Marriage

Nah bro, let me tell you, you don’t want to get married. Let me tell you what it is when you cut out the pretty words and the nice BS.

You don’t want to get married, because she’s not what you thought. It’s like she listens to every single other person’s advice except for yours. And you know her better than anyone, probably better even than herself. Like, you will say one thing about how maybe she should look at this thing from a different perspective, and she gets mad. And then her therapist will say almost word for word the exact same thing, and she will tell you how impactful and great it was. Like yay, we pay her how much to say the same things I’m already saying? And then you gotta make a choice to make it a thing or not—to be hurt or not. You have to choose whether to express how much it sucks when it’s like that, or have her grow like you originally wanted. And don’t even try giving career advice.

She’s not what you thought. Yeah I’m going there—she’s gonna listen to music you think is stupid. Like yeah, she’s got good music taste, but sometimes she’s going to throw on her Taylor or Harry and if you say anything against them, it becomes a personal attack. But if you put your music on, she pretends to bear it for a couple minutes and then asks for you to turn it down, and then asks for you to turn it off. That’s just how it is. So if you want to know, now you know. Or even more, she’s going to put on the Kardashians or Selling Sunset or whatever trash TV she’s into.

She’s not what you thought. She is all talk and no action. Yeah she talks about loving the poor, restoring the broken, and centering the marginalized and all that, but what does she actually do to make this happen? Nothing, just like pretty much everyone else.

She’s not what you thought. She doesn’t know how to just be happy. She’s weak. We have all these wonderful, beautiful, amazing blessings, and she just complains. And it’s deeper, it’s like she doesn’t have faith that God will provide. Every single time, He has shown up. And she still can’t trust him. What is that? And then I try my hardest to gently encourage her, and then she gets frustrated that I won’t just affirm what she is feeling, and I’m making her feel like she’s crazy. So then I just say nothing at all, and she says I’m closing up. Cut out the BS and this is what you are in for.

She’s not what you thought. She wants you to treat her all romantic and nice, but she doesn’t want to treat you with respect. She wants you to write her this beautiful love poem and if you are honest, this kind of thing I’m writing right now is all you’ll want to say. Like how can I feel romantic when you misinterpret everything I say? When you never give me the benefit of the doubt? When it takes all my effort to convince myself that you don’t intentionally twist my words into something awful, or you don’t intentionally mishear me? I dunno man.

She’s not what you thought. She will be literally sitting on the couch next to me for an hour, and then I get up, and then right when I get up, she asks if I will get her a glass of water because I’m over by the sink already. We are grown adults and she can’t go get herself a glass of water? It’s like she enjoys having me as her servant, fetching her this or that thing. Get ready for that man, feeling like she enjoys using you to do things she easily could have done herself.

She’s not what you thought. What is the one thing you are most scared of with this girl? I remember talking with Reid Jones and telling him the one thing I was most scared of was that her mental health would tank again. And it did. And here I am. Take all your worst fears and imagine them true: that’s marriage.

She’s not what you thought. Sometimes I don’t know if she cares about anyone except herself. I remember she told me that group projects were really hard for her in college, because it’s hard for her to work in a group. Well maybe I should’ve listened because isn’t marriage just one massive group project with thousands of small group projects built in? Awesome.

She’s not what you thought. She’s going to disrespect you in front of all your friends. It’s gonna happen. You will imagine them all thinking, “Phew, sucks to be him.” Let me tell you, nothing hurts more than the person you love most publicly shaming you. Making you look stupid in front of everyone. Making you feel like an idiot. Emasculated. And it’s gonna happen. Nah, you don’t want to get married man.

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But if I’m honest, that’s not the whole thing. Let me cut out the BS and stop telling you all her crap. I’ve got crap too, and so do you. You don’t know it yet but it’s true.

You don’t want to get married, because you’re not so great. I mean the obvious one is that yeah, having sex doesn’t make you stop looking at that other beautiful woman’s skirt and wondering what’s under there. I literally made a vow in front of hundreds of people and her and God that I would not act this way, but I do. I think that if it came to it I would actually kill a man to protect or avenge Jahanna, and these other women don’t mean a thing to me, and yet here I am, looking and thinking, betraying her. And I say this is the obvious one because it is. The craziest part is that in a lot of circles, this is treated as pretty much mundane, or a joke.

You’re not so great. I can actively, intentionally do the opposite of what I know is healthy, just because I don’t want to do the good thing anymore. Sometimes you’ll just want to self-destruct and take her along with you. Just wreck your life and abandon everything. The more you grow, the harder it gets to grow even more. And so sometimes you just want to give up. Sounds bleak? Well, that’s just how it is sometimes.

