Chapter 12
Twelve
S he swallowed and then looked carefully at Skyler. “Is there something I’m missing?” She blew out a breath and then said, “I’m not sure I can take a hard critique, but…other than the love languages, which you have a point on, I wondered if maybe there’s more?”
It was hard to say that. She wanted to be just fine and make it so that if there was going to be any kind of reconciliation, she could make Cannon do it all.
“Well, I see that you have excellent points. Your husband should pay attention to you. He should note that when hard things happen to you, you need him to come and just put his arm around you and hold you and help you, even if it takes days or weeks or months for you to feel better. He can’t just go work and expect you to…
take care of yourself. Ideally. But… I guess I think about it like this.
God tells us that He will give us everything we need.
So for me to say that I need my husband to do this or I need my husband to do that for me, it can’t be true, right?
If God promises to supply all of our needs, and that ‘need’ of mine isn’t being met, then it must not be a need, right? ”
Ouch. And ouch again. Her headache was gone, but she just felt like she’d gotten her toe stomped on.
Because she had been saying all along that her husband wasn’t meeting her needs.
But she could hardly argue with that statement, taken straight from the Bible.
The Bible did clearly say that God would supply all of our needs.
Why was she expecting her husband to do it?
Because that’s what marriage was. It was when a man and woman got together, and the woman helped the man, and the man was there when the woman needed him.
Wasn’t she there when Cannon needed her?
She felt like she was, but maybe he didn’t think she was.
Or maybe he was fine with it. And didn’t understand why she wasn’t fine too.
Because his needs weren’t that great. She tried to make sure there was food on the table when he got home from work, and she kept his house clean and helped him in his business if he needed it.
“All right. I’ll give you that point. I can’t think of a verse in the Bible to counter what you said.
God does promise to supply all of our needs.
Maybe I was depending a little too hard on my husband, expecting him to do things that he wasn’t necessarily supposed to do.
But was it too much for me to expect him to spend some time with me?
To put his wife ahead of his business, even once in a while?
Or to put his arm around me and console me in my grief? ”
“Did you ever tell him what you wanted?”
“My husband is a very smart man.” She knew what his grades had been in college, he had graduated at the top of his class in high school. His SAT score was almost perfect, and his IQ was genius level.
“Okay. So he can take a test. Good for him.” Skyler lifted her shoulder. “I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger,” she started.
Lauren perked up. She thought they were talking about her and her husband, but Skyler was going off in this direction. She settled in, taking another bite of her bread, and listened, trying to listen to Skyler the way Skyler had listened to her.
“I was on the streets, I guess. I wouldn’t have called myself dumb, but I had a lot of street smarts.
I still do. Just because of the environment I grew up in and the things that happened to me.
My husband, Homer, is a very smart man. He works in computer programming, and no one would think he’s any kind of intellectual slouch.
But there are just some things that he doesn’t know, because he hasn’t experienced them.
I wouldn’t call him dumb, I just call him…
un aware. So there’s that, when you haven’t encountered something, and you haven’t learned. ”
“I guess that could apply to my husband. But when I say he’s smart, I guess I mean that in his business, he can figure out whatever he needs. Why can’t he figure out what he needs to do for his marriage?”
“I think sometimes men don’t realize they need to.
They think that women are just like men.
They think…they have good intentions, they want to have a good relationship, and everything seems like it’s smooth sailing, so it’s not crying out for attention, so they don’t give their relationship attention.
They put their attention somewhere else and think they’re doing a good thing.
Maybe… Maybe they don’t need a whole lot of attention from their wife.
Or maybe they’re getting everything that they want.
I don’t know. I just know that men can be really smart when it comes to book learning and figuring out complicated analytical ideas, but when it comes to relationships, it’s like there should be a whole other level to measure intelligence in that area, because a man’s ability to be good at relationships has nothing to do with his IQ. Not at first anyway.”
“So your husband wasn’t very good at relationships at first?”
“I don’t know that I would say that exactly.
But I think some men struggle. But they can learn.
They can figure it out. I do think that sometimes women want men to feel things that men just don’t feel.
And we think that means they don’t love us if they don’t feel the way we do.
But that’s not the way it works. They just don’t feel the way we do.
They feel differently, or maybe the way they feel love is more intellectual and less emotional. ”
“Okay. So you’re saying my husband probably isn’t ever going to put his arm around me and comfort me.”
“I think what I’m saying is, you don’t think you want to have to tell him that that’s what he needs to do, but I’d be willing to bet that if you said to your husband, ‘I’m sad that my mom died.
