In my marriage I have been fortunate enough to be with someone with whom I largely agree on politics, child rearing, and money. We largely escape the typical banes of marriage, but we do have certain other, as our pastor calls them, perpetual problems. Two to be exact. And while these problems may seem to be very different in nature, they amount to the same result in each case: the offended party feels deprioritized and loved less.
The first thing I did when I got my own place in college was get a cat; actually I couldn't choose, so I got two. While I have always loved all cats, these two became my children. They were there for me when I moved far away and didn't know anyone, when I was lonely, when I went through my divorce, when I started anew. They slept on my head, snuggled me when I read, reminded me I was loved when I felt only blackness. But Lance is allergic, VERY, and he gets chronic sinus infections from the allergies. If we hadn't gotten pregnant, I don't know if we ever would have decided to live together, because we couldn't see around me not being able to give up my cats, and him not being able to live with them. Under what I felt like was duress, I agreed that within 6 months of buying our home together, I would find a home for them, but when my ex husband backed out of taking them, I just couldn't do it. I got sick to my stomach every time I thought about it. So, for five and a half years, my husband has felt like he isn't really the most important thing in my life.
Last January 31st, after nearly 14 years together, my beloved Wynn (a runic name that means joy) died from complications of diabetes, and now my Berkana (also runic, meaning birch, for he is white as birch bark.) has a tumor in his face. I have to get him put to sleep, soon .He sits on my lap as I write this, as our time together ticks away, and with it, the opportunity to know what I should have done, weather I should or could have chosen differently. I can't imagine what I must do; hold his now frail body in my lap and kiss him goodbye, and feel him go limp in my arms, but neither could I imagine having passed this task on to someone who loved him less. I hate that it makes my husband feel like he was chosen over. Perhaps my choice was selfish, but now, for better or worse I can not take back that path.
For Lance's part, he hates to see my heart break no matter the reason. He built beautiful caskets, and buried my Wynnie beneath the cottonwood on our new property where he will be with me always, and will do the same for Berkana. I wonder why God gave me a man who was allergic to cats, and yet perfectly made for me in nearly every other way. I'll be asking that one when I get there.
So, in a heartbreaking way, one of my marital problems is coming to an end. I guess God didn't want it to follow us into the home we built together for our family; for those feelings to haunt my husband there. Certainly He is wise.
Our other issue must wait to be told another day, I just can't take any more sadness on this one.....
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