New husbands always think they know everything… Or maybe that’s teenagers… or maybe that’s men… or maybe that’s 4-year-olds…? Hmm, maybe everyone thinks that they know everything? Could it be pandemic? Sure seems like it. Liberals, conservatives; red, blue; young, old; men, women; single, married, divorced, widowed; right, wrong, you name it—everybody has got the answers. Including me! So, listen up…
Six months ago, I said “I do” to the woman of my dreams. She’s spunky, adorable, massively talented in the arts, smarter than I’ll ever dream of being, and understands me in ways I don’t even understand myself. She was, quite literally, made for me.
It all began with a comment on the Facebooks, which led to a conversation about how we are “creators, made in the image of our Creator, for the purpose of creating things out of the things that He has created.” (a conversation that started on Day 1, and still continues on our Beyond the Garden Podcast—check it out!) Next thing I know, I’m traveling over 700 miles to meet this incredible woman, see some pretty flowers, meet her family, eat at a random Applebee’s in Pennsylvania, and fly home after 21 hours. It was a whirlwind tour that set me on the path to wedded bliss. And I still can’t believe that I ever got caught up in it!
I’m not a storm chaser, by any means. I don’t go looking for social excitement. In fact, prior to asking Elissa (that’s the lucky lady’s name) if we could meet, I’d really only ever asked a very small handful of girls to go out on dates. I’d certainly never said, “Can I fly 704 miles to take you out for a mediocre lunch at your favorite neighborhood bar and grill?”
And yet, here I am! Married! And I got to tell you, it’s been easier than I was led to believe it would be. And I have some ideas as to why…
Elissa and I were told, from the time we were both children, that marriage would be the hardest, most difficult, most annoying, and most arduous relationship either of us would ever experience. Yeah, there’d be some fun parts too, but for the most part, we expected struggle. Sure enough, there’s been struggle… But it hasn’t been a struggle against one another, it’s been a struggle alongside one another.
I think that this may be in part because we got married at an older age. I was 31 and she was 29. Additionally, we had spent the vast majority of our lives serving our families at the expense of our own selves—thus, marriage, for us, has been an incredibly freeing and liberating experience. We aren’t tied down to anybody other than one another (and we happen to really like one another, so it’s cool).
We’re also both very deferential. In fact, when we fight (if they can be called “fights”), it’s usually a case of trying to “out-defer” one another.
(Kinda weird lookin fights, frankly… “What do you want for dinner?” “I don’t know… what do YOU want for dinner?” “I want what YOU want, so what do YOU want?…” you see where this is going, and yes, it IS that obnoxious.)
We both had already experienced significant hardships prior to entering marriage. Getting married wasn’t just a newfound freedom of sorts, it was a partnership unlike anything either of us had known—somebody to encourage, and have your back, and razz you when you need it, and to faithfully wound and faithfully bind up your wounds… all without the baggage (warranted or not) that family brings.
Will the “freshness” of the whole situation eventually wear off? Sure. It would be foolish to assume otherwise. But this intervening time is perfect for growing our relationship and strengthening our bond with one another and with God, so that when harder times do hit us, we’re ready to weather them together.
Similarly to the first point, we didn’t walk into this marriage with our eyes closed. We weren’t little kids, fresh out of school (or still IN school), desperately wanting a marriage certificate/permission slip to “do it”. We weren’t dreamy-eyed lovers, embarking upon our fairytale adventure, looking for our happily-ever-after. And we weren’t naïve children, swept up on a wave of emotion and ignorance, which threatened to undo us because we were just “too young to know any better” or we “weren’t ready for it” or we “didn’t have any knowledge of the world”. And yes, we encountered all of these attitudes and opinions in our quest for premarital counseling—ironically, most of these opinions were from Christian men and women who should have known us much, much better. Both of us had seen marriages rise and fall, and rise and continue rising, and rise and plateau. We both knew what was possible, we knew what it took, and quite frankly, we entered into marriage far better equipped than most of the people that weighed in on whether we were ready or not.
I don’t say any of this to belittle or disfavor anybody who counseled us. We received a great many wonderful pieces of wisdom, from a great many sources. (I had no idea there was more than one “secret to marriage.” …apparently there’s thousands!) I simply am trying to make the point that we were far more prepared for marriage than anyone seemed to think was possible for two crazy kids… But that’s the thing… we weren’t kids. We were grown people, with a combined 20 years outside of teenagedom.
Alright, at the risk of sounding bitter (which I’m not), whiny (which I’m not intending to be), unappreciative (which I so am not), or childish (which would undermine my entire point), I will get on with my blog post.
It’s been a while since I wrote on here, and so I’ll ask your forgiveness now as I tell you that all of this was merely introduction. There was a lot to catch you up on, and a lot that’s been rattling around my head, and now I’m back to tell you what I’ve discovered…
THE SECRET TO MARRIAGE!
Dun dun DUNNNN!!!!
(I remember now… it WAS new husbands…)
So, I don’t know if this is a secret, or if it should BE a secret, but it’s quickly become a foundational part of our marriage: I brush Elissa’s hair.
That’s right.
I brush her hair.
I! Brush! Her! Milkshake! (wait, that’s the wrong movie…)
I brush Elissa’s hair. Not every day, but often enough. And there’s a very specific reason behind it…
As far as I am aware, most men don’t brush their wives’ hair. Let alone BALD men, like me. But it’s important to me that I do this for her, that I serve her in gentleness in this way. Sure I could take the garbage to the street, or grab things off the top shelf, or punch mountain lions in the face to show her I love her, and I do all those things! But, to step outside of myself, and do something for her that I can’t even do for myself… That’s different.
Heck, I had to LEARN HOW TO BRUSH HAIR to serve her this way. I didn’t know what I was doing! I didn’t know not to start right at the scalp with a fine-tooth comb and just yank straight down! (That’s how Ariel did it in The Little Mermaid when I was like 6.)
I had to learn!
I had to learn to start with a brush or a wider comb, down at the ends of the hair, and slowly make my way up, providing pressure and tension when I encounter a tangle, instead of just brute forcing my way through it. I had to learn how to be gentle, attentive, and caring when tending to my wife’s hair.
And then… Then I had to learn to let her turn the tables on me…
I had to learn to let her shave my head.
I’m largely bald, so I shave my head every other day.
Elissa learned how to do that.
I had to learn to sit still, and to breathe, and to trust my wife (who knicks her legs now and then) to put a razor to my scalp.
In my ten years of shaving my head, I’ve accidentally cut myself once. ONCE.
The thought of somebody else shaving my head and cutting me freaks me out. But I’ve learned to let my Ellie-girl serve me in this way, even as I wash, condition, and brush her hair for her.
But why?
Why not just bring her breakfast in bed? Why not just rub her tired feet? Why not just give her an extra cuddle now and then?
Well, those things happen. Frequently.
But those things come naturally to me.
Brushing hair does not.
Furthermore, it’s a skill that I have absolutely zero other use for. It is something that my hands do exclusively in service to my wife. I can’t even brush my own hair! (Did I mention I’m bald?)
Gentlemen, I may be a newly married man, but I firmly believe I have discovered one of the many ballyhooed “secrets to marriage”…
Brush her hair!
Beyond the Garden 