Three weeks after Tripp and I got married, my life fell violently apart at 10:00 pm in a sterile room in Redmond’s ER as a nervous looking doctor gave us news none of us wanted to hear.
Suddenly the life I had pictured for myself was washed away as if it was a town being swept away by a tsunami. I knew marriage wouldn’t be a cake walk. I figured that when I had a problem, I could go to my Mom, who would live less than two minutes away from me and homeschooled my sisters still, so she would always be available. I thought I would have it made.
I had her with me in my married life for ten hard months, in that time she struggled to live a good quality of life and I struggled to do everything else. I couldn’t burden her with my marriage when things got bad, it got bad because of her illness and my inability to cope. I couldn’t burden her with anything when she was in constant agony and, frankly, too medicated to resemble the mother I lost long before I ever buried her.
How would you not struggle when it feels like you got setup for failure? How do you cope with your best friend and mother’s terminal illness, just having moved into an apartment together with your new spouse after only having been together for a year, and married for less than a month?
And here’s the thing, I want to be the old, depression era women with a bowed back and grey hair in a bun and wrinkles set deep in her face who seems to take everything in stride and never talks about her feelings. This is my idea of strength but I know that woman doesn’t exist anymore (or ever) and I’m not her. I never will be as hard as I try. I bend and bend and bend until I snap emotionally because I can’t hold everything in.
I wanted to never talk, so I cried myself to sleep every night for four months straight. This did not improve my marriage. I couldn’t be a wife because I was a grieving daughter, barely making it and never acknowledging how my husband was probably not thriving either.
I felt lonely and I felt unseen and my less than six month old marriage felt drowned in grief. I remember praying, after having a dialogue in which Tripp said something that really hurt me, that God would do something to help my marriage. I didn’t even know what I needed, I only knew something had to happen.
That was Monday, on Tuesday I spent the day with Mom, in her beautiful room filled with books. On a bookshelf I had seen a million times before but never really paid attention to until that day I found a book entitled, ‘Created to Be his Helpmeet.’ It was the weirdest thing honestly, because I passed by it, looked at and felt like it slapped me in the face. I picked it up and asked Mom if I could borrow it. She let me have it.
I read it all in a week.
I know it’s a very controversial book, and I get why. It’s not for the faint but heart but it’s what I needed. I needed every word I read because I read it and it worked.
I’m not going to give an essay on why I defend parts of it or agree with it but I wanted to share some of the best things I learned from it that changed my marriage for the better.
- Be Your Husband’s best helper
It may sound obvious, but if you want a happy husband be his hype girl. Smile and encourage him, believe in him and be verbally impressed with what he does. Be in his corner and he’ll be in yours.
- Make him feel special when he comes home
Tripp doesn’t give a flip if I wear makeup and has never once said anything negative when my hair hasn’t moved from it’s messy bun situation atop my unwashed head. But still, when I remember to, I like to take the time to freshen my face and at least do something akin to fixing my hair before he comes home. Sometimes I make him a drink and stick it in the fridge so it’s cold and ready when he steps in the door. I always try to meet him at the threshold, baby in hand and a kiss ready for him. I want him to know how much I missed him, and how happy I am that he’s home. I do that because 1. I love kissing and 2. It’s how I’d like to be greeted everyday.
- Text him like when it was puppy love
Like when you were dating and you would send selfies, ‘I miss you’ texts and flirt nonstop? Do that when you get married still. Keep your romance fresh!!
We by no means have a perfect marriage. I’m still working on being a better communicator, I’m not a saint and I still have a violent temper. But I’m trying, you know? I love being a wife and I love being married. I’m thankful for a God who knew that if I couldn’t have my Mom, I could have someone who could hold my broken heart with tenderness and love me enough to walk with me through the grief and the good times.
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