Relationship Advice

I really didn't intend to write about these next two books together, but as I was reading them at the same time, I was surprised at how many ways they spoke to each other. If nothing else, the one is a cautionary tale and the other is some good tips on how not to wind up in a cautionary tale of your own.

Marriage is hard. Plenty of people told me that before I got married. I always thought that, with the right person, it would be worth whatever hard stuff came up, and so far it definitely has been. I'd much rather be married to the wonderful husband I have and deal with the frustrations that go along with it than be single. I spent a lot of years being single, so I feel pretty confident in saying this.

When Bob and I got engaged, we read a couple of books together, which was pretty awesome because he's not much of a reader, and I can rarely get him to read anything with me now. It's okay because he'll let me talk about what I'm reading with him all day long if I want. But I'm really glad that one of the books he read with me during that special, golden time was John and Stasi Eldredge's Love and War. I just read it again and decided I'm going to need to read it every year. It's fantastic.

Here's the gist: Those of us who are married are living out a great love story in the midst of a very real war. That war can only be fought if we're on the same side against the enemy, not turning one another into the enemy. This is one of the truest things I've ever heard. I think many broken marriages could be saved with the embrace of that idea. Other things critical to a healthy marriage: individual, healthy relationships with God; genuine companionship; hopes and dreams for the future; listening to the Holy Spirit; an attitude of generosity and forgiveness (not to mention repentance); and of course, good sex. These are certainly all necessary, and if both people are working toward all of them, marriage can be straight-up amazing.

My favorite quote from the book: "Marriage is the relationship that provides the most hope for times of rest--a respite from the world of needing to prove ourselves--from having to work so hard to make ourselves understood and known. Instead, marriage is the place where we are meant to be able to "let down" and be our truest selves; to be known, loved, and welcomed. In that place, our souls and bodies can rest into each other's loving embrace." Boy, do I spend a lot of time feeling misunderstood and unknown outside my home. I am so thankful and blessed that inside of it, I almost never feel those things.

So we come to the second book, seemingly unrelated. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, is the story of eight Chinese women, four mothers and four daughters, living in San Francisco. The daughters were all born there; the mothers are immigrants. As a story, I didn't find it super impressive. It was too episodic; the chapters alternate among seven of the eight women's voices (one of the mothers dies before the book begins), and they tell various stories from their childhoods, their marriages. And what miserable marriages. I kept wanting to talk to the characters and offer them some Love and War advice. It was abundantly clear that none of them really knew what marriage is for or how to go about it. I know far from everything, but it was almost boring to watch these relationships crumble when they were so clearly doomed from the start.

In the end, I wanted these stories to build into a bigger narrative, and they did, briefly. But the threads never tied together tightly enough to make them pay off. This felt like the kind of book I was supposed to love, a Very Important Book. But it didn't really leave a lasting impression.