What 28 years together represents

Not too many weeks past a young man we know fairly well told his equally young wife that he thought a monogamous relationship was a waste of a true mans time and a restriction on his potential and virility. To argue against that is a waste of time because such an expression of sinful indulgence and wanton selfishness will prove him wrong with quick and painful clarity. His wife and two young children will recover from the pain long before he is able.
But on the positive side of the argument, what does it mean that I am celebrating twenty-eight years of marriage; twenty-eight years of commitment to one and only one woman, sexually and every other way? It means, for starters, that our relationship is far deeper than using each other to satisfy our physical needs. (As much fun as that is there will always be twenty-three hours and thirty minutes left in the day.) There are times when our love life has been a struggle and our physical intimacy has suffered at the barrage of demands of raising seven children, keeping a home and job, serving in the church and keeping in touch with friends and family.
There have been times of disappointment and discouragement brought about by life in general but also by bad decisions, the consequences of which we have had to live with and work through. But in those times I did not blame her and she did not blame me. We stuck together, struggled together, worked hard together, prayed together and found that the sacrifices of our commitment to each other and to God are continual, uninterrupted, sometimes monotonous, but abounding in the rewards they bring through engendering an intimacy that is far more than physical.
There is such a wealth of memories – good and bad – stored within our two hearts and minds after twenty-eight years together that it would take several volumes to begin to share even some of them. Private jokes, secret smiles, understanding looks and wordless expressiveness are all a part of truly knowing the person with whom you share your life.
Such emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacies come only through trust, which can only come with time; time spent together. It comes from being happy with that person just as they are; thrilled that they love you just the way you are, which, by the way, includes all the extra baggage emotionally, spiritually and physically speaking that come with our unique individual personhood.
I love everything about my wife because I choose to focus almost exclusively on those things that I really do love about her. Ask me for positives and I can spend hours sharing them with you. Ask for a negative and it will make me feel guilty and uncomfortable to even try to think of one. After all, there are so many negative things that I bring to our marriage and I know she overlooks every one of them, why should I violate that sacred trust?
In the past few years our love has grown to a profoundly unexplainable depth rooted in the faithfulness and self-sacrifice characteristic of couples whose commitment has stretched over decades. I have no fear of my needs being met, my wife is occupied with that thought continually and there is no more pressing matter to me than to meet her needs; each of us deferring to the other so consciously that if ever there is a selfish moment where I put my needs ahead of hers, I know that she will go without. Is that love? I think so.
That sad young man will wake up one day and realize he has nothing to show for the path he chose. Sadder yet, he will have no one, either.
For my part, I’ve got my wife right where she wants me and I love it that way.