Standing in the airport's long check-in line I couldn't help overhearing the thirtyish couple standing ahead of us.
The petite wife pushed her long dark hair behind her ear and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I just don't want to leave this place. My mom is here and all my friends," she said between sobs.
"I know, I know," her husband said, wrapping his burly arms around her.
He stared off in the distance, then said, "Look, we've talked this over so many times and we have to go. The decision is made. We agreed we can't pass up this opportunity. Remember?"
She nodded, tears streaking her cheeks.
"It will be okay, Hon, I know it will. Can't we just go and try to be happy?"
At that moment the airlines clerk beckoned them forward.
Meeting up again
When we got to our gate, there they were. Neither one said a word. She bit her quivering lip and wiped her eyes. The husband appeared stoic, almost wooden. I know that look because I've seen it on my husband's face.
Soon the wife headed toward the ladies' restroom.
That's when I glimpsed his heart. His eyes, filled with love, were glued to her departing back. Once she was out of sight his shoulders sagged. Now his face betrayed his pain, his mouth working.
As soon as she reappeared he pasted on a smile and sat up straighter.
Perhaps she looked over and judged him to be a man without emotion or so excited and confident that her misgivings about their upcoming move didn't matter.
She sat down next to her husband, smiling a wavering smile, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Neither one said a word.
How often do we miss what the one closest to us is feeling?
Often we hide what's going on inside.
The "experts" say females are more likely to be in touch with our feelings and more able to communicate them than are most males.
That being true, it's not surprising husbands and wives often talk past each other. When we wives say what we're feeling we expect our husbands to respond with equal emotion. Often they don't, either because they can't find the words or because they really don't know what they're feeling.
We mistake their silence for tuning us out. We're quick to label them "cold" or "uncaring," even "selfish."
That day I saw both sides acted out
The young husband telegraphed his personal struggle the minute his wife walked away. His shoulders drooped and his lower lip quivered. But for her sake, he never let his wife see that.
She couldn't have known he harbored some doubts of his own.
I wanted to tell them. I had to fight the urge to walk over and say, "Be honest with each other, now, before it's final, or this could drive a wedge between you. Talk it through. Cry together. Pray together. It may hurt, but it will draw you together and make you one again."
How do I know? Because my husband and I have lived out situations of our own. Lived them out both ways. Yes, we've survived and we've worked it out eventually. But later, more than once we've thought, Oh, what a waste of time and pain when we could have been there for each other.
Sharing honestly--with kindness and consideration--might not have changed anything, outwardly. Still, it would have made all the difference in how we got through our days and got from here to there.
Do you mean we should never keep our feelings to ourselves?
No, of course not. To "let it all hang out" every single time can be destructive. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is zip our lips.
Why would we do that? Because while we may not like the thing that's before us or the mess we're living through, we believe in our marriage and that's more important than our individual feelings of the moment.
What matters is that the two of us know we're in it together. One motto applies, in every situation:
Keep your eye on your oneness and overlook the temporary struggle.
As for the ending to the airport story
I don't know what happened to those two, but they caused me to look within. I had to ask myself, how often have I been so full of my own emotion I was blind to my husband's feelings?
God gave me a gift that day, a personal object lesson. A reminder to look--and judge--with my heart, not just my eyes. Otherwise it's not the kind of love Jesus spoke of.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." --John 13:34-35 (NIV)
It's funny how God surprises us with flashes of insight in unexpected ways, isn't it?
If we open the eyes of our hearts.
In love,
Lenore