You’re not so great. If you want to be married then get ready for this one for sure. You will be sitting there having a… discussion, right? And there’s a couple things said already that are mostly fair but maybe a little bit not. You start feeling some things and wanting to say some things that you are feeling. In the back of your mind, you know you don’t really mean the things you want to say, but it definitely feels like you do. What’s really happening is that you know these things will hurt her, and that’s exactly what you want to do. But you tell yourself that you have to be honest just so that she knows where you’re at, and so you say it and it feels so good to say it and you like saying it, but right away you feel like crap for saying it, let me tell you. And you can’t take it back.

You’re not so great. You might think you will be this awesome, caring, listening, perfect, attentive husband but bro some days you just want to ignore her and go out with the boys. Not in some healthy good way of male community—I’m talking like exactly the neglectful way. She is telling you about something completely normal, but you just don’t feel like listening. You want to avoid. You want to distance. You want to get out. It’s like that absolutely horrible Klondike commercial about the guy listening to his wife for five seconds in order to get a Klondike bar. It’s like, the disdain I feel for this stereotype is boundless, and yet I have sometimes felt myself be exactly this stereotype.

You’re not so great. In a word: thoughtless. I used to think I was in touch with the emotional consequences of my actions. I’m not so confident about this anymore—I’ll put it that way. I’m with her at a party or something, and I’m talking with some friends, and about halfway through I realize that the implications of what I’m saying will hurt everybody’s feelings because she had told me a week ago that these specific friends were sensitive about this exact topic and to be careful that I am considerate. And I just blurted it out without thinking for a second. And I know that she is just so embarrassed to be next to me. My thoughtlessness directly causes her social pain: that’s how it works in marriage.

You’re not so great. Remember how I said she will listen to every single person’s advice except yours? Well guess what? You’re the exact same way. You just don’t know it yet. You know the word “nagging”? Turns out that is basically just male code for women asking us to get our crap together.

You’re not so great. If we are being honest, we gotta talk about comfort. You are going to find out that sometimes, there is a thing inside you that will do whatever, ignore whatever, hurt whoever, just to get your own way. You are supposed to be seeking after her comfort, not yours. But that goes right out the window the moment you are tired or irritable or hungry or stressed or just randomly in a bad mood for no reason. Has your dad ever eaten the last bit of blueberries in the fridge even though he knew your mom was saving them for some recipe? Because like, I don’t know if I can think of a clearer picture.

You’re not so great. Yeah and talking about dads, you know how growing up you swore to yourself that you would never be your dad in those few key ways that really got you mad? Guess what? Yep.

You’re not so great. You are going to hide something that you are ashamed of from her. Not even talking about porn or anything, but just like you feel slightly bad about how much video games you played when she was out running errands, so you leave it out when she asks how your day was. The reality is that this just shows that you are still a child, and are insecure about even basic aspects of life, or lack self-control. This’ll be your future man.

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So, yeah. I mean marriage can honestly suck sometimes. And we haven’t even had kids yet. People said it could be hard, and I think I used to be like a happy passenger on the Titanic, with those words being the tip of the iceberg. And yeah I guess it’s true that some of this stuff is particular to us. But really, not much of it is. The thing is that it’s universal. That’s the whole point. It might not be exactly these things for you, though it probably will be, but if it isn’t these things, it’ll be things just like them.

But if we are going actually real talk, I mean the realest talk is the Bible. If that’s cringe then it’s cringe, but hey, it’s also true.

So, we are supposed to love like Jesus right? Like literally Jesus. This is what marriage is all about, but even the disciples were like, “I don’t know if I actually want to do this if I’m not allowed to get a divorce.” Bro even in the Bible marriage gets shade.

And then you’ve got Paul directly saying that getting married will distract you from serving God. It’s actually wild. That verse always shocked me before marriage but I think I get it now.

But of course it isn’t all bad. I mean God did create marriage all the way back in the beginning. Men aren’t complete without women—that is definitely the truth haha.

Plus of course there’s an entire book of the Bible that is erotic poetry, celebrating sex and marriage and love and all. But it also says three times to not stir up love until it’s ready, and why. That’s a warning bro.

Oh yeah and then Proverbs, which I guess paints a mixed picture. On the one hand you’ve got “He who finds a wife finds a good thing.” But then you’ve also got that hilarious one about a quarrelsome wife. Better to live in a broom cupboard basically. Maybe it is all about the one in Proverbs 12. It is a risk to get married.

