The Luckiest ManSample

Expectations and control—they wear so many masks. They sneak into any marriage. They build great walls too difficult to deconstruct, save for a miracle. This was the story of my own marriage. This was the story of my spiritual journey, too, though I hadn’t realized it yet. It was the dawning of a slow realization. I wasn’t sure how to release my expectations or mechanisms of control, but here’s what I did know: Margaret was finding her own path. She spoke of the love of God, how it was her source of validation and strength. He sat with her, close like a close friend, she said. Her tenderness, her gentleness, even the firmness of her boundaries when I tried to control her or Hillary—all of it drew me in. This was my first earnest taste of what an intimate relationship with God looks like. It’s sinking into the knowledge that God loves you just as you are, that he doesn’t expect perfection or the quantifiable metrics. He loves because he loves, unconditionally. This is the love Margaret was experiencing, and it was the love she was pouring into my life and into Hillary’s. It was the love of a healthy, whole mother. It was the love of God. . . . It’s taken me years to understand the winter of our marriage. It wasn’t as simple as I thought at the time. Margaret wasn’t the problem, though she played a small part in our discord. She wasn’t as crazy or negative as I thought. She didn’t withdraw because she disliked me, but because my control and expectations got in the way of a healthy give-and-take. And though I loved my false image, my success and self-sufficiency, Margaret refused to see it, to tell me how great I was. She didn’t care about any of that: the success, the money, the picture of perfection. She only wanted me. She wanted me without the performance routine. She wanted to see a glimpse of the boy she’d fallen in love with—the awkward, open, vulnerable boy from Tyler—and in those early years of discussing our Al-Anon readings, she made sure I understood that. What’s more, she lived in a newfound freedom, a freedom from needing my affirmation, my approval. She was living secure, attached to the validation only God can give. That new spring graced me with fresh eyes. If I could release my need for control, my expectations, and the metrics that offered false validation, maybe I could experience this kind of intimacy with God that Margaret enjoyed. Maybe I could build something authentic. But how?