I have been gone a couple of days on a short "Anniversary Trip" with my wife. We have celebrated our 30th anniversary.
It is amazing how things change over such a long period of time. I still remember my wedding night (as do most men, I believe), and the 30th anniversary is not the same at all. So many things have changed in the meantime. We have children (and grandchildren) whose lives dominate our lives (in terms of concerns, especially). We are no longer new to each other nor trying to get to know each other. We are married and, I must say, quite fully married.
Which makes things odd in our culture, which seems to have the idea that we should stay as we were when we first married. We sometimes ask couples "do you still feel like you did when you first got married," and suggest they should feel that way. I am not at all sure this is a good idea.
Things change and we change. I have some idea what the young me was like 30 years ago, both good and bad, but I am not that young man anymore. My wife is no longer the young wife she once was. These are not "sad truths," they are just truths. We are different. Our relationship is different.
On the other hand, we sometimes decide that "getting settled" is a totally good thing and that we should accept the loss of all that made marriage so wonderful so long ago. We "get settled" in our sexual routines and our interactions and everything becomes scripted and old and boring.
So, here's my idea. Let's give up both sides of this argument. I do not want to be the young married man anymore, I have grown as a man and a husband. My wife has grown as a woman and a wife. Why would I give up 30 years of growth?
I also do not want to be "settled," but to be alive. I want to remember not only my wife's beauty as a young bride but her beauty as a wife today. I want to still be enraptured by her, as I was 30 years ago, and to find time and space to enjoy our relationship.
So, wives, don't take either extreme. Don't try to "go back" to earlier days and don't be settled into a routine today.
It is still about you and him and both of you have grown (and will grow), so your relationship has also grown and will grow. Make today as special as you can, not by recreating what was but by being the wife you can be today. Loving your husband means loving him as he is today, just as you loved him in the past.
It is amazing how things change over such a long period of time. I still remember my wedding night (as do most men, I believe), and the 30th anniversary is not the same at all. So many things have changed in the meantime. We have children (and grandchildren) whose lives dominate our lives (in terms of concerns, especially). We are no longer new to each other nor trying to get to know each other. We are married and, I must say, quite fully married.
Which makes things odd in our culture, which seems to have the idea that we should stay as we were when we first married. We sometimes ask couples "do you still feel like you did when you first got married," and suggest they should feel that way. I am not at all sure this is a good idea.
Things change and we change. I have some idea what the young me was like 30 years ago, both good and bad, but I am not that young man anymore. My wife is no longer the young wife she once was. These are not "sad truths," they are just truths. We are different. Our relationship is different.
On the other hand, we sometimes decide that "getting settled" is a totally good thing and that we should accept the loss of all that made marriage so wonderful so long ago. We "get settled" in our sexual routines and our interactions and everything becomes scripted and old and boring.
So, here's my idea. Let's give up both sides of this argument. I do not want to be the young married man anymore, I have grown as a man and a husband. My wife has grown as a woman and a wife. Why would I give up 30 years of growth?
I also do not want to be "settled," but to be alive. I want to remember not only my wife's beauty as a young bride but her beauty as a wife today. I want to still be enraptured by her, as I was 30 years ago, and to find time and space to enjoy our relationship.
So, wives, don't take either extreme. Don't try to "go back" to earlier days and don't be settled into a routine today.
It is still about you and him and both of you have grown (and will grow), so your relationship has also grown and will grow. Make today as special as you can, not by recreating what was but by being the wife you can be today. Loving your husband means loving him as he is today, just as you loved him in the past.
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