Does every wife think that her husband is the most complex man ever created or is Marc really outstanding in complexity? Some days it seems like this whole wife thing could just break my heart. He is so sensitive and feels pain to the very bottom of his heart, but he is the most private person about his real self,whether it is happy or sad. It drives me to all kinds of wild emotions. When we got married, I was determined to be the best wife- I didn't want to just keep the house clean, make good meals, do his wash, and all the other things men want- I wanted to give him the safe place he never had felt in his life. I wanted him to know that any and every secret would be sacred and nothing that he could tell me would shake my love. I wanted him to feel confirmed by me, his wife. I wanted him to feel a real pride and value in himself as a man. I know that it has only been three years, and I am still as passionate about it all as I was when we got married. The desire for it is not the problem....I just don't know if I know how to do it. One day, in the middle of his terrible grief over Jas getting killed, a very well meaning and loved friend of mine told me that if I could not get him to open up and talk about his feelings, she was afraid he would become suicidal. That still makes me cry to write that, because I have never before or since felt like such a fundamental failure in all the things I was desperately trying to do. I mean--I guess that somehow a wife should know how to make her husband talk, but I guess I didn't know something that I should have all those nights that we lay in bed and he sobbed and sobbed. I tried and tried...but the answer was always the same " I don't know what to say." No question that I ever came up with made any difference. And even now, when there is something that is really bothering him, if he does mention it, it seems better not to press too much or he just shuts right down. But what if I should be asking something? Or what if he does want to talk about it and just doesn't really know how? One comfort to me is that at one time in our marriage there was something he did not tell me for a couple of months, and I could feel a distance between us, a subtle shift in our friendship. He finally gathered the courage, and ever since than, I have found a comfort that I was able to feel that, even though it was a carefully concealed secret. However, sometimes when I see "that" look in his eyes- that look of quiet desperation and fear, that look of almost childlike pain- doubt grips me and questions pound relentlessly through my head.
So all you godly, wise, and experianced wives....let me know what I need to do.