In honor of our anniversary, every day this week I am posting about something I’m thankful for in my husband–something I love or respect.
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One of the things I admired about my husband when I met him was his commitment to the truth. I don’t even remember how this came across, but I remember knowing this about him on the day we met.
At times, I’ve let myself become frustrated by this trait. If he thinks something is true, no amount of new evidence can sway him. He is loyal to ideas, he doesn’t change his mind easily (perhaps ever?), and he doesn’t have a clue why I take so long to think through things and am still living in a land of gray when he sees black and white. He does change his mind on rare occasions, but only when someone he respects is able to walk him through the new information, piece by piece.
He is truthful to the point that he cannot lie to me. He tried a couple times before we were married, and he couldn’t even get through the sentence. The first time was when we were dating. I’d had dinner at his apartment the night before, and there was some corn left in the saucepan on the stove. The next afternoon, I was at his apartment and opened his fridge and saw that same sauce pan with a little corn in it. I grew up in a house where Tupperware ruled and no food was ever put in the fridge without a lid of some kind, so my shock was obvious. I asked him, “Is that the corn from last night?” He tried to tell me that it wasn’t and just couldn’t do it. “How come the other guys can lie to their girlfriends and I can’t? Somehow that doesn’t seem fair.”
What this means is that I know I can trust him not to hide big stuff from me. I mean, I know he could try, but it would be so painful to him and obvious to me that he was hiding something that the lie wouldn’t even have time to gather a life of its own as deceptions are wont to do.
I’ve had friends whose husbands have had secret addictions to porn, drugs, and gambling. I remember the faces of former colleagues whose husbands had had affairs. In all these cases, the women have said that the lying felt like more of a betrayal than the truth itself did.
I sometimes forget to be thankful that my husband is truthful with me. Even when the truth hurts, the truth is always what he gives me. So today, I respect my husband’s truthful heart.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Ladies, if you're interested in joining me for a study of Juli Slattery's new book God, Sex, and Your Marriage, time is running out! Our study begins with introductions on February 26, 2023, but the study will be open to join until March 5.
