Gary Thomas writes a short story of a marriage relationship in his book that is worth reposting. "It begins with his confession of the way in which many men view women:
'It’s easy to scorn women, and most men do. We see women as physically weak, easy to intimidate, bound to the menial tasks of motherhood, emotional, illogical, and often petty. Or we see them as temptresses; in desire we idolize them and parade them across the pages of magazines, yet we scorn and hate them for their commanding sexual power over us. Male scorn for women affects every aspect of our lives: our relations with our mothers, our girlfriends, our secretaries, our wives, our children, the church, and even God himself.
I do not speak here merely of yours corn of women; I speak of mine as well. My relatives grew up on the streets during the Depression, learning early the fury and scorn that characterize so many people in dire circumstances: drinking heavily and seeing women alternately as sex objects or servants…. As a result, I swaggered through marriage for many years, ruling my wife Susan and my seven children with an iron hand while citing Scripture as justification for my privileges and authority. After all, Scripture explicitly commands wives to obey their husbands.
Years of dominating my wife and children left them habitually resentful and fearful of me, yet unwilling to challenge me because of the fury it might provoke…. I alienated Susan and the children, and lost their love. Home was not a pleasant place to be—for them or for me. By 1983, Susan would have left me if it weren’t for the children, and even that bond was losing its force.
Then a number of dramatic events occurred, which wrought a profound change in my moral, psychological, and spiritual life.3
The first of these “dramatic events” was when Dr. Barger watched his wife endure a difficult delivery. Susan’s placenta tore loose, and she started hemorrhaging. The baby was stillborn. Dr. Barger describes further what happened:
At two in the morning in a stark, bright hospital delivery room, I held in my left hand my tiny lifeless son, and stared in disbelief at his death…. I had the power to make [my family’s] lives worse by raging against my baby’s death and my wife’s lack of love, or to make their lives better by learning to love them properly. I had to choose. And it was a clear choice, presented in an instant as I stared at my tiny, helpless, stillborn infant cradled in my hand. In that critical instant, with God’s grace, I chose the arduous, undramatic, discouraging path of trying to be good.
I don’t have time…to tell you of all the afflictions we endured in the next four years: sick children, my mother’s sudden death, my losing my job as a teacher, three more miscarriages, and finally a secret sorrow that pierced both of us to the very core of our beings.
In the midst of these many afflictions, I found that the only way I could learn to love, and to cease being a cause of pain, was to suffer, endure, and strive every minute to repudiate my anger, my resentment, my scorn, my jealousy, my lust, my pride, and my dozens of other vices.
I began holding my tongue.
I started admitting my faults and apologizing for them.
I quit defending myself when I was judged too harshly—for the important thing was not to be right (or to be well-thought-of) but to love.
As I had made myself the center of my attention for too many years already, I said little about my own labors and sorrows; I sought to know Susan’s, and to help her to bear them.
And, frankly, once I started listening to Susan—once I began really hearing her and drawing her out—I was startled at how many and how deep were her wounds and her sorrows…. Most were not sorrows unique to Susan. They were the sorrows that all feel: sorrows that arise from the particular physiology of women and from their vocation as mothers, which gives them heavy duties and responsibilities while leaving them almost totally dependent on men for their material well-being and their spiritual support; sorrows that arise from loving their husbands and children intensely, but not being able to keep harm from those they love; sorrows that arise from the fact that in our society even the most chaste of women are regularly threatened by the lustful stares, remarks, and advances of men; and sorrows that arise because our society in general still considers women stupid, flighty, and superficial, and still places very little value on women and shows very little respect for them….
Women…suffer these wounds far more often and with a greater intensity than most of us men ever realize. And unless we ask them, women generally do not speak to us of these sorrows—perhaps because we men so often dismiss their troubles as insignificant or write women themselves as simply weak and whiny….
Can men…withdraw the sword of sorrow that pierces every woman’s heart? I don’t think so. Their problems are generally not the kind that have a solution, but rather form the very fabric of their daily existence….
One of my friends, when confronted at the end of his long workday with his wife’s complaints about the noise, the troubles, and the unending housework, snapped back at her in exasperation: “Well, do you want me to stay home and do the housework while you go off to the office?” You understand his point: He couldn’t solve her problems. What did she want him to do?
I’ll tell you: She wanted him to listen, to understand, and to sympathize. She wanted him to let her know that despite her problems, her exhaustion, her dishevelment, he loved her—to let her know that it caused him sorrow that she was suffering and that if it were possible, he would change it for her.
Dr. Barger’s earnest efforts at renewing his love for his wife and reaching a new plane of understanding worked. It took three years of “patience, listening, and growing in Susan’s trust,” spending “literally hundreds of hours talking,” but eventually Susan’s anger dissipated, overcoming her cynicism, which in turn “softened her and gentled her.”
Living in a renewed marriage, life became unusually sweet. John and Susan believed they were “on the verge of a long and happy marriage,” when tragedy struck again.
Susan was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
An eight-month battle ensued, and Dr. Barger was challenged to express his new love in concrete ways. Caring for a seriously ill person is extremely difficult work, but John welcomed it as an opportunity “to show her how much I really loved her.”
Even though Susan was given the best care, the cancer won out, and Susan died. She breathed her last breath surrounded by her family and dearest friends, and holding the hand of her beloved husband. The sweetness was in remembering an unusual love, knowing that he had experienced something that most of us yearn for but don’t find—true, soul-deep companionship.
Dr. Barger looked back on their lives together with bittersweet feelings. The hurt was encased in their renewal—now that they had become best friends, now that he had learned the deeper meaning found in truly loving rather than in dominating, he had to say good-bye. But the sweetness was in remembering an unusual love, knowing that he had experienced something that most of us yearn for but don’t find—true, soul-deep companionship."
Thomas, Gary (2008-09-02). Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy? (pp. 45-49). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
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