I'll tell ya one thing I do know...no one should ever expect to gain any financial or moral ground writing a book on how to be married. I cannot think of any other "thing" people do that is more personalized and specific and uniquely situational than being married.
I remember being at a wedding shortly after graduating from high school. The groom and his parents were Catholic, and they got married at Carswell AFB chapel in Fort Worth. The groom's family and my family grew up across the street from each other and my Dad worked with the groom's dad forever at GD. I know nothing about the bride or her family (other than the fact that this couple is no longer married). But I always wondered how it is that a Roman Catholic priest can give advice to a marrying couple having never tread down that path himself. During his homily, he actually told the bride and groom to tell Aggie jokes to each other every night before the lights went out. I was sitting in the same pew as my parents, and I swear this has never happened since, but my mom just about busted a gut she was laughing sooooo hard because again the same question about advice giving if you've never been down that road. (And the Roman Catholic church could not at the time make inferences to spiritual GPS as a substitute for really being there! LOL!! Maybe now they can?
I remember watching my husband die on the exam table in 2000 (medically supervised thallium stress test after his 1st heart attack) and thinking to myself, so this is what it is to just be here, not trying to be cleaver or witty or deep or anything other than being aware that I wasn't consciously praying, but that maybe just being the only loved one in the room was enough for God to use. Don't get me wrong, there was PLENTY of praying going on, but just not in that minute it took his heart to go down to zero beats and then flatline...there would be time enough for clever and witty and deep later when I started breathing again...
I have learned, ever so slowly at times, that there are some of my husband's agenda in his life that I cannot fight against successfully. If I try to intervene in hopes of sending him down a particular path (figurative and literal), but he has his entire being set upon another divergent one, then chances are we'll pass my car in the drive thru Mexican restaurant parking lot on the way home from the grocery store in favor of a little road rage payback opportunity. Nice! Could I have pointed out that we just passed my car 2 lanes over & not in time to turn in to get it? Yeppers!! But interrupting his chance to stick it to the man in the other car was not to be trifled with. So with angry looks and wheels screeching U-turns and later tantrums at the house I started my evening keeping my distance (figurative and literal) until Vesuvius slowly wound down and allowed my husband to crawl back from the dark underbelly of his soul (reminds me of the scene in Star Wars III when Anikan Skywalker crawls onto the rocky beach of Mustafar in a vain attempt to regain the upper hand against Obie-Wan only to lose his legs in the process. I think I'll name my next dog Mustafar...Til next time...!
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