All of us can get selfish in a hurry, and in marriage, we get there twice as fast, expecting our mates to think just like we do. Actually, we want them to become exactly like us.
One slice of married life in which the me-monster can raise its hideous head is in our gift-giving to each other. As is true with most wives and husbands, anniversaries, birthdays and holidays are a reason to shop for, purchase and wrap up something special for our mates. We think ahead to the grand opening and the pleasure on a true love’s face when he or she discovers what’s inside.
Nate and I were no different, trying our best to please each other with small gifts. I remember the year he gave me a pretty wine-colored fountain pen. It had a white star on the tip, which meant nothing to me, but later I learned it was a Mont Blanc pen for which he paid $400. The only trouble was, I didn’t like fountain pens. They made splotches on the paper and their writing tips had to be periodically cleaned. They ran out of ink quickly and had to be refilled from a bottle, a messy, finger-staining process.
I thanked Nate lovingly, as if a fountain pen had been at the top of my wish list, then put it in the back of a drawer. When he wondered where it was and why I wasn’t using it, the ugly truth came out. He was disappointed, and I felt badly, but it was Nate who had the pen collection, not me.
I didn’t do much better in my gifting him. One year I arranged for his initials to be carved into a crystal paperweight. It would look dramatic on his desk and be dazzling when the sun hit it. His response included a smile and a thank you, but I could see I’d missed the mark. In actuality, it was me who had the glass collection and loved the paperweight.
Fifteen years later, we were chatting over a restaurant dinner when we learned we’d been giving gifts we’d wanted to receive. We laughed hard recounting some of our self-love gifts to each other, like the syrupy, romantic movies I’d given Nate, and the chocolates he’d given me when I was dieting. After that it was easy to give presents that were genuinely appreciated by first studying the other person’s likes and then choosing accordingly.
Both of us should have known this, since we’d memorized The Golden Rule in Sunday school. In other words, if I would delight in a glass-gift to add to my collection, I should know enough to give Nate a pen-gift for his collection, rather than a piece of glass.
When I was a teen, mom told me she was still learning new things about dad, to whom she’d been married for twenty years. At the time, I thought that was nonsense. After being married a while, I got it.
But there was one more step after learning something new about Nate. If I discounted it as unimportant because I didn’t feel the same as he did, the me-monster was still in charge. But when I set aside my opinion to honor Nate, our marriage moved up a notch on the happiness meter.
For example, I used to be frustrated when Nate would interrupt my report of the day with, “Bottom line?”
He meant, how about leaping over all those unnecessary words and giving me the end of the story. For me, the fun was in the telling. I used to think, “I know it’s hard for him to listen so long, but once he knows the details, he’ll be glad he heard them.” It was a shock to learn that wasn’t actually true. But the big question then was, how long did it take me to do what he wanted, to set aside the words and simply give him the bottom line? About fifteen years.
When love is in the house, it shouldn’t take that long.
“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)