I need to be inoculated. I need a cure. An antidote, as it were.

Human love is like those things. It’s capable. Potent. I need it, and when administered properly, it’s up to the task. Of course, sometimes it takes routine doses over a period of time, and the results may not be immediately obvious, but it works. Can we agree that in patient, human love there is a quiet, steadfast, resilient aptitude to remove Hell from a place, or better yet, a person?

How much more so, then, could a divine love, assuming one exists, do the same.

Spring is here. It’s evident around 4pm every day when the kids get nutty and start mauling each other.

It wouldn’t be so bad except @dewdette keeps trying to come between me and my beloved technology. “Let’s go to the park!” she exclaims. “Humbug!” is my reply. At least, until I realize that I can have my cake and eat it too. “The park you say? A lovely idea. Load up the kids in the family truckster, I shall be along shortly.”

I grabbed the iPad and shot the footage on Friday, then spent the holiday weekend fiddling around with the iPad edition of iMovie. Off and on throughout the days. I might have logged 2 hours in editing. Maybe.

iMovie has some neat features, and it’s fun, but still just a novelty at this point. Especially since the iPad’s video camera is so terrible.

I love those moments.

Since then, I’ve been making a determined effort to chase my family, and specifically to seek after my wife. I don’t mean that I’m doing it in ways that are necessarily easy for me, but in ways that make the biggest impact in her weekly routine. For example she loves it when I cook breakfast for the family on Saturday morning. Cooking is one of my least favorite things to do, ever. You get the gist, this is harder than it sounds.

An Unhealthy Assumption

The closest thing I have to a life goal is sitting in the title of this blog: to become the man I should have been all along. I want to end better than I started. Who doesn’t, right? But I’ve been carrying around a hidden, unhealthy assumption in that motto. When it comes to the finer details concerning what constitutes becoming a better man, the assumption has always been that I’m the judge. I am the authority that not only holds the luxury of selecting the criteria for success, but also where exactly I measure on the scale at any given moment.

I want to reject that notion.

The practice is foolhardy when you really think about it. If I could noodle my way out of my own disfunction, chances are, I wouldn’t be in the position of needing improvement. Or perhaps I would be much further along towards being the humble, selfless, charitable, and patient person I aim to become, instead of going to bed at night often feeling defeated and regressive.

It’s a Team Sport

Very well then. Self improvement works best with teamwork, therefore I need, at the very least, one other person. A teammate. I’ll start small, with only one. Now, if only I had someone I could trust. A top draft pick! A confidant who holds my best interests at heart and is willing to love me in spite of my foul moods and selfish behaviors. You know the sort of person I’m talking about, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow free agent that can easily be wooed away by another team with a bigger budget, but a person who has been patriotically loyal to this franchise since the early years.

I’m not above using sport metaphor to encourage men to listen to their wives. Clearly.

Yes, there is one person uniquely qualified to help me be a better person and her name is Brenda. Because she is my wife she gets to see the highest, shiniest bits of my character that radiate with brilliance on my best days, and the lowest, most decayed portions that wrinkle noses on my worst. She has a front row seat whether I like it or not.

So, even though I don’t tell her often enough, I want everyone to know that she is my trustworthy advocate, my cheer leader and deliverer of tough love on my journey to become the man I should have been all along. Today, as part of my chase, I want to reaffirm her role in this area publicly, so that she knows I cannot do it alone, and to be more specific, I would not want to do it without her.

Noodling your way out of your own dysfunction requires an excruciating amount of trust, but here is the secret. It’s only excruciating when you care more about being coddled than you do about being better.

Ever get the feeling you’re chasing something you shouldn’t be chasing? I get that whisper sometimes. “Chris, what are you chasing?” Which is a silly question, because I know what I’m chasing. The whisper, on most days, can be deciphered like this, “Chris, you’re chasing the wrong thing.”

The whisper. What a pain.

But I listen because I don’t want to spend my days chasing the wrong thing. Things like dollar signs. Like approval from faceless strangers. Like video game scores. That stuff doesn’t satisfy my soul.

I want to chase my children. I want to chase my wife. I want to pursue them and enjoy them and build them up. I want to stop being consumed with myself for just 5 [expletive deleted] minutes. I want to lead them with the heart of a servant.

