· February
09, 2015
Richard Paul Evans is the #1 New York Times and
USA Today bestselling author of The Christmas Box and the Michael Vey series. He
is also the author of the New York Times bestselling The
Walk series,
the story of a man who, upon losing his wife, home and business, decides to
walk across America
My oldest
daughter, Jenna, recently said to me, “My greatest fear as a child was that you
and mom would get divorced. Then, when I was twelve, I decided that you fought
so much that maybe it would be better if you did.” Then she added with a smile.
“I’m glad you guys figured things out.”
For years
my wife Keri and I struggled. Looking back, I’m not exactly sure what initially
drew us together, but our personalities didn’t quite match up. And the longer
we were married the more extreme the differences seemed. Encountering
“fame and fortune” didn’t make our marriage any easier. In fact, it
exacerbated our problems. The tension between us got so bad that going out
on book tour became a relief, though it seems we always paid for it on
re-entry. Our fighting became so constant that it was difficult to even imagine
a peaceful relationship. We became perpetually defensive, building emotional
fortresses around our hearts. We were on the edge of divorce and more than once
we discussed it.
I was on
book tour when things came to a head. We had just had another big fight on the
phone and Keri had hung up on me. I was alone and lonely, frustrated and angry.
I had reached my limit. That’s when I turned to God. Or turned on God. I
don’t know if you could call it prayer–maybe shouting at God isn’t prayer,
maybe it is–but whatever I was engaged in I’ll never forget it. I was standing
in the shower of the Buckhead, Atlanta Ritz-Carlton yelling at God that
marriage was wrong and I couldn’t do it anymore. As much as I hated the idea of
divorce, the pain of being together was just too much. I was also confused. I
couldn’t figure out why marriage with Keri was so hard. Deep down I knew that
Keri was a good person. And I was a good person. So why couldn’t we get along?
Why had I married someone so different than me? Why wouldn’t she change?
Finally,
hoarse and broken, I sat down in the shower and began to cry. In the depths of
my despair powerful inspiration came to me. You can’t change her, Rick. You
can only change yourself. At that moment I began to pray. If I can’t change
her, God, then change me. I prayed late into the night. I prayed
the next day on the flight home. I prayed as I walked in the door to a cold
wife who barely even acknowledged me. That night, as we lay in our bed, inches
from each other yet miles apart, the inspiration came. I knew what I had to do.
The next morning I rolled over in
bed next to Keri and asked, “How can I make your day better?”
Keri
looked at me angrily. “What?”
“How can
I make your day better?”
“You
can’t,” she said. “Why are you asking that?”
“Because
I mean it,” I said. “I just want to know what I can do to make your day
better.”
She
looked at me cynically. “You want to do something? Go clean the kitchen.”
She
likely expected me to get mad. Instead I just nodded. “Okay.” I got up and
cleaned the kitchen.
The next
day I asked the same thing. “What can I do to make your day better?”
Her eyes
narrowed. “Clean the garage.”
I took a
deep breath. I already had a busy day and I knew she had made the request in
spite. I was tempted to blow up at her. Instead I said, “Okay.” I got up and
for the next two hours cleaned the garage. Keri wasn’t sure what to think.
The next
morning came. “What can I do to make your day better?”
“Nothing!”
she said. “You can’t do anything. Please stop saying that.”
“I’m
sorry,” I said. “But I can’t. I made a commitment to myself. What can I do to
make your day better?”
“Why are
you doing this?”
“Because
I care about you,” I said. “And our marriage.”
The next
morning I asked again. And the next. And the next. Then, during the second
week, a miracle occurred. As I asked the question Keri’s eyes welled up with
tears. Then she broke down crying. When she could speak she said, “Please stop
asking me that. You’re not the problem. I am. I’m hard to live with. I don’t
know why you stay with me.”
I gently
lifted her chin until she was looking in my eyes. “It’s because I love you,” I
said. “What can I do to make your day better?”
“I should
be asking you that.”
“You
should,” I said. “But not now. Right now, I need to be the change. You need to
know how much you mean to me.”
She put
her head against my chest. “I’m sorry I’ve been so mean.”
“I love
you,” I said.
“I love
you,” she replied.
“What can
I do to make your day better?”
She
looked at me sweetly. “Can we maybe just spend some time together?”
I smiled.
“I’d like that.”
I
continued asking for more than a month. And things did change. The fighting
stopped. Then Keri began asking, “What do you need from me? How can I be a
better wife?”
The walls
between us fell. We began having meaningful discussions on what we wanted from
life and how we could make each other happier. No, we didn’t solve all our
problems. I can’t even say that we never fought again. But the nature of our
fights changed. Not only were they becoming more and more rare, they lacked the
energy they’d once had. We’d deprived them of oxygen. We just didn’t have it in
us to hurt each other anymore.
Keri and
I have now been married for more than thirty years. I not only love my wife, I
like her. I like being with her. I crave her. I need her. Many of our
differences have become strengths and the others don’t really matter. We’ve
learned how to take care of each other and, more importantly, we’ve gained the
desire to do so.
Marriage
is hard. But so is parenthood and keeping fit and writing books and
everything else important and worthwhile in my life. To have a partner in life
is a remarkable gift. I’ve also learned that the institution of marriage can
help heal us of our most unlovable parts. And we all have unlovable parts.
Through
time I’ve learned that our experience was an illustration of a much larger
lesson about marriage. The question everyone in a committed relationship
should ask their significant other is, “What can I do to make your life
better?” That is love. Romance novels (and I’ve written a few) are all
about desire and happily-ever-after, but happily-ever-after
doesn’t come from desire–at least not the kind portrayed in most pulp romances.
Real love is not to desire a person, but to truly desire their
happiness–sometimes, even, at the expense of our own happiness. Real love is
not to make another person a carbon copy of one’s self. It is to expand our own
capabilities of tolerance and caring, to actively seek another’s well being.
All else is simply a charade of self-interest.
I’m not
saying that what happened to Keri and me will work for everyone. I’m not even
claiming that all marriages should be saved. But for me, I am incredibly
grateful for the inspiration that came to me that day so long ago. I’m grateful
that my family is still intact and that I still have my wife, my best friend,
in bed next to me when I wake in the morning. And I’m grateful that even now,
decades later, every now and then, one of us will still roll over and say,
“What can I do to make your day better.” Being on either side of that question
is something worth waking up for.
Read more at http://www.richardpaulevans.com/saved-marriage
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