The secret to a happy marriage - Part two

I got such great response to last week’s column (high five to GS for her corrections to my obvious misunderstand of the facts) that I simply must further expound on this important subject. I owe it to every man out there that desires to make their marriage work. I cannot and will not attempt to council a single woman, so if you are of the gentler persuasion, put down the paper and work on your honey-do list.  By the way, I’m not proficient at cat-herding either.

Men, pay attention to what I write next.  Contrary to popular myth, we really do want to be the ideal husband and be that imaginary knight in shining armor. We just fail because we bulldoze our way through life. We are men and frankly, I personally am not disposed to apologizing because I am.

Our idea of what is expected in a marriage is pretty much what we’ve learned watching our parents, neighbors, and the television. On all counts a lot of it is wrong. Add in two or three step parents and the infighting that goes on with ex’s, and you pretty much enter marriage with all the wrong info and as soon as the gushiness wears off, the flaws in your thinking are pointed out.

The real secret here is finding a woman who wants you to be this awesome guy and is willing to hang with you while they help you develop. This can take the patience of Job by the way. You see, what she sees in marriage is nothing more than a prototype (full-scale working model of something built for study, testing or display); a block of malleable clay soft enough to mold into that perfect shape of a husband.  Most – no all men believe the girl/woman they wed is the woman of their dreams. They fully expect her to be what they married ten years down the road.

Surprise! Women have endurance and can be exceedingly difficult to read. They rarely are honest when it comes to revealing what they really expect and fully expect you to clairvoyantly see this. Tomes have been written on this phenomenon and I won’t repeat it.

“She attracts him like a bee to a flower and her allure is in her affection and sole commitment to him as her everything,” one fellow opined. Oh my goodness is he in for a major surprise. This is true of course; she is all of that, but the total package is elusive and must be earned again and again at her discretion. If he can endure, as she is surely worth it, he will get rewarded, albeit in carefully scripted measure.

It is a fact written in stone that wives meter out affection as a reward for jobs well done and this is one thing that can be a major contention in marriage. The sooner the husband understands that this is simply the way it is, the quicker he can begin playing the game for the prize. Any other way in, makes him as a burglar and a bumbler and doomed to be a thug or a joke.

I love my Bride. I married her when she was 17 and me?  25. I was a worldly man with experience – or so I thought. I give her my all; my soul, my heart and after all these years, she still guards her inner sanctum. I tell her she is my soul mate and she won’t commit. It took a long time for me to figure out this intricate puzzle to a reasonable conclusion.

Vulnerability. In my clumsy man-ways, I have no problem exposing my underbelly to her. She’s worth it to me to expose my weaknesses. She plays her cards closer to her heart. There’s a bit of her she reserves for herself and maybe Jesus, but even after all these years, I am still held at half length.

That’s women for you. I understand and that is one of the secrets of a happy marriage. As a man, you can’t give 50, 60, or even 80% to her. You have to give all. What you get in return is what she will is willing to give you. Now I’m not talking about being walked on; not even a little bit. I am talking about two people in a committed relationship who are faithful to each other and actually love each other.

My commitment to my Bride has always been one of a provider of security.  This goes far further than having a shiny car, or cool walk. I have provided a safe avenue for my Bride to raise our children and not worry about where the next meal will come from. I have been there for her during times of stress and worry. I have enjoyed her company more than being with my friends. She is my best friend and that my friends, is the real secret to a happy marriage.
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Keeping Busy Enjoying Life!

Delicious home baked Oatmeal and raisin cookies!

 A lot has happened in the last two weeks and some of it was the mundane, but a lot of it was planned fun.  I give it to you in photographs!

My Bride and I riding a trail in Seabrook, Texas!

Geocaching and reading about Amos Barber in Mont Belvieu, Texas

I repaired six computers for folks around town.

My friend Tom Davenport worked on my kayak trailer after work.

My Bride talking to a fishing guide in Galveston, Texas about a Atlantic sharknose shark.

We stayed in the Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas

We rode the Galveston ferry.

We ate ice cream at Ben and Jerry's.

Geocaching on bicycles in La Porte, Texas

My Bride made Chicken and shrimp jambalaya and gumbo

My son in law and I geocaching in Baytown

The Girl in the Swing

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be married to just one woman. I had and still have no desire to play the field in search of some green pasture which incidentally does not exist and to my credit I still believe this.

In my immature late teens and early tweens I dashed to and fro like my peers, checking out this flower and that, but always in the back of my mind I had it in me to settle down and prove my worth to one and only one lady. In 1976, I met her. I was 24 and she was just 16.

Now before you break your jaw as it slaps your knee, let me explain. I met her in church and we did not begin dating until she was 17 and then a “date” meant getting a bite to eat after church and then I would drive her home and ne'er a kiss was exchanged until we were engaged. We both embraced fundamental Christianity and still do to this day and because of this, we practiced restraint.

On Valentine's Day in 1977, I asked her to be my Bride and this is how I see her today. I would love to say that I rode up on a white steed, or did something terribly romantic, but the truth is, we were both under the weather and I asked for her hand on the telephone.

Although I have uttered a lot of words in my life, both good and bad, I had reserved “I love you” for the woman I truly loved and after telling her those words numerous times the day before, I realized she was “the one” and while chatting on the phone that night in 1977, I unexpectedly blurted out that I wanted to marry her and that’s the rest of the story. She accepted and 7 months later, 2 weeks shy of her 18th birthday, we stood at the altar inside Peace Tabernacle on N. Main Street and became husband and wife.

On our first “date” we left service kind of late (as Pentecostals are known to do) and being hungry and thirsty and naïve, I thought I would impress her by taking her to Alexander Drive to the new drive-through hamburger joint named “The Varsity” located where Knowlton Ave. intersects with N. Alexander Dr. Now at this time I was jogging about 5 miles per day and with all the singing and “amen’s” at church service, I was powerful thirsty...and ravenous for some burgers and fries

Wanting to impress this young lady with my ability to drink large quantities of soda, I ordered Varsity’s largest drink, a 44-ounce full sugar Coke and 2 cheeseburgers and large order of fries, to her small diet-drink and no food order. I owned a sub-compact car at the time, as I do now and as the window employee handed the extra-large drink down to me, it tipped and landed topside down in my lap. Ice cold, sugary Coca-Cola quenched my bravado, my ego and my pride in one exaggerated nanosecond.

That was our first date and now 32 years later, we still laugh about it. In our purity, we met on a regular basis in her front yard and she would sit in the large tree swing her Dad built and I on the ground and we would talk about our future, or rather I would talk and she would listen (that pretty much went out the window about 20 years ago).

She is still my girl in the swing and my Bride. I am a clod and she is my Princess. I have many detractors, but to my knowledge, she has none. May God have mercy on me if I ever find myself in the single mans shoes again, because I will need supreme guidance to recover from the loss of her and hopeless to find another...girl in the swing.