But “the chase,” by itself, isn’t enough.

I want to win the chase, and actually capture them, I want to capture them so they know what it is like to risk their hearts to another person and have that trust honored. They need to know it’s possible. They need this, they deserve this, and it’s my responsibility to deliver for them to be whole.

So today, I commit myself to the chase.

I give up and say, “Alright. We’re done. Put down the toys and let’s go to bed right now.” I’m not yelling with my volume, this time, but I certainly am yelling with my tone. They relent with very little push-back and march up the stairs to get ready.

“Will you read us a story?” Savannah asks on the way up the stairs. “No I will not,” I snap. “But why?” comes her plea. “Because stories are a privilege for little girls who play nice with each other and listen to their mommies and daddies,” I exhume tersely.

Both girls finish brushing thier teeth and climb into bed. I’ve had time to calm down in the interim. As soon as I turn out the light, to seal the deal on this bedtime routine, Savannah asks to break protocol and go potty. Of course. “Yes, but hurry. It’s sleeping time.”

Now, Savannah is 3 years old and history suggests that I shouldn’t trust her to finish quickly, turn off the light, and get back in bed of her own accord. All that to say, I have 3 – 5 minutes to spare while I wait.

I approach Sydney’s bed and kneel down beside it. Our faces are close and I can see her giant brown eyes despite the darkness. “Can I ask you some questions?”  I say in a somber voice.

“Yes,” she squeaks.

“How does your heart feel?” I whisper.

She takes her eyes off me and answers, “It feels sad.”

“Why?” I venture, as if I don’t already know the answer.

She can’t help but make eye contact with me again before she delivers, “Because you yelled at me.”

“I don’t like yelling at you,” I respond softly, my eyes adjusting to the dark so I can see her more clearly. I notice that she looks concerned at my answer.

“Why not, Daddy? … Is it because you don’t like sad hearts?” I can’t help but smile at her logic, and I confirm her suspicions, “Yes, I don’t like sad hearts.” But then I add with seriousness, “Especially yours.”

She is smiling now. She liked that answer and she is aware that she has my full attention. Plus, I think she saw me smile.

“Would you like to pray with me?” I ask.

“Sure.”

“Dear God, please help me and Sydney have happy hearts, not sad ones. And please help us be good listeners and not be people who yell at the ones we love. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Savannah makes her way back into her bed on the other side of the room. She doesn’t speak but I can feel her watching our outlined forms in the dark.

“Daddy, can I ask you a question?” Sydney interjects, before I have a chance to get up from my knees.

“Sure, honey,” I reply.

“How does your heart feel?”

That ruckus you hear is the sound of tables turning. I think for a moment and then with a resolute quietness in my voice I breath, “It feels thankful.” She plays right into my hands when she asks me, “Why?”

“Well, because it’s glad you’re my little girl,” I respond. I don’t say it out loud, but I’m also feeling thankful for the opportunity to affirm her one more time before the day ends.

“Can I pray Daddy?” Oh, I didn’t see that one coming. But maybe I should have. I see now that she is following my pattern of questions.

“Of course you can, Syd. Always.”

“God, thank you for listening to my Daddy and obeying him to make his prayer come true. Aaaamen.”

“Amen” I whisper, risking blasphemy.

A kiss. A hug. And a move to the next bed. Savannah is laying there expectantly. She’s wearing a one-piece sleeper, the kind with a zipper the length of the Orient Express, and she’s laying on her hands which are tucked behind her back.

“Savannah, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes!” She blurts out with 1000 smiles.

“How does your heart feel?”

Still grinning from ear to ear, her hands wiggling behind her, “It feels thankful.”

Ah, we have a copy cat. “Why does it feel thankful?” I’m half hoping for something akin to “Because you’re my Daddy!” but instead I’m greeted with, “Because you let me go potty!”

Before I can begin the appreciate her comedic timing, she continues, “I’m going to pray. Dear-God-thank-your-for-this-food-and-thank-you-for-making-the-whole-world-in-jeezname-amen.”

“Amen.”

This is part 3 in a multi-part series that starts here.

