Slow Fade

Photo Credit “The Examiner”: Andy Truschinski as Young Ebenezer and Jessie Mueller as Belle.

(This week, in honor of the season, I’ll be posting parallels between A Christmas Carol and the issues we discuss on this blog)

—

Slow Fade

I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion engrosses you. Have I not? – Belle to Young Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

“My wife thinks I’m a jerk,” lots of men say, “so she’s mad at me.”

Maybe, maybe not. Inarguably some men are jerks, their wives react, no mystery there. But lots of wives are angry or disappointed because they know their husband aren’t jerks. They know the man they married has integrity that he’s not using; discipline he’s not exercising; potential he’s ignoring. They expect more, knowing more is there, and they’re particularly mad to see that he doesn’t expect it of himself. