When I isn’t about me.

I never comment on newspaper opinion pieces or columns.

I barely reply to tweets.

I think it’s the pressure in opening yourself up to a world of pain.

Once you don the proverbial commentary gloves and casually throw a jab or joust you have to be prepared to take whatever comes swinging back your way.

It’s like street fighting. Anything goes.

But I eventually succumbed and found myself writing a comment at the bottom of New York Times article.

I wish I could say it was a rebuttal on Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine or how Joe Rogan isn’t untouchable to #cancelculture

Alas it was a book review.

And, admittedly the clickbait heading had me hooked:

“Heather Havrilesky Compares Her Husband to a Heap of Laundry”

While I applaud the alliteration the further down the rabbit hole I went I struggled to close the page with out replying first.

I eventually gave in only to realise my first comment to ever appear in the NYT was grammatically wrong.

I had accidentally repeated two words.

Nonetheless my sin pales in comparison with a Husband whose nothing but a “Heap of Laundry”.

Without going too much into the review, I’ll let you be the judge of it, I was left riled by the concept of modern day relationships, particularly in the construct of marriage as hammered in yet another flipant memoir.

I haven’t read Heather’s book, nor do I plan too, but this is less about a review of a review and more about the general misconceptions and self-inflicted expectations of marriage.

For one, no marriage let alone relationship is perfect. However, airing your dirty laundry about all the annoying habits, the suburban malaise of conformity, and flirtations with adultery says more about the author than the partner in crime.

For the record, before the gender sirens sound let me be clear, this has nothing to do with whichever side of the biological spectrum you are on. It certainly isn’t a sexist thing. It’s about two worlds colliding and forming one liveable planet to co-exist on.

Neither side is in the lead.

But I digress.

Here’s what raged me to write the comment: When you make marriage about “I” it inevitably it inevitably [sic] writes its way in divorce.

Often when I come across clickbaity headlines on relationships and marriage they are inevitably peppered with the pronoun “I” , “me” or “my”. “He didn’t do this for me”, “She never listens to me”, “He never does the dishes, I do”, “She never respects my things”, and so on.

I blame Hollywood.

Not because it set the ideals for marriage, let’s be honest you’re lucky if you last a week there, but because they paint a broad stroke that the sound of wedding bells fixes everything.

It doesn’t.

It’s less of a bell and more like notification sound. You know the pings you get on your mobile.

That’s what marriage really is. It’s a notification about you.

A mirror constantly reflecting your character.

And nobody likes to see the real self.

It’s far easier to turn the mirror onto someone else, like your spouse.

But if you’re constantly pointing a finger you will never truly reap the blessings of marriage.

God created marriage so that we would truly understand what selfless, gracious, unconditional love truly looked like.

That’s what the cross is.

It’s a gift

God’s unconditional love and forgiveness for his bride.

That’s us.

That’s you and me.

And, no matter how much we fall short we are loved.

I can’t speak for Heather, but Heather seems to use a lot of pronouns uncessarily.

After all the book is a memoir about her.

“I” seems to be what society is chasing nowadays.

How can I get rich, How can I find happiness, How can I be succesful.

Just last year I read an article in the Guardian about women who are choosing to live child-free, from Why I don’t have a child: I cherish my freedom, to
More women like me are choosing to be childfree. Is this the age of opting out?

All of them have one thing in common.

I don’t want. I want to be free. I am choosing. I. I. I.

That’s fine. We all have free will.

But you lose out on the life God truly intends for us if you start with I.

So let me end here with I.

I am married and I have a children.

I am also selfish. Annoying and occasionally lazy.

But I’ve learned over the years is to be less of those things because my wife and children’s happiness comes before my own.

That’s what love is.

It’s to be given, not taken.

When you start realising this you start changing for the better without having to force it.

It just happens and you start seeing the good in your loved ones.

And boy, do I love seeing them happy.

Because I isn’t about me.