I would like you to take an hour off work and sit here beside me with your arm around me, and just sit.
Don’t talk, just hold me, and be here for me,’ he’d do it. ”
Lauren bit her lip. She wasn’t completely sure her husband would actually take an hour off work to do that, but…he was here in Raspberry Ridge, so he’d taken more than an hour. Could she ask him to sit beside he r and put his arm around her and comfort her? It just didn’t feel the same.
“If I have to tell him what to do, he didn’t think of it himself, and therefore that makes it meaningless.”
“All right. So, if he doesn’t think of it himself, and you don’t want to tell him, but you know he’d do it if you asked, why are you upset that he didn’t think of it?
Does he get upset when you don’t think of things that he thinks of?
Like the security system? He thought of it, you didn’t, was he upset with you? ”
“I think he was annoyed, but…no. He’s not going to be mad at me tomorrow over that.”
“All right. I could be totally off base. But I think your husband loves you, I think he cares about you, and I think you are important to him. He’s here, wanting you to come back.
He’s worrying about you because of the security system.
He probably fixes things around the house that maybe you didn’t notice. ”
“I noticed. I didn’t always thank him.”
“And I don’t think he took that to mean you didn’t care about him.
That was just his way of saying he loved you.
You have a different way of saying you love him.
I think…if you’re going to get what you feel like you need, you’re going to have to tell him, ‘sometimes I just need you to come over and put your arm around me.’ And maybe…
if he’s as smart as what you say he is, he can start thinking about those times that perhaps you need him.
Because you’re probably right. He probably doesn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about you or your relationship with him, since he feels like it’s okay.
He has other things he needs to figure out. ”
“Yeah. Work things. I guess if he were thinking about silly, inconsequential things, it would bother me more.”
She still wasn’t sure she completely understood.
But she had a better idea of something that she could work on.
Although, that was assuming that he still wanted her back.
Then there was the question of whether she was going to leave the bakery and go back to Cincinnati. She really didn’t want to do that.
“Well, I didn’t mean to imply that any of this was all your fault. But I do think that sometimes when couples are having issues, it’s hard to see the other person’s side. Probably he has more to work on than you do, but I think a relationship can always benefit from both sides working on things.”
“That’s wise. I guess I just wanted to make him the bad guy and me the good guy, and that absolved me from any kind of responsibility, and I was free to do what I wanted to do.”
Except, she really wasn’t free. There was no biblical rationale for her to leave.
“Thanks for the bread. I’ll let you get back to whatever it was that you were doing. But I really enjoyed talking to you. It’s a nice break from my regular life. I spend a lot of time with kids, and adult conversation is something I cherish right now.”
“Thanks. And don’t let me forget about Bible study.” She paused, and then she said, “Would it be possible to have Bible study here? I could make something good to eat. And we’d have something to eat while we studied.”
“Everybody usually brings something, and I would hate to have you providing something all the time, but I’m sure that if we put it to a vote with the group, everybody would prefer to come here. I couldn’t allow you to do that without being compensated though.”
“Maybe you could be on rotation. I was just thinking that I’ll probably want to open early, and I probably won’t be able to make Bible study unless I missed that first big rush.”
“I can talk to everyone. But I bet everyone would be willing to do Bible study earlier or later. Some of us go to work, so we have to work around that.”
“All right. I’m not open yet, so I’ll show up tomorrow. And bring something.”
“All right. I look forward to seeing you again. It’s uncommon to find someone who is willing to look at themselves and what they might be doing wrong and to even go further than that and ask someone else what they think. You’re definitely a humble person.”
Lauren wasn’t quite sure whether she agreed with that or not, but she said thank you, and then to her surprise, Skyler came to the break in the counter and started to walk through. She met her, and Skyler gave her a hug .
“I’ll be praying for you and your husband. I… I really would like to see your marriage restored and flourishing.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
She supposed that that was what she should have done to begin with, prayed for her marriage and tried to figure out what she could do to make it better rather than just leaving.
Although, leaving had seemed like her only choice at the time.
How interesting how other people could open her eyes to possibilities that she didn’t even know could be there.
She went to the door and unlocked it for Skyler to leave, and watched as she walked away.
She really wanted her husband to change.
She didn’t want to be the one that had to.
But she could see, if she were being honest, places where she could change and be better.
And that everything might not be all his fault.
It wasn’t really fair of her to try to blame him for everything.
It was good that Skyler had opened her eyes today. Now, she just wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.