I Married My Bride For A Reason...

I love my wife. Dearly. I love her deeply.

 

I work at a car dealership with a bunch of divorced testosterone, and I’m pretty sure I’m an oddity. There’s married fellas there too, and one or two actually love their wives, I think, or at least get along with them. But I hear the ragging on the ladies, and it disappoints me. I wonder, upon hearing one of their divorce stories, if their exes were really bitches, or if they became bitches from being married to jerks. Neither being a bitch nor being a jerk is justified, but it becomes a vicious cycle that feeds off itself, like the snake eating its own tail.

 

I wonder how many of those fellas really put some effort into their relationship, too. It doesn’t require much, to be honest. It just means giving a shit about the person they married. They married them for a reason, one would hope.

 

I married my bride for a reason.

That reason was that my heart finally found its beat.

 

Where I work, there’s a couple of guys, younger than me, who are brothers. I’m friends with both. The older one just asked his girlfriend to marry him. The younger one spends his lunch time arguing on the phone with his. (That one looked up at me, after one of those “conversations”, and asked why he put up with “this shit”. I asked him why he was still going out with her if she was such a problem.) The older one, who asked his girl to marry him, once found out about one of the romantic things I did for my wife, and asked what else I do for her. And he told me some ideas of his own. I hope he feels inspired to do similar things, and takes a very different path from his younger brother…

 

If he were to ask me my thoughts on romance, and if I had any advice, I would tell him to read a couple books, Google something, and then watch a “chick flick”. The 5 Love languages (by Gary Chapman) 1,001 Ways to Be Romantic (by Greg Godel) Google: “four types of love in Greek” Then, watch a chick flick. If it makes him uncomfortable, he can lock the doors, turn off his phone, pull the shades, and settle in. Then, as he watches it, he should imagine himself and his lady/girlfriend/wife in the lead roles, and ask himself how it would make him feel to experience what was going on in the movie. Better yet, watch several different kinds of romantic movies, over several nights, and do this.

 

The point of all of this is two-fold: 

1) Love isn’t just something that happens. It’s a skill to be learned and mastered. It doesn’t take much, but I’ve found that the more I do, the more I want to do. In order to maintain the feelings of love, and to express one’s love for her, one must act. And yes, marriage *does* require work. Sometimes it takes a little more. But more often than that, it simply means finding small things to do for her. She will notice.

 

2) If a fella’s gonna marry his belle, he needs to know *why* he’s doing it. He needs to understand that it’s not just something he does because it’s the thing to do. It’s not just something to do because she makes him feel great. He needs some introspection–serious introspection.

 

In short, he needs to understand *himself* first. He needs to understand her some too, before he marries her, but if he’s reasonably sure this is a good thing to do (and the thoughts and opinions of *trustworthy* friends and family are giving him green flags), then he can spend the rest of his life growing in his knowledge of her.

 

I have many interests–too many for this life, I’m afraid. But my favorite subject is my Bride!

She constantly fascinates me, and I feel driven to express my awe and love for her whenever I can. And the look on her face–her entire reaction–when I do something loving, is totally worth the effort.

 

Written by Daniel Bean

 

 

 

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