When I imagine divorce I see in my mind a common person balancing in the center of tightrope. They balance precariously, looking from one platform to the other, wondering which journey to make, the one towards marriage, or the one towards divorce. It is safe to assume that both routes carry risk and associated dangers and now that I think about it, neither platform is really, truly “in sight”. There is a haze masking them from view.

It takes great determination for this person to stay still and maintain balance in the middle of the rope, let alone move in a direction. So there they stay, legs wobbling, airplane-arms outstretched, physically and mentally paralyzed.

How does a person in such a predicament move in any direction, let alone the one towards marriage? By process of elimination. A judgement call must be made here. One of these two paths must be the better, and therefore the other must be the worse.

If you want to save your marriage you must first believe something very unpopular and counter-cultural about divorce.

3. Believe That Divorce Is Worse

Marriages die. They don’t dissolve or evaporate or otherwise disappear without a trace. They die and they leave their rotting, stinking carcass for all to see. We try to mitigate the smell with aerosol cans full of sympathetic eyes and listening ears and affirming nods but the stains are still there, plain as day, long after the haze of benign advice has evaporated without leaving streaks.

One of the noteworthy things about death is that loved ones closest to the deceased are changed forever. If you are a child of divorce, or if you are married to one, then you know this is true. There will be fallout and it will ricochet through lives like a pinball thrust down a chute and slammed mercilessly around a machine.

Again I refer to C.S. Lewis:

Christianity teaches that marriage is for life. There is, of course, a difference here between different Churches … [but] they all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation. Some of them think the operation so violent that it cannot be done at all; others admit it as a desperate remedy in extreme cases. They are all agreed that it is more like having both your legs cut off than it is like dissolving a business partnership or even deserting a regiment. What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another, or when either of them falls in love with someone else.

I think most married couples fool themselves in the end. They “legally separate” and find a comfortable routine with less fighting and more harmony. First they think to themselves, “This isn’t so bad.” And that leads to, “It will probably look like this after the divorce, too.” Those thoughts are reenforced with “Surely this is better than the hurtful words and fighting and tears before we separated!”

The fallacy here, I believe, is ignoring the reality that when you divorce you trade in one set of problems for another, while still retaining key behaviors that contributed to the divorce in the first place. And lets be realistic here, you really are gambling about which set of problems are worse. It is easy and foolish to assume that problems will be removed and that is all. It takes almost no effort to overlook the reality that divorce is not a removal at all, but actually, an exchange. In fact, divorce is a life-long trade made with insufficient information during a period of mental exhaustion and emotional duress.

How on Earth can a wise decision be made during, or immediately following, a period of such magnificent handicap?

It can’t.

I have watched men and women, whom I love, sprint towards divorce and the whole time I’m thinking NO! NO! NO! Do NOT sprint towards divorce! Run the marathon of forgiveness! And grace! And love! This is not a simple readjustment of partners, don’t you realize that you are about to undergo surgery and neither you, nor your loved ones in the waiting room, will ever be the same again?

In light of all this it is my argument that in most cases I’ve witnessed, and as a default position, divorce is nearly always the worse decision of the two.

If you are considering divorce right now please ask yourself this question. Am I trying to make things better? Or am I trying to make things easy?

[image: theophene_guy]

Remember, this series of posts is for the future, adult versions of my children in the event that they face the decision between staying married and securing a divorce. Do I know people in difficult mariages right now? Of course I do. Quite a number of them actually. Do I want each spouse in all the various couples to read this stuff?

Without question.

But don’t assume this post is about you. The #1 reason I write this blog is for my children to know the younger version of Brenda and I.

So, if you’ve made it this far I’m going to assume that you didn’t altogether disagree with part 1. If you thought I was flamboyantly idealistic in the first part then you can relax a little. I have no intention of getting all inspirational and stuff on this one. Actually, I’m going to employ a different tactic and you should probably stop reading now. I’m almost certain you’re going to be offended because I don’t know of a nice way to convince someone to not be a liar.

2. Believe That Promises Should Be Kept

A marriage is a promise at least and a binding contract at most. We make promises and enter into contracts for a reason. I shouldn’t have to say this but feelings are a terrible reason! Would you advise that someone make a lifelong promise because of how they felt for a certain season of life? I hope not. So why then would you choose to break a promise under the same conditions? If you’re trying to solve your way out of a problem I’d like to recommend not using the same toolset that got you into trouble to begin with.

