To Girls about My Guy

As the wind howls through my patio window and I'm forced to move my sanctuary inside my house and not on my beloved back patio, it's apparent that the season is changing.  The heater is set to come on to warm the chill that lingers about in the wee hours of morning.  Girls bundle with layers to combat breezy mornings.

As a woman who has now been married for 22 years in December ... I have discovered a profound principle.  Marriage has it's season's, too!

When we were 23 and 30, the ages we said "I do" ... we had no clue what we had committed to!  "I do" meant late night runs to the grocery store, allowed us to spend lots and lots and lots of time alone - doing nothing and everything together, and it meant that in each other we found all answers to life's questions.  That was a season.

Through all the seasons, I've come to realize that my Chris needs other men.  In the early years, the thought of him needing anything or anyone more than me made tears surface in my baby blues and my knees grow a little weak.  Was I not enough?  Was I not the answer to all of life's woes?  Was cleaving to me not always the answer?  In a word:  no.

Men need men.  I am the helper, partner, comforter, lover, solver of most of life's problems in my Chris' life. He needs me.  He wants me active in his life.  He gets great joy out of me being me.  (I am totally putting words in his mouth, here!  I can't wait to see his face when he reads this.  Hopefully, it will all be true!)  But, to make my Chris a healthy man, he needs other men to speak into his life.

What does that look like?  Coffee with a peer to openly speak about the struggles of being the stronger species.  Working out with a mentor who gives advice on how to remain a pure husband and empowering father.  It has all kinds of faces.  It should.  And, I should allow and welcome the time he spends with another man as an investment in his well-being.

Men will falter when they are left to be Lone Rangers.  Being alone, and being a man, just isn't good.  I speak from the perspective of his counterpart.  Yet, I speak with a certain amount of observation time.  As I observe my own man, he needs others.

Girls ... give your man room to have another man in his life.  If he doesn't, help him find ways to be around other men.  You will do yourself a world of good by setting him on a journey.