Marriage

Don't be stupid

It was 1:12 pm on a Thursday and I was lying on the bed in my hotel room, alone. I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a conference, and the next day Cowdad was on his way to Florida to watch the Rams get trampled by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Sorry, Ram fans.

We don’t often do this—go two different places at the same time. Our life has mostly consisted of us going in the same direction, even though it has made some wild turns. I’ve said before that we could not be more opposite, and that is more true than ever. If you’d asked me 30 years ago where we would be in our 60s, I would not have said on a farm with large animals. Definitely did not see that coming.

But what I did see was us still together. There has never been a single moment when either of us considered divorce. We never used the word, never even thought it.

In 38 years each of us has been hopping mad at the other at least once or twice. We’ve said stupid things that can never be un-said. We’ve expected the worst from each other, and gotten it. Ben has not been a perfect husband, and I have not been a perfect wife—shocker.

And we’ve been through some stuff—Navy deployments, loss of his dad, loss of a baby, dealing with the massive amount of baggage we each brought with us to the altar, not having any clue why the other person acts a certain way, a deep dive into the world of mental health after I was hit head-on, and now aging parents and learning how to relate to adult children. Also, if you’ve ever seen the meme that says, “I’m sorry for everything I said while we were working cattle,” it’s 100% accurate. Contrary to Ben’s now-famous declaration, you don’t just put them in the field and they eat grass. There’s a little more to it than that, as we have learned mostly the hard way.

So how is it that we are still together and happy when so many other couples our age are not? What is the difference between us and them? How did we make it and they did not? What have we done—or not—that we are still married? This is not a rhetorical question. I am seriously trying to figure this out.

I asked one of my daughters this and she said she believes it’s because Ben doesn’t stay married to me just for what he can get out of it—he genuinely loves me and wants good for me. He wants me to be happy and love my life, and he says so often.

I can’t stop thinking about that. Do people really stay married only for what they can get out of it? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this idea.

When Ben got married, he wanted some things: a partner, a helper, someone to love and take care of, and, of course, the obvious. When I got married, I wanted someone to keep me safe (thank you, previous trauma) and let me be a stay-at-home wife and mom.

We’ve both gotten what we wanted, so why do we stay married? Why not throw in the towel now that our wants have been satisfied?

So many reasons. Because God gets the glory when a marriage lasts. Because our children would kill us—or at least disown us—if we didn’t. Because each of us really does care about the other’s welfare. I want good for him no matter how aggravating he is. He wants good for me no matter how difficult I am, and believe me, I have my moments.

That means he has to be willing to not talk to me while I’m getting ready to leave the house so I can focus and not forget things. It means I go to the farm before him and run temporary wire from one end of the pasture to the other so we can get a mama cow in the head gate quickly.

It means he takes time off to go to the beach when there is an overabundance of farm work and a house to build because the beach is where I can completely relax and decompress, and he knows that. It means I set out his supplements and pre-flight the coffee pot every night to make his mornings easier.

The decisions it takes to stay together are not the rocket-science kind. They start with “what can I do to make your life just a little bit better?” They’re pretty obvious. And they’re usually simple.

You don’t have to be super-spiritual; mutual goodwill works for Christians and non-Christians alike.

It doesn’t take giants of the faith to stay married. It doesn’t even take faith of any kind. You don’t have to be super-spiritual; mutual goodwill works for Christians and non-Christians alike. My parents have been married almost 67 years and it’s not because either of them is perfect. It’s because they each decided to do the things that were necessary to not run the other one off.

Have you heard marriage is work? It is. That’s because you have to do things you don’t necessarily want to do, things you wouldn’t do if the other person weren’t there.

But they are.

Sometimes when I have a decision to make and I can’t figure out what to do, Ben will ask, “What would you do if I weren’t part of the equation?” and that doesn’t help me at all because he IS part of the equation—he’s a huge part and I can’t even think beyond that.

“He that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife . . . she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:33–34).

You can’t be selfish and happily married. The two are mutually exclusive.

Marriage is hard, but as John Wayne famously said about life, “it’s harder when you’re stupid.” So don’t be stupid.

Please understand I am not setting Ben and me up as the authority or perfect example. We are two flawed, broken people who have to try just as hard as anyone else.

I realize it takes two people working together to make a marriage last, and two people working together to make it die.

But you—the one reading this—you do your part, and who knows? Maybe that will encourage your spouse to do theirs. I pray it will.