All of this stuff is super good and helpful, but the truth is that for me, the craziest and most amazing part is the deep theological stuff Christianity puts into marriage. As in, marriage was created to be a picture of Christ and the Church. Paul says it right when he says this is a “mystery” and don’t you dare make it any less mysterious than it is. But even with its mystery obscuring the details of what exactly this means, which frustrates us as a scientific society, even with that, it is solidly true, and this is wild.

Like when she has been particularly unappreciative of me or something, and it really hurts, at the end of the day, if I am thoughtful, I get to realize that this what Christ feels every day, times a million, but still is faithful to me. Or if I am being just totally self-absorbed, and then I get to thinking about how I’m supposed to love her like Christ, phew I get convicted. Sin exposed man. That’s it. And it grows you. It really does.

Or the last really big one to talk about of course is Hosea. Holy crap dude. I really don’t have much to say. Geez. Being married just makes that book hit that much harder. And it shows you how much God loves you. Like all the failings you have, all the failings she will have, how hard it is—this all teaches us how much Jesus loves us. It is really amazing man. Makes me cry.

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But dude, to be totally candid and honest with you, I feel I gotta tell you that I’m not sure you are ready for all this. Like, it’s a lot. And yeah I wasn’t really ready either, but when I got married, I discovered I got really motivated, really fast. All that stuff I said before about how much I’ve failed Jahanna, it’s definitely true, but if we are honestly cutting out the BS I can tell you for real that I’ve put in a ton of work. And all credit to God cause He is the one that gave me that desire.

You don’t want to get married, because you’re not motivated enough yet. It’s crazy how my career changed so fast when I got married. Because beforehand, I was happy getting whatever job just to make some money to live and all, and if I went without much cash, that’s totally fine. But bro supporting someone else? A wife? Woah. It just instantly became unacceptable to not provide her all the comforts I could. And I’ll tell you right now that I would work as hard as I have to in order to make that happen. Makes my heart break for the dudes who feel they can’t provide, and so unspeakably grateful to straight up God that I’m not there.

You’re not motivated enough yet. This one might actually be kinda unique to me, but I’m talking self-care. I never really prioritized it, to be honest. I mean yeah, I’ve always done basic hygiene and whatever, but I think before Jahanna it was hard for me to really care about taking care of myself in a deep and good way. I mean simple as changing the sheets or dressing well, but deeper too. I legitimately didn’t care much about that stuff before her, but now because of her, I do. That might sound messed up or backwards or unhealthy or whatever because self-care isn’t supposed to be for another person, but to me it is pretty beautiful. Now I want to be there for her as much as I can, and I know that I need to take care of myself for that to happen. She changed me.

You’re not motivated enough yet. It might sound weird, but I never thought I would be a good husband for taking care of the house and stuff. I was really nervous about that, because I’m not the most organized, consistent, or handyman-like guy around. But the truth is, for the most part, I’ve been killing it. You can ask her. And I think it is just that when Jahanna needs something, it just instantly becomes a priority to me. I’ve really felt the one-flesh thing there, it’s pretty cool. You are gonna have to pick up the work too, you ready for that?

You’re not motivated enough yet. Honestly I’ve kinda always thought about how women get hurt by men, and I’ve tried to learn from that and avoid it. But marriage takes it to a whole new level. Like now I am actually the husband who could hurt the wife. And so I’ve found myself thinking, really thinking, about specifically the other husbands around me, and how I see their sin in myself, and how to really work on that. Avoiding male failures man: that’s real.

You’re not motivated enough yet. Yeah so a few years back we lived in admittedly a sort of sketchy area of town and one day we came home and there was this weird smell in the air and the first thing we noticed was that our TV was missing. Next we noticed the lock was all busted in on our back door. Phew it’s hard to put to words the feeling I got. And even beyond that pretty extreme case, I am typically a pretty peace-making and calm guy, but when someone hurts or takes advantage of or does anything wrong against Jahanna, I’m ready to fight immediately. Or like sometimes I think about if we are threatened by some outside force, I would absolutely go to war and die to protect her. Like wow I never have really had that before and legitimately it is strong and good and I am proud and grateful for it.

You’re not motivated enough yet. I talked already about her mental health tanking, and you don’t really know what it’s like to be a husband through that, and I pray you never do, but I’ll tell you it is hard. Really hard. But I’ll go through the worst of it every single day if it means I get to be with her. That’s the truth. It is not easy. It is not easy listening, taking it all, holding her, weeping, like really crying sometimes, but that’s what I’m here for. I’m in it for that too. I’m all in, man.

