Part One
Sappy post alert!
I know they say that no guy is perfect, but mine is. He is
literally everything I dream about and long for. I’m trying to come up with a
way to put into words how amazing he is. He’s this incredible balance of gentle
and rugged – like, really make-your-heart-pound fierce and
dissolve-your-insides understanding and intuitive. He’s a good listener and a
good communicator. He knows how to say things to me in a way that shows that he
“gets me” perfectly. It’s like he’s memorized me from the inside out and knows
exactly how to connect with me, no matter what the situation is.
It doesn’t
hurt that he’s attractive. Strong. Energetic. Smart. (Don’t even get me started
on how smart he is! I admire his perspective and grasp on life, people, work,
science, history, literature, politics, etc. He. Is. Smart.) Witty. Confident. I
respect him more than anyone else I know; I absolutely adore him. He’s one of
those people who could have had anyone they wanted, and he chose me. Sometimes
I feel like I am living a fairy tale life: I got the prince. He is the epitome
of everything good and desirable in a lover. My needs – all of them – are
completely met. (Like, think through your life and everything that you wish
your significant other would be/do/know for/about you, and then hear me when I
tell you that he is there in all of those ways for me.) I love his hands…and
his voice. (I told you this was a sappy post!) He tells me/makes me feel like
I’m enough for him and that I bring him pleasure too (though I know that, hands
down, I’m the lucky one in this relationship). I can’t tell you what it’s like
to lay down with him at night and wake up beside him every morning. It’s
heaven.
I never imagined it could be this good.
Part Two
Everything that I told you about him is true. It’s all true and more, way more, than I could tell. But our story is more complicated than that. At this point, I need to tell you that I’m an addict, a user. So even though I literally have it all with him, I have this relentless, destructive habit of cheating on him.
He knows it too. He’s caught me making out on the park bench with a coworker. He’s come home in the middle of the day and found me in bed with a friend from church (I know; the irony isn’t lost on me). He knows that I got a hotel room with a college buddy when I was up north for my grandma’s funeral. And like I said, he knows me inside out, so he can tell when we’re at the restaurant, and I start scoping out the room. Or when we’re hanging out together, but I’m actually replaying memories of other men in my brain or slipping into the restroom to text. Or when we’re in the middle of a really meaningful conversation and I start planning my outfit for when I sneak out later. Sometimes he makes love to me and even though I know that if I responded to his advances he could make me deliriously happy, I just ignore him because I’m on Facebook or whatever, and the thought of being with him doesn’t appeal to me enough to make me put down my phone.
I’m kinda saying this all really casually. It’s not that I don’t feel any shame. I do. But the reality is that this has all happened so many times that it’s almost old hat. I used to freak out whenever I acted out on my cravings for other lovers, but I’ve come to realize that it’s who I am. I wish I was a better wife to him (he deserves so much better!), but I’m just not the person I thought I was back when we got married. I’m a user. That’s the way it is. The plain old hat reality.
Here’s what’s not old hat, though, and here’s the reason I’m telling you our story: he takes me back. Every. Time. He takes me back. Do you know that nothing that I’ve done has changed who he is and his faithfulness to me? He knows everything about me, and he still takes me back. Still welcomes me into his arms. Still speaks the words he knows I need to hear. He truly loves me with his whole heart, and I see a hauntingly infinite grief in his eyes every time I walk away from him yet that hasn’t stopped me from walking away. But as he takes me back, time after time, something is starting to happen. It’s starting to sink in that he’s always known that I am this horrible person. He knew it when he chose me and married me.
I was the oblivious one. I was so blind and deceived. I used to think that he was awesome, and I was almost as awesome. But it’s not that way at all. He’s so much more than I ever imagined back when we first met, and I first responded to his love, and I’m far worse than I ever knew in my moments of greatest clarity and honesty. I’ve begun to see that, and I’m beginning to be able to talk about it now.
I’m realizing that I have nothing to lose: I don’t have to be proud and try to patch up my image. I don’t have to be in denial. I don’t have to hide or lie: to him, to myself, to anyone. I am who I am. And he is who he is. He’s faithful. He’s forgiving. He’s unchanging. He’s committed to me no matter what because he already knew me when he married me, and he determined to endure the worst of my betrayal and darkness and spite himself. So he takes me back. Every time. He loves me.
And it’s this incredible heartbroken, unchanging love of his that’s starting to do something to do me. It’s starting to free me. To free me from using. From using life and everything in it to try to fill me up. I’m starting to realize that I can’t fill myself or fix myself or anything. I’m starting to realize how much I need him. I’m learning to see and to embrace that he decided to sacrifice himself for my good, my humbling, my cleansing, my healing, and my transformation, and that if I accept that – accept him – I can be satisfied. I can live out the satisfaction in him that he means for me to experience, but it won’t be all about my satisfaction and my needs being met; it will be all about him. He will be everything.
It’s kinda like the sappy post that I started off with, except that was about what I got from him (and it’s true, I do get all that from him), but I’m learning now: it’s not about getting. It’s about all of me responding to all that he is – that’s what shows how magnificent he really is. When he can take someone like me and over time, by the sheer weight of his relentless love, transform her into an adoring, faithful wife who sees both herself and him as we both really are, that really displays his greatness. So, this is our love story. It’s actually the story of his love for me, and do know you? We will live happily ever after.
