A leader in the relationship, a leader in the home, a leader in conversations. That meant I had to lose a lot of pride and be willing to initiate hard conversations in a loving manner.  When I learned how to refocus my view of hard conversations from “I have to be right,” to “I have to find a truthful answer” they became much easier to have.  We argued less, we listened to each other and understood that feelings are feelings and they are justified to have, that doesn’t’ make anyone more right or more wrong.

On the flip side of this, Alle and I have an understanding that I often need to be the leader, but that doesn’t give her a reason to be passive about everything.  We both take ownership of our relationship.  In fact, since I have let go of that fear of initiating the hard things, it has built a trust between us that has allowed Alle to be able to initiate things that are hard whenever she needs to without fear of rejection or reproach.  Men if you lead by example and follow the golden rule when times get tough, you will be surprised that the outcome will more often than not be a good one.

This is how you go from being a child that your wife has to care for mentally, emotionally, physically, to a man. Once you figure out how to stop being a man sized child that needs his wife to do everything for him, you can now be a man sized man that does things for himself.  Once you master that you get to be a husband that takes care of his wife and family.  

But it all starts with one step, one choice to take action. That should be you saying “I love you,” and kissing your wife like you just said “I Do.” Everything after that is baby steps. But it is time to grow up and be a man and a husband and turn those baby steps into man steps.  If you want things to change, for you to be closer to your wife, for you to say and mean “my wife is my best friend,” it all starts here. Make the choices to go and make it happen, otherwise … what are you even doing here?

Hero to Zero

This week I was granted, through much pain and anguish by my wife, the opportunity to practice being a Darling Husband. Gents, I have a question…  Ever been around your wife when she has injured herself on accident?  Sure you have.  Maybe she stubbed her toe on a corner. Maybe she hit her shin on the coffee table. Maybe you have kids and you watched her nearly die stepping on a Lego.  

Alle is what I like to think of as a “injury sufferer.”  My injuries are small and frequent hardly needing anything more than ice, sports wraps, or bandages.  Whereas Alle’s are few but traumatic.  We have been married since September and been dating (note that is an active word) for a little over 2 years now.  I can recall only two times where Alle has injured herself in a grave way. The first time was grabbing a hot baking pan. The second and most recent involved her thumb and a mandolin slicer.  

Both injuries happened while I wasn’t present in the room.   I think anyone can agree that when you hear a yell of pain from a loved one from another room your heart rate explodes, your brain races and all you can focus on for the next 10 seconds is getting in that room to assess and help.  

To see anyone seriously injured bending over the sink is never an easy situation, but that is especially true when it’s your wife. I would like to think that in the moments just after these injuries anyone would have responded the same. “I will get the bandages and gauze and we’ll make sure the bleeding stops and tape it up. Then we can go from there.”  Which is exactly what happened. She sliced the tip of her thumb clean off. I grabbed the gauze, the medical tape, and bandaged her right up. I grabbed the Tylenol, and an ice pack to mitigate the pain. A job well done!

But what’s the “from there” look like? For me it has been changing bandages twice a day and late night runs for gauze, tape, and meds.  It has been cutting tape gently and patiently on a patient that is in real pain. It’s calling the doctor and talking about what happened and scheduling a last min appointment to easy worries.

The “from there” is service. At first it was “what can I do for you to make your life better?? please please let me serve you,” but by day 4 it was “give me your hand. Stop moving. Just let me do this. If you can’t keep still I’ll have to hold you down.”

Whoa…. where did this attitude come from? Where did my patience go? Had I really gotten tired of trying to be the hero so quickly?

I can not explain how lucky I am that my wife has no problem telling me what she needs and when she needs it. In a moment where I just wanted to tape up her thumb as quickly as I could she was quick to remind me “hey this still really hurts and it hurts a lot when you just grab me and throw stuff on here. I know you handle things differently but I need you to be gentle.”

 

BOOM. HEADSHOT.

 

What a realization moment that was for me.  This whole week I have had the opportunity to serve my wife in a loving and caring manner, but I somehow turned that into a me thing. Here my wife is with an injury to her thumb, arguably the most important digit, and she is just asking me to sacrifice literally minutes of my time to be caring and loving and I somehow couldn’t get over myself to serve her in the way she needed.  I’m lucky enough that Alle was comfortable enough to tell me, “hey thank you for doing what you are doing, but do it better for me.”

After she said this all I could think was “whatever you do for the least, you do for Me,” and the imagery of Jesus washing the feet wouldn’t leave my mind.  Now I don’t regard Alle as the least of anything but here I was presented with an opportunity to serve my wife, insodoing, I would be serving my God as well. I almost missed an incredible chance to show love and charity, to be Christ like, to my wife of all people! Sometimes a little perspective is all we need to hit the reset button on our brain.  

Today ,Feb 26, Pope Francis addressed a conference on the theme of an encyclical written by Pope Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est, or God is Love.  I encourage you to read it, but the Pope reminds us that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13).  This even applies to husbands and wives. This verse should serve as a reminder to us all that our duty as husbands is to lay down our lives for our wives, even in the smallest ways.  To put down our wants and needs in order to better serve our wives is just a reflection of how we can serve Christ on a daily basis.  When your wife sees your genuine sacrifice I promise you she will want to sacrifice for you in the same ways. When both parties in a marriage are willing to die to themselves, big or small, the marriage will start to become reliant on both partners. What you give up to your wife you will get back from her by her own sacrifice.  

To my fellow Darling Husbands, find a time this week, especially during lent, to serve your wife. Big or little it doesn’t matter. Buy flowers, make dinner, write a letter, rub her feet, change a bandage, clean the floors, clean the bathroom, take time that you would normally take for yourself and do something for your wife and your marriage. Do it without an expectation of something in return and tell her you love her.  Let’s shake off the “ME ME ME” shroud, humble ourselves as husbands, sacrifice for the good of the marriage, and reap the benefits of being a living example of Christ.  I dare you.