I believe that in most cases this is what divorce is at it’s root: It is a lifelong decision made because of the absence of the feeling recognized as “being in love.” A promise, however, should be kept regardless of the presence, or absence, of this feeling. I can’t be more plain than that.

C.S. Lewis writes:

And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.

If you want to save your marriage you have to believe in promises, and not just the ones that others have made to you. Have you not, your whole life, been a staunch advocate for others to keep their promises to you?

Haven’t you?

Another question, how many of the arguments that moved your marriage to this point were caused because your spouse broke a promise to you?

I see.

Look. All I am asking, or rather all I am challenging you to do, is esteem your own promises above all others or shut up already about what anyone else owes you.

If you want to save your marriage you need to believe that promises should be kept. Especially yours. Especially when it’s hard.

[Go to Part 3]

This is part 1 of a multi-part series.

I’ve never had to rescue my marriage from the jaws of divorce so everything I am about to write can be chalked up to idle speculation and whimsy.

Last year I watched two dear, close, married friends casually realize that they were no longer in love with each other. They were happy and successful at the time and they just sort of grew apart. You know how it is, things change, people change, it just happens. It was nobody’s fault really and the divorce proceedings were quite amicable. Remarkably, their friendship has actually been strengthened by the whole thing.

Last year I watched two dear, close, married friends emotionally rape each other for a while, tire of it, and then do the only sensible and humane thing. They wrestled their wedding vows into a sack, dragged them off into the woods squealing and thrashing, bound them to a stump, and blew their collective brains out.

One of these two stories is true and it really doesn’t matter to me which one. I don’t want either to be the story that my kids recite about themselves when catching up with long lost friends. So, in the event that they do face difficult times in marriage, I want to go on the record with how I believe one can be saved.

1. Believe That Love Is Not An Emotion

I heard a man say once that love is not an emotion. What he said was:

“Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, that leads to action on behalf of it’s object.“

If this is true then we’ve been taught a lie. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been told that love is something that happens to me and not the other way around. It’s something I “fall” into and “fall” out of. That love is quite unpredictable and equally out of my control. I’ve been taught that love is an emotion.

But love is not a feeling. It is grander and more noble a thing than that. Another way to say it is that love is not merely biochemical. It is not a rush of endorphins or the perfect cocktail of serotonin. It sort of sounds silly until you realize that some of the most epic and inspiring acts of love are those that are expressed in direct opposition to personal feelings. Like when a wife forgives her husband’s infidelity, not because she is feeling at all loving or sentimental, but because she is honoring the love she felt in the past and choosing to believe she will feel it again in the future.

Let me tell you about emotions. Emotions go on vacation. They leave and forget to bring you with them. Or they blend in with the scenery like a chameleon so that you cannot detect them. Or they go to work and they stay there, sending your husband home every night without them, so that it seems like he is only alive when he is away from you.

But love? Love is different. Love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion. It is more intricate, more ornate, and more holy than a simple feeling could ever aspire to be.

If you want to save your marriage then the first step is to believe that love is not merely an emotion.

[Go to Part 2]

Elliot,

I’d like to apologize in advance because I’m going to wrong you. As sure as I know anything I know that when it comes to the task of raising a son, I will fail. You need a certain type of man to teach you the things necessary to find peace in your life. In moments when I feel the most intellectually sober I realize that I just don’t have what it takes.

I thought about this today as I held your hands and let you walk upright across the floor. You chirped and growled as we made our way from one end of the room to the other.

You were feeling big and I was feeling small.

The absurdity of the moment was not lost to me. I was your strength for you are not yet strong enough to carry yourself. I was also your confidence for you showed no fear. In that moment, I was able to meet every one of your blossoming needs and my heart whimpered  a wish for it to always be.

So tonight as I confess to you for future, nameless wrongs that I will undoubtedly feel powerless to circumvent, I want to also issue you a prayer disguised as a promise.

I will never stop trying.

You and your sisters and your Mommy deserve more than I have the capacity to produce most days. And while I cannot manufacture something that isn’t there, I can lean hard in the direction of something that is. First, recognition of my condition and second, the raw and unfettered determination that is growing in me to prove myself wrong.

I love you, son.

Daddy