December 8, 2009: To A Son Getting Married

Ben,

When you got engaged a couple weeks ago you asked me if I had any advice about marriage. That was an intelligent and humble and gracious thing to ask, and I give you a lot of credit for it. Would that all sons asked their fathers the same question! (Unless of course their fathers are jerks. Then maybe they should ask someone else. Like a pastor or something. But I digress.)

I couldn’t think of anything to say at the time. (Your brother is a lot better at these impromptu speeches.) But now I have given it some thought, and am prepared to douse you with Polonial wisdom. Hearken, young Laertes, O Son Of My Right Hand.

I begin with a quiz. Whom do I love more, Ben, you or my wife Lisa? Answer: Lisa. Lisa Lisa Lisa Lisa Lisa. See how easy that was for me? I didn’t have to think twice. The answer popped into my head before I was finished saying the word “wife.” Don’t feel bad about your demotion – it is nothing personal. I still love you very much. It is just that I love Lisa more. And I won’t even qualify that with the sentimental, hair-splitting, spare-everybody’s-feelings “Son, I love you as much as a father can love his child and Lisa as much as a husband can love his wife.” No, you and I are grownups and men. We can speak plainly. I love Lisa more.

You might say (you wouldn’t actually say this - I’m putting words into your mouth for rhetorical effect), “But Dad! How could you? You’re my friggin’ father and Lisa is just somebody you met 10 months ago!” True, but she’s my wife, and that makes all the difference.

For the record, son, I love you as much as I possibly know how to. Witnessing your birth remains the most transcendent moment of my life. Nothing compares to it. Remember that terrific scene in the movie Juno where Jennifer Garner says, “I have a son”? Well, it was better than that. More moving.

A few years ago a nice person paid me the best compliment I have ever received. She said, “I’ve never met a man who loves his sons as much as you love yours.” That was probably an exaggeration, and maybe even a kindly indulgence sensitive to my yearning to be a good father – but I’ll take it.

A student speaker at a chapel service I went to about 15 years ago told us that he had a father who was so great and loving that he (the father) would go as far as to die for his son. Graciously I did not go up to the young man afterward and burst his bubble by telling him that any father would do that. In fact, it seems to me that a father who wouldn’t give his life for his son is a scum-sucking antichrist beast from the darkest depths of hell. My dad would have given his life not only for me but for a total stranger. (When he passed away from a heart attack, your grandmother said something odd. She said she had always assumed he would somehow die a hero, like maybe by running into a burning building to rescue somebody, or jumping into a lake to save a drowning person. It was the kind of thing he would have done. Not just for me but for anybody.)

Let’s see, back to my point. I love you very much. Enough to die for you, certainly – but now I guess I’ve undercut that by explaining that that really isn't such a big deal. Hmm. I think I’ll just press on ahead here. What I’m trying to say, Ben, is that as much as I love you - and it's a lot - I love Lisa more. She is my wife.

That is how you must love Amy. She is to be your wife, and you must love her more than anyone but God. You must love her more than your friends, more than your family, more even than the children you may someday have by her. From your wedding day until death parts you, your love for Amy must exceed all other human loves.

I'll try if I can to flesh that thought out over the next few weeks, and give some examples of what love looks like. I'll start with this: the measure of your love for anyone can be gauged by how much you are willing to suffer for him or her. When you love your wife, Ben, you are (among other things) handing her the power to make you suffer.

That theme is written right into the wedding vows where it says "in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse." Ben, it is possible that someday Amy will become chronically ill, and rather than being the happy husband of a delightful and productive wife, you will be the caretaker of a woman who is depressed and bed-ridden. Love absorbs that sorrow and responds with steadfast perseverance. It does not fail. You love her whether she is healthy or sick.

Or, maybe, it will happen that as a result of her decisions and actions you will be poor - bankrupt in your 40s, embarrassed to meet old friends or invite anybody to your tiny apartment. Love her anyway. Endure poverty, if need be, for her sake.

Of course I believe that Amy will become an even more wonderful person than she is now. But I have found that I am utterly unable to predict whose personalities will sweeten and whose will sour, who will become kinder and nobler as the years pass and who will become more selfish and hostile. More men than I can count got married hoping for "better" and wound up experiencing "worse". Ben, you must continue to love Amy more than anybody else in the world even if she becomes worse as a person. This is the hardest thing that some men will ever have to do, and I pray to God that you are spared this misery.

But I believe that all men contemplating marriage should be prepared for it. Christian men have before them the perfect image of what it means to keep on loving in the face of meanness and ingratitude: Jesus himself. Have I read to you my favorite C. S. Lewis quote on the topic of marriage? It is in The Four Loves, the chapter titled "Eros". Lewis writes, "The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the Church - read on - and give his life for her (Ephesians 5:25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - least lovable."

Amy is lovable and will always remain so, so this won't be an issue for you. You won't get to be a Christ-like hero in your marriage - just as I can't be in mine, because Lisa is too good. (She has said that she wants our marriage to model the relationship between Christ and his church, but the reason that will never happen is because she's so much better than the Church. She would have to be immature and grumbling and faulty and backsliding - and I forgiving and patient and gracious and holy - in order for the two of us to mirror together the real relationship between the Church and her Lord Jesus Christ.)

But be prepared. Admire men who are faithful and courteous and gracious to bad wives. They are true heroes and worthy of your respect. I hope you never become one of them - even as I hope you never become a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. (How those men suffered to gain that prize!). I do however want you to be the kind of man who loves and loves and loves whether that love is returned or whether it is uselessly poured down a black hole of narcissistic contempt. Love Amy no matter what she is like or what she becomes.

It goes without saying that you must always be faithful to her. More about that next week.