You’re not motivated enough yet. For me, I can be passive. Conflict of all kinds is hard for me. And I think a natural thing for us would be for her to steamroll me and me to just acquiesce. But big time, I realized that I got motivated real fast to not let that happen. Sure because that is not pleasant for me, but the reality is that my motivation is more about it not being healthy for her. She needs to be challenged and she needs pushback. Especially in the moments when she wants to hear it the least. This is like the opposite of I want to do, and it is terrifying to me, and I sometimes hate the consequences of her being mad at me, but wow dude it is so good. I never imagined myself being able to do this but it works. There’s a fight, and then we go and think about it, and then we apologize, and it is even sweeter than it was before. You ready to do this too? Say what needs to be said?

You’re not motivated enough yet. Yo and similar to that man, gotta talk about being a leader in the spiritual things. Geez this one is rough because like there’s a lot of crap out there about this. But I mean at the bare minimum we are both supposed to be leaders right? So that means you need to be a leader too. To be honest I definitely feel like I’m only at the very beginning baby steps of figuring this out, and maybe this is where Satan is hitting me most, which makes sense, but somewhere in there I feel strong conviction about some stuff. Like, when we travel in some foreign place it is always a spiritual battle but I think it’s important and nourishing to get to a church there. Or, just simple as staying in the Word together man. And prayer. And encouraging each other to really Sabbath. The practices. And talking about trusting God, and loving the Church. Contributing. Pressing on. What is all this for anyway if not to help us grow the Kingdom? And by grace I think… I think He has helped me stumble into leadership, in my own way. I’m crying, sorry man. It’s just really hard and real. Like… yeah.

You’re not motivated enough yet. I’ll go one more. Forgiveness. You might have never really been hurt yet. Which means you might have not really had to forgive yet. The kind that like is really hard. When she does something that is more than just frustrating or annoying. But something that really cost you something that you can’t get back, and she can’t make it right. Or even more, when you look into her soul, and you actually see her raw sin. You see that she is screwed up inside, and you realize it is going to be your whole life long paying the cost for that sin in her heart. And then willingly deciding to take that on. It does not get much realer than that. That’s Jesus bro. That’s self-denial. That’s love, that’s sacrifice, that’s marriage, and it takes a lot. I’ve been through it a bit. And again, all glory to God man. It’s Him working in me. But I’ll tell you, you better prep if you want to get married.

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Nah but enough about me. I don’t know if you want to get married because…. Yeah, your girl is nice and all. I’ll give you that. But the reality is that if I were you…. I mean if I am seriously giving you some real talk right now, I mean compared to my girl, she just doesn’t have it. I feel bad for you man, because I legitimately don’t know that you will find someone as amazing as Jahanna. If I am going all the way and telling you the truth, this is what I think.

