Intermezzo - Anniversary Thoughts

In the third year of the thirty we prayed for, God gave us corrective experiences out of unexpectedly ordinary things.

June 24, 2023 at the Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park, CA

Two weeks ago, my husband Tim and I celebrated our third anniversary. I couldn’t let this milestone pass without mentioning it here, because it’s integral to everything I’ve been writing about here.

When you’re in your early fifties, a wedding anniversary marked in single digits instead of decades could be considered a signifier of brokenness. And there’s a sense in which that will always be true for us. Tim and I often talk about our experience as that of building a “2.0 life.” We’re creating a second iteration of a life together, built on top of separate, but remarkably similar, first versions. Those lives were defined by decades of intergenerational familial dysfunction and abuse, relationship battles that initially defied diagnosis, intensifying pain, and accelerating damage that only the spiritual and circumstantial amputation of divorce was able to halt. To extend the medical metaphor, remarriage has been a kind of grafting- taking the different parts of our former painful stories and growing something new and healed from them.

The rhythm of our marriage has been one of cycles of otherwise ordinary experiences made extraordinary because they’ve been new. These “corrective experiences” sometimes trigger feelings of grief over the new realization of the brokenness inherent in our former status quo, for the lost opportunity for growth had what we’re experiencing only now been our experience decades ago. But they also spark gratitude and joy. Not having decades of ordinary moments of self-giving love and care means not having decades to succumb to harmful habits of complacency. There were times in each of our lives when we believed the only things our hearts would ever feel was pain; every moment of unmitigated joy our hearts hold now is reason to stop and bless God for it.

This third year, those corrective experiences have had a different shape from the ones before it. This was the year we finally had our first real fight. I can honestly say I remember almost nothing about the actual substance what we were fighting about. What I do remember is the surprise of feeling genuinely angry at and hurt by my husband, and that he felt the same way towards me. It was new, and it was terrible. But there was more newness in the way the repair happened. We talked about what had been hurtful and why, without defensiveness or dismissal, and we named what we’d do differently next time. When a different argument occurred several months later, we put that different plan into action, and what could have been another hurtful interaction became a far lesser one that was far more easily resolved. This new first experience of real repair after real relational rupture served to actually strengthen our relationship in a place we might otherwise never have realized needed shoring up.

We also had our first experiences with “ordinary” circumstantial trials (meaning, not the struggles that are particular to post-divorce/blended family life). We had our first “hmmm, let’s refer you to a specialist to make sure it’s not [insert deadly/life altering condition here]”. Thankfully, all was well - this time. But it was the first time the “in sickness” portion of our wedding vows became relevant, and it gave us an opportunity to talk about what our love for each other would look like on that inevitable day when all is no longer well. Then, just a couple of months ago, some tough stuff went down in our vocational life. After a couple of roller coaster weeks, it seemed as if things were going to even out. But as it turns out, we were just switching to another, even more dramatic and difficult ride, and we’ve been on it ever since. It’s generated some serious conversations about decisions we may have to make to get off it, decisions that would potentially take us into the “for poorer” section of those aforementioned vows. I’m not sanctified enough to say I’ve greeted this particular trial with unmitigated joy. But it’s been a new experience to affirm that the foundation of the life we’re building isn’t material comfort, but the mutual comfort of a one-flesh life that’s nurtured and sustained by the love God has for us in Christ, and the love we freely and gratefully give each other.

When Tim and I were first married, we were praying for 30 good years together. One tenth of the way into that prayer, I bless God for the goodness He’s given us, and trusting Him for more of it, however it comes.