Dear Kate

The last few years have been an intense journey of discovery—a journey that required digging deep to find common ground with my husband. It was the type of experience that helped me to understand that I will need to be extra careful in commenting on or passing judgment when other relationships flounder or end. It was a most profound struggle to understand what is important in life. It was yet another time, after discussing my struggle with my husband, that we decided to choose each other again, without a promise of resolution or the outcome. It was yet again a time of agreeing to disagree in some areas. I realized that one of the most profound areas where my husband is a gift to me is to be a mirror and to highlight the fears in the deepest recesses of my heart. For example, where I want him to tell me, “You can do it, Kate,” I have realized that I can grow to provide that encouragement to myself. I am finding the value in doing an excellent job simply because it feels good to know I have done well, instead of waiting and hoping someone else will recognize my efforts. It has been difficult for my husband to be emotionally available to me because of the painful things written on the slate of his heart in his youth. But because of this, I have chosen to seek God to fill the void I have felt, who is really the one who was intended to fill it from the beginning. I did this as opposed to continually expecting my husband to fill this void or by finding another person to fill it. If I had done that, I might not have discovered the sweet relationship with my heavenly Father, who satisfies my heart unlike any other. I realize to a greater degree just how delighted God is with me, his beloved daughter. He has shown himself to be relentlessly kind in his caretaking of me. He has my back even in the times I cannot see it. I can almost hear him say, “Look at her. That’s my girl.” This does not mean that I quit contending for a closer relationship with the best man in my life, my husband; it simply means that my heart is satisfied in drinking from the well-spring of life that flows continually between my heart and God, and each improved state of the relationship with my husband and me is an added blessing. We are both still growing and discovering new things about each other, just as we do with God. I understand that the reason many marriages do not thrive is because of the inability for one or both people in the relationship to overcome the pain of their youths, and the habits we develop to distract ourselves from the voids we feel help us avoid facing the lack we feel. Often, we are looking for others to convince us of our value and to distract us from the desperation we feel to have our needs met. We end up competing instead of realizing that there is enough love for everyone and that we are on the same team. When each of us has a personal relationship with God, we can come together, supporting each other out of the abundance of love flowing from each of us. You have heard the saying that “life is what you make it” many times. It bears telling here that I have found it to be a beautiful personal truth. For many years, I struggled with what my marriage really was, compared to what I had originally envisioned. But when I finally understood that I get to decide how I respond to what I have been given and what I have chosen, even if I chose it by default, it changed my whole outlook on life. I kept wanting the fairy tale and felt afraid that choosing my marriage by default instead of being intentional meant that I might be missing a better life somewhere else. What life taught me instead is that, wherever I am, there is enough love to give and receive here today, instead of looking for it somewhere out there and in another person. The man I have been married to for more than twenty-seven years has the qualities and characteristics I wanted in a life partner. It is OK that I discovered this truth many miles into my relationship with him, for if this was not my life experience, there would be a different one that was just as messy. If I had called it quits on our marriage, I believe I would have had to learn the same life lessons with the next partner farther down the road, since happiness is not found in another human being. It is found in my relationship with my loving heavenly Father. Between God and me, I learn the secrets to life and learn the lessons and experiences I came to this life to learn and have.