Love is Grace

 

I only dated one guy before dating my husband. Though I enjoyed the attention and was attracted to him I never felt the feelings of love. My distress grew as one night after dating for about a month, he told me he loved me and wanted to know if I loved him. I wanted to be honest so I shared that I  cared and had strong feelings for him, but said I wasn’t there yet. Over the months I felt the pressure of his feelings and inquiries about where I was. I finally broke it off because I didn’t want to continue to lead him on if my feelings just never would match his own.

The first time I met my husband was at a church picnic. It had been a year since the break up of my other relationship. I had been feeling glum with singleness, but that particular morning I told God I was just going to enjoy being single and delight in Him that day. My heart was full that morning I bounced around greeting friends and socializing. Later I decided to join a game of volleyball. Then entered my husband.

This gorgeous blue eyed guy came up to introduce himself to me. I immediately regretted my choice of clothing. Though at the time I didn’t have a sense of style, even then, I knew my flowered overalls were too short riding up my leg, my socks and tennis shoes and twisted hair pinned back completed my fashion disaster. So I was almost speechless this hunk was even talking to me. While talking with him I vividly recall imaging walking down the isle with him in my mind.

The following sunday I sang in church the 1st service. He was there. Out in the hallway we talked briefly. Then as I was talking with a friend, I saw him go into the 2nd service with a girl. I was like, “Well forget that!”

A week later he asked me if I’d like to go out sometime. As it turned out he had been on a few dates with this girl and once that ended he started pursuing me. Everything was different with him. The chemistry was there, he made me laugh, I felt like he was a good friend. But he too declared love for me before I felt it. He knew about my previous relationship and the stress and pressure I’d felt, so he tried to respect that and not push me. I remember asking my parents and reading books because I didn’t know what love was supposed to feel like. Finally several months later I felt like I could tell him I loved him.

What I didn’t fully realize at the time was that love is a choice. I had happy loving feelings when I was with him, I loved who he was, and I definitely felt attraction for him. But choosing to love him came into play when we disagreed at times during our engagement, and dealing with disappointments and struggles after we married. Agape love is a choice. And as I’m learning even now Agape love offers grace too.

My husband was my first earthly love. And he’s been the only man I’ve ever loved. I feel “proud” of that, like I have him bested at love because I’ve loved only him….but the focus should not be that I’ve loved only him, the question is have I loved him well? This is convicting to me. No, I haven’t. It was this lack of love and “coasting” in our relationship that was a contributor to the void I helped create before his affair. Often he felt alone. Because of the nature of his job and living a good portion of his life at work I often was in a “survival”mode. It got to a point though that I lived “my” life when he was gone, then sometimes unwillingly or unsuccessfully shifted into couples gear when he was home. Basically it was like living two separate lives. I would overbook my life and crowd out time with him or home life. I felt alone when he worked so much and thus stuffed my schedule with busyness to cope, and he came home not feeling valued or a priority to me and thus felt lonely. I still get frustrated with myself because I am still looking out for me. Still often functioning as one person rather than as a team. One thing you learn after an affair is that the old relationship goes through a death. Things must change. To restore and heal your marriage you have to fix things. There is often a message in the Affair. At some point I will blog on this topic. But that message, need, or issue, needs to be considered and dealt with. Our marriage just can’t pick up where it was. It’s got to start anew. Sometimes I fear that I can’t change and that we will just go back to how things were, detached, not working as a team, not communicating well, etc.

Honestly when I’m faced with my failures and selfishness over and over again I know that I need Jesus. And only through Him do I have any hope of changing.

One night a week or so ago I was feeling so drained and overwhelmed. I had been reading some blogs about affairs and it stirred up all these emotions in me again. Then with all my busyness that week and going out of town twice the house just went kaput. My husband didn’t complain he just cleaned everything up, did the laundry etc. He did request for me not to make dinner because he didn’t want to clean up my mess from cooking. My husband wasn’t mad he didn’t get upset, yet this had always been a sore spot for me. In our past I always knew we had differences in our cleaning and organizing. I’m the mess, he’s the orderly one. All he asked me to do was to finish what I start. Sometimes I cook but don’t clean up. Or do laundry but leave it in the basket forever. However in that moment I just felt so overwhelmed, and realized I frequently have 50 projects going and cannot quite finish things all the way. I just fell apart. I cried and cried and just felt despair. What if I can’t do it? What if I never change? I said. “Then I’ll just keep picking up after you”, he said. (That’s love) I know this should have been a comfort to me but I just felt it was futile. There just was no consoling me. (Lol I realize most women probably do not understand this one bit as most would love their men to do housework, for me it was a source of insecurity and frustration because in the past before the affair I knew my husband was unhappy with the house and would clean out of frustration, now he bears it with grace and patience)  Anyway this is one of those times though I just felt like throwing in the towel and saying I’ll never be good enough, or the flip-side of that; I am set in my ways and refuse to change. I can’t, I won’t, and don’t want to.

Before going to bed that night I told my husband I needed to recenter. I turned on a worship song and turned off the lights. We both worshipped, and I cried into my pillow. In that moment I couldn’t pray I couldn’t function. It was like that night early on after the confession I was so angry at my husband for the Affair I left the hotel room and walked circles in the parking lot. I was so upset I could not pray so I called my best friend and asked her to pray since I couldn’t at the time. The song helped to focus me on God. It helped to soften my heart enough so I could pray and could reach out with my crushed spirit.

Love should not be based on a bunch of rules and expectations. Like whether I clean the house to his expectations, or whether he romances me in the way I want, or who did what for whom. Our marriage and love should be founded in grace. Should we still strive to please each other and serve each other? Yes. But without grace we are left with anger and disappointment and disillusion at our spouses failure to meet our expectations.