You don’t want to get married, because no one’s as amazing as Jahanna. She is hilarious. Humor is just who she is. For example like, all those great artists have those self-portrait series, but they got nothing on the number of selfies she has taken giving this thumbs-up and sarcastic, depressing smile that gets me every time. Or just the way she says things or how her brain works hahaha. I dunno it’s hard to explain but no one can make me laugh as much.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. I love having a good time and love living in the moment of the good times, but you know what I am just terrible at? Actually planning good times. Turns out those need to be planned, they don’t just magically happen. And she is just always cranking these out left and right, it is incredible. She puts in so much work to help us just have fun together, and let me tell you right now, don’t underestimate how important that is. I feel like I remember some article somewhere about having fun together being like the key metric of whether a couple gets divorced. I don’t know if that’s exactly what it said but it was something like that. Anyway, it is important, I suck at it, and she is amazing at it.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. I mean like low key, she’s hot. I just don’t think it’s every day you find someone as compassionate and kind as her, who’s also…. But yeah that’s all I’ll say about that.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. I think a lot of people have a hard time finding community in this day and age. And maybe that’s always been true, I don’t know. I definitely have a hard time, because I feel extraordinarily shy. It’s true. But Jahanna, she feels this too. She’s got as much social anxiety as the next person, but she takes that step. She initiates. She invites people for dinner and stuff. She makes the friendships get started. I don’t know how to do that; I honestly don’t know what I would do without her. I really believe I would be a lonely person on the outskirts without her really beautiful way of making community around her. I think about this probably at least once a week, about how indebted I am to her. I am always amazed by it.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. No one can talk about art and beautiful things and literary things as good as her. I love it so much and she inspires me so much. She is a real English-major type person who can pick out elements in a story that go right over my head. And I think I pay pretty close attention to things but she just instinctively understands literary things. And by literary things I mean books of course, but also like movies and TV and stuff. And it’s more than that; she just so deeply values art and the artful. Ugh it fills me up with happiness when we surround ourselves with our books and our movies and ideas and stories and all that sort of thing. This is the sort of woman you really want to find. Bone of my bones dude.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. For real, I know I talked about her being all talk and no action, and maybe that’s true, but just as true is that her heart is a heart of intense justice and goodness and mercy. She delights in the law in the good way the Psalms talk about. Huh, that sounds kinda weird but I think that that gets at it pretty well. I get humbled so much about how unfeeling I am compared to her about how we should be living like Jesus. She has a real passion for fairness and people being treated right—being treated like they are the Image of God. Absolutely everyone. And not in like a legalistic way, but a Jesus way.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. And kind of similar, she pushes me. Not just by being awesome herself, but by like directly challenging me. I hate it so much hahaha, but for real it grows me. And I think not just anyone can do that. It is really special. She is always bringing me back to what is Good and True and Beautiful, even when I really just don’t want to hear it. She doesn’t let me stay in my crap. But she also doesn’t just force things—she challenges and then leaves it up to me and God whether I will change. No one does this like her.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. Dude and one of the realest is that she makes me actually talk about what’s going on in my heart. I dunno this might be like dumb male stuff, but I thought I was really good at talking through my heart, but I found that in conflict, I sometimes literally cannot do it. Like I cannot. Like she wants to know what I am thinking and feeling, and I have the answer blasting in my brain, but I just can’t bring myself to actually say the words. Sometimes I literally sit for like 15, 20 minutes with her, trying to say it, and just can’t. It’s wild, and honestly hard to tell you right now. This is vulnerable for me, I want you to know that. Cause I’m actually ashamed of it. But she just sits with me. And it’s really, really hard for her, I know. But she sits with me and waits. She just waits until I can say it. And it’s not always good thoughts. But she wants to hear what’s in my heart. She really wants to hear. Dude you aren’t going to get that every day. This is really special. And it’s so hard for me to believe she actually is interested in what I have to say; I think there is some weird psychological something in my brain about this. Even after all this I often simply don’t believe she cares about what I think—and not because of her, because of me. But still she just patiently waits when I can’t get the words out. I dunno how to get this across man, and I honestly don’t know if other people experience this, but it is one of our special hard things she does for me.

No one’s as amazing as Jahanna. And man, I’ve really only told you the tiniest sliver of how I’ve screwed up in our marriage. Every day it’s a new thing, that’s just the reality. But some days it is something that really, really hurts her. There’s been times I didn’t know what she would do, and she had to just go be alone for a while. And like I don’t have direct access to her heart and what she is feeling and all, so I can’t tell you exactly what it is, but I can tell you that my arrogant, thoughtless, prideful, stupid, unfaithful, messed-up stuff has given her pain. The type of pain where you can’t say anything or do anything to make it better, it is just there. And actually the more you try to make it better, the more it is just rubbing salt in the wound because you’re just trying to control the consequences. But she puts in work. She takes it all in, and I’ll tell you it has not been easy for her to love me but she does. Jahanna forgives, and I think that’s one of the hardest things for her to do. It is hard for her to believe she is forgiven, and when something really big comes around, it is hard for her to forgive. And it isn’t always fast. But she puts in that work.

I mean I could go on and on and on and on.

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Maybe… maybe I don’t know. Maybe if you cut out the BS, you would cut me out too. Love is crazy. It doesn’t have rules like you think. I think if you cut out the BS that will still be there. Love doesn’t have the rules we think it does.

Like this one guy I know, amazing guy, so humble, so soft-spoken, so gentle. He was dating this girl, and he knew, he just knew that this woman was going to be his bride. Well, it was a bit of a rocky relationship, on and off. One time when they were off, he decided that he was going to date her best friend, to make her jealous and get her back. Completely out of character for him to pull a stunt like that. And you know what? It worked and they never split up again. Married with four kids, totally in love.

Or this other guy was dating this girl, and he was talking with his dad about it. And his dad listens, and then says, “So when are you going to ask [girlfriend’s best friend] to marry you?” He kinda laughed and got a bit flustered and replied, “Wait you don’t understand, I’m dating [first girl], not [second girl].” And dad says, “I know.” What! And then my guy thinks about it, and realizes that yeah, actually he is in love with his girlfriend’s best friend. And what does he do? He takes the ring he bought for his girlfriend, walks up to her best friend, and asks her to marry him with it! Can you imagine? And of course she is completely shocked and almost offended, but thinks it over and realizes she is in the same way! And says yes! And they got married!

I don’t think love has the rules we think it does.

You want to know what I think? I say go for it. Go for the brave thing, the hard thing, the adventurous thing. Go get married and feel it all.