Rebecca and I celebrated two years together on Saturday. That’s a lot of together. I’m going to go ahead and take this opportunity to say some things.
When I started dating Rebecca two years ago, I think—I know—that I thought life would get easier. Everything was going to fall into place. “This!” I said. “This is going to be so much less stressful than being single. There’ll be none of that anxiety that I won’t ever find someone.” Two years ago, I knew something that has turned out to be untrue. As it happens, I’ve made a habit out of knowing falsehoods as truth—my own fault, without a doubt—and it can be jarring when, climbing the staircase my knowledge has built, I put my weight on a trick step.
I knew how to be a good boyfriend. I knew Rebecca’s needs, and I knew how to meet them. I knew how to validate her, and how to encourage her. I knew how to respect her. I knew how to treat her, and (perhaps more importantly) how not to treat her. I knew what she wanted in a relationship. I knew how to love her; I knew nothing.
Five months into our relationship, I didn’t understand why we weren’t close. I didn’t understand why we weren’t comfortable around each other. I didn’t know why it was so hard for us to talk to each other. When were things going to get easier? Did I not have that which I had wanted my entire life: a woman to love, to share life with, to lift up and encourage and to snuggle up with when she didn’t mind? I knew nothing.
There is a good pride and a bad pride. My good pride, I think, was how proud I was of Rebecca. I was proud to be with her, and I was proud of her. And why not? She’s an incredibly talented person! She’s a gifted artist, and she plays the piano wonderfully. And she’s beautiful! Sometimes I hear men say things like, “I’m dating the most beautiful woman in the world!” and I think that man is absolutely crazy because I’ve met his girlfriend and she’s sort of mean and really who says that sort of thing anyway? Rebecca is the most beautiful person in the world to me. I’m also a hypocrite.
My bad pride, however, was how proud I was of myself. I was so self-assured, and I really thought that I got relationships and that I was doing everything that I could for Rebecca and me and that any problems we were still having were her fault. Pride led to disappointment, and disappointment led to bitterness and resentment.
We both felt that disappointment. It weighed on us as a couple and as individuals. Our relationship began to feel like a great, failed effort. We were not connecting with each other and we didn’t understand why. This was no longer fun. It was work.
Things were difficult for a long time after this started to sink in. We’d have remarkably draining day after day after day, punctuated by a day of sharp disappointment or—if we were lucky—a day of iridescent joy. I think that those few joy-filled days were all that we had for awhile. There was a purpose, though, to my (our?) misery.
I needed to be corrected. I needed to see that I didn’t know everything; that I didn’t understand Rebecca like I thought I did. I needed to have to work for our love, and to protect that love and fight desperately for its preservation. I needed to learn how to encourage her and comfort her, how to validate her, how to really trust her. I needed to learn how to be patient and take things a day at a time. I needed to learn how to really respect her. I needed to learn how to talk to her, and how to talk with her.
I’m still learning. In fact, I’m still learning how to do all of those things. I genuinely thought, two years ago, that I’d be engaged or married by now. It’s only looking back that I can see how not-ready I was—how not-ready we were—and be thankful that Rebecca doesn’t share my spontaneity. (Or: irresponsibility).
So, on Saturday, Rebecca and I celebrated two years together at her church’s big “family camp” that I only went to because I refused to be apart on that day. It wasn’t what I wanted, nor was it what I had planned. I had a restaurant picked out well in advance, and I had a whole evening planned for us. How did I end up spending this day instead? Going on a hike with Rebecca and her dad and spending the day with a bunch of people that I don’t know at all. If you know me, and if you’re still reading this you probably do, you know how well I deal (in other words, don’t deal) with strangers.
We talked on Sunday morning after breakfast. I told her the things I had planned, and that I was sorry—we could celebrate next weekend or the weekend after that. And what did Rebecca say? She told me that she knows I don’t consider a hike with a bunch of other people a celebration. She told me that she had a lot of fun, and she was so glad that I came along for the weekend, and that she’d rather go out on a hike and on a hayride with me than have a fancy dinner anyway. I was sort of stunned. Here I was, sort of pouting and upset that we didn’t get to do things exactly like I had planned, when it turned out that the person I should have been focused on had a great time and I was too hung up on myself to notice.
Rebecca and I have been together for two years now. They’ve been difficult, frustrating, exhilarating, joyful and humbling years. I can’t take the credit for them, though. At every turn where I’ve made a mistake, or steered us down the wrong path, or just mucked things up in general, the God that we’ve placed our faith in has come along and put us back on track. I’m never going to have earned this, but I’ll always be thankful for it.
Two years. Here’s hoping for many more to follow.
