Good evening and happy Saturday. I was talking earlier about my husband’s capacity to forgive. Now I want to honor him with the fact that not only do I admire his capacity to do so and not only do I find it fascinating how loving and caring he is of other people. He isn’t afraid to put himself out there and yes, he does get disappointed and sometimes he is hurt – but that doesn’t prevent him from doing it again and again.
He Makes Me Better
Trust is a difficult enough issue for me. Saying I’m sorry or admitting to vulnerability is even harder. I grew up in a tempestuous household where verbal and physical attacks occurred. I know what it is to have your feelings or convictions dismissed by others. I’ve known that what was most valuable to me I had to keep intensely private or risk ridicule or worse – exposure of my vulnerabilities to a verbal or emotional lampooning.
My husband has known a great deal of love, acceptance and encouragement in his life and he delivers on that promise every single day. In the ten plus years we’ve been together, I’ve found that trusting others and opening myself up to the potential vulnerability of those relationships is more likely than less likely.
His generous spirit encourages me to be more optimistic about how things will turn out. He’s taught me to assume good intentions and that just because my sister-in-law is in a bad mood and terse, she may not be irritated with me or even thinking about me at all. She could just be wrapped up in her own problems and in a perverse way, she doesn’t have to put on a mask with me.
The Perversity of Love
Love is perverse in that fashion. When we love someone and we know they love us, many times we know that they will be there for us no matter how badly behaved we are. When they fish for compliments, they aren’t trying to be irritating or a martyr, they are looking for the reassurance of the love and acceptance they know is there.
When they let us see the dark along with the light – we know there is love there. Because love forgives, love accepts and love embraces even that which we don’t care for in ourselves. My husband makes me a better person, because he has taught me all these things and while I wish I was more like him sometimes – I know that I don’t have to be.
You see, because he loves me – for who I am – just as I love him for who he is.