With my wife standing next to me as I was checking into our ritzy hotel yesterday for our anniversary, we were greeted by a hotel desk clerk who had what seemed like a little haughtiness about him. Or maybe he just needed a vacation. In any case, with barely a smile, he greeted us, “Hello. How may I help you?”
I said, “Hi. Checking in for Manuel Scott.”
While he searched his computer for our reservation, I tried to soften his smugness a little by letting him in on the good news: “It’s good to be here. We are celebrating our 12-year wedding anniversary.”
I don’t even think he smiled.
Then, out of nowhere, my wife said, “12 years a slave.”
The desk clerk lost it. He bent over and busted out laughing.
My Alice has always had a way cheering people up, and that’s just one of the many reasons I adore her.
We’ve been married 12 years today. Even though marriage may have felt like slavery at times, overall, it has been a great 12 years. I must admit, though, that the feelings I have right now about marriage are very unfamiliar.
In all seriousness, I am at a very unfamiliar, and sometimes uncomfortable, place in my life, and I have been trying to figure out why I feel this way. As I celebrate this anniversary, I share my rambling thoughts with you, hoping that my reflections on my own journey might be an encouragement to you.
As I tried to figure out why this space I’m in feels so strange, I realized that I don’t have a reference point of what a healthy, happy marriage looks like. Other than what I have seen on The Cosby Show, I have not had a real-life example of how to build a healthy, happy marriage. I have never been close enough to a man who has been happily married. Sure, I’ve known a few men in my life who have been married, but I have not spent enough time with any of them to know what their marriages were really like. How do they handle disagreements? How do they resolve conflict? How do they navigate discussions about money, faith, children, family, disappointment, fear, success, etc.? Even if their marriages were/are solid, I have not had the privilege of spending enough time with them to observe how they have dealt with the challenges I have faced as a man, husband, father, or friend.
My father never married my mother, and was not around for most of my life; my first step-father and mother separated when I was five years old; my second step-father was married to my mom for under a decade. I once had a pastor who seemed like he had a good marriage, but I was barely fifteen years old, and I could not have cared less about the subject of marriage.
Therefore, I am pretty sure I have I felt so strange about my anniversaries lately because I’ve never been here before, and nobody I have spent a considerable amount of time with has ever made it this far either. Because of that, I have been on my own, trying to find my own way; and, the road has been anything but ideal.
Given this reality, how, then, have I been able to have such a happy, healthy, and fulfilling marriage? Why are things working out so well? Shouldn't I have ruined it by now?
As I reflect on the road I’ve taken, it has become clear to me that a lot of who I am today as a man and husband, and how I live my life, is largely because of what I have been running from. For years I have been driven by the desire to be different from the men who hurt my mother during my childhood. I’ve been running from the examples of those men. I never wanted to be like them. Some of them partied and went to clubs all the time, so I decided that I would not party or club; some were alcoholics, so I decided that I would not drink alcohol; some were drug addicts, so I decided that I would not do drugs (Although I did go through a phase of getting drunk and smoking weed before I made the decision to turn my life around); some were verbally and mentally abusive, so I made a decision to never call women out of their names; some were physically abusive, so I made the decision to never put my hands on a woman; some cheated, so I made a decision that I would never violate my wife’s trust; most of them spent very little time with their children, so I made a decision to one day love, cherish, play with, and cultivate my children. I have been running pretty hard to be a contrarian.
Upon further reflection about how I have been able to enjoy such a rich and fulfilling marriage, it has become clearer to me that it might also have something to do with what I have been running to. I have been running to a very particular future. For me, when I think about the final moments of my life, I have a picture in my head of what I hope those moments will be like. I hope to have my wife there. I see myself holding her hand, and looking into her eyes, one last time. I see us reminiscing about our life together. I see us smiling, one more time, at all of the great, and fun, and silly things we did to bring ourselves and others joy (Like we did on our honeymoon in New Orleans, when we danced in the hotel elevator thinking no one could see us, only to be greeted, on our way out of the hotel, by security and staff whose huge grins hinted that they had been watching our elevator routines on hidden cameras. We were so embarrassed! But we kept on dancing, even harder, giving them some dance routines that they would never forget).
In the final moments of my life, I see my Alice and I looking back at the many breathtaking memories we made as we journeyed through life together: memories of us backpacking through Europe for six weeks; memories of embracing one another as we stood atop Victoria’s Peak in Hong Kong overlooking one of world’s most gorgeous views; memories of us crawling down the long, dark tunnels, into the center, of the Great Pyramids of Giza, in Cairo, Egypt; memories of us snorkeling in the deep water off the coast of Maui, where three huge whales were hanging out; memories of us RVing through forty-six states with three small children; memories of us exposing our kids, and ourselves, to the beauty and spendor of God's creation...
I see myself, in my final hours, looking into the eyes of my beloved wife, and cherishing the many great times we had. And, there, in those precious moments, it is my prayer that she will know that I honored our marriage vows; that, through it all, I stayed faithful to her.
On that final day, I also see myself holding my children by their hands, one by one, and telling them how much they have changed my life. I see myself connecting with each of them, one by one, about the first time I heard their hearts beat. I see us reminiscing about all of the great moments we had together. The first steps, the family trips, the campfires, the skiing, the sledding, the snowball fights, the wrestling matches, the graduations, the games, the marriages, the grandchildren, the quality times we shared…I see us enjoying, one last time, with a full heart, the highlights of our lives, together. I hope that, on that day, they will know that they have been more dear to me than my own heart’s blood. And, I want them to not only believe, but know, that I have truly loved, and stayed faithful to, them and their mother.
Then, when I take my final breath, and lay down my earthly garments, and step from time into eternity, I want to be able to bow in the presence of my God, and hear Him say, “well done, my good faith faithful servant. You have fought the good fight. You have finished your race. You have kept the faith. Well done.”
I know that in order to make these present hopes of mine a future reality, I must stay faithful to my dear, sweet Alice. My desired future, and fulfillment, is inextricably, and intimately linked to my loyalty to, and love for, her. Although I know it won’t be easy to get to that place, I am willing to keep working at it, because it’s worth it. She’s worth it. I am more in love with her today than I was twelve years ago. Without her, I would be a completely different man: more angry, unforgiving, and abrasive. Without her, I would have made a lot more mistakes. Without her, my life would be so much more empty. I would not be where I am, or who I am, without her. Her wisdom, her patience, her kindness, and her love. Her. Because of her, I am more open to love. Because of her, I am more whole than I’ve ever been. Because of her, I am closer to becoming the man God has created me to be. We’ve been together so long now that I can’t really imagine my life without her. I don’t want to. When I walk through cities that we have visited, I think of her. Wherever I go, I want to be there with her. My greatest joys I want to share with her. My deepest fears feel safest around her. Her. My Alice. Even when she is, as my 83-year-old father-in-law jokes, "old and ugly," I’ll still want her, because she’ll still be mine, and she’ll still be beautiful.
So, even though this place that I am in is so unfamiliar, and uncomfortable, I am okay with it, because I am with her, and it is working. Quite well. With her. My Alice.
Here are posts from my 8th, 9th, and 10th year anniversaries.