Not for the first time, Laura is unhappy that I am not complimentary enough and don’t take notice of her successes. There are few claims a person could make that would have more validity than that. On the other hand, in context that is no indictment on Laura -simply an evidence of my own brokenness. Laura complained that I was analyzing the problem rather than coming up with a list of 10 things I liked about her. After much thought I still couldn’t come up with a list of 10 things I liked about her without getting trite although I realized that the list I made for her was still longer than the list I would have for anyone else.
The question isn’t simply what do I like about her now, it is also what I liked about her to choose her for my wife. To that end: I liked her red hair (I’ve always been partial to gingers); I liked her abiding, driving testimony of the gospel (which is almost dormant for the bulk of our marriage); I liked her love of learning; I liked her creativity (scrapbooks, colors, shadowboxes, and various other crafts); I see her for the precious daughter of God that she is; and of course I was happy that she was willing to join me in marriage.
When I married her I thought she would be a great mother, and while she has shown flashes of that potential (especially the first 6 years) – the overall result so far is that for all her good efforts she also made some significant mistakes that we are still paying for because she isn’t very skilled at learning to work with anyone. (That’s besides the mistakes that she has made during the bulk of her parenting years so far when she has been largely absent.) She is best suited to a clear hierarchy – either she is in charge or else she is subordinate to someone (like a college professor). She doesn’t want to be my subordinate (which is fair) but she is blind to some of her own misconceptions (which makes her unfit to be an unchecked leader) and unable to treat me as an equal (which is actually one of her misconceptions).
She feels sorrow that I don’t see her for who she is, but she makes it difficult to see her for who she is when she doesn’t know who she is, she has spent so much of the last few years huddled in various safe rooms, and she is constantly deaf to any praise that I do offer. What she really seeks is someone to validate what she already hopes are her good traits. That makes me – who has a hard time seeing and articulating many positive things – a poor fit for giving her the gentle handling that she craves.
While I have listed 7 reasons why I chose her and why I have not given up through 17 years of refiners fire, she will see that 7 is well short of 10 rather than realizing that even with Jared I would likely not get past 3 things despite more than 30 years of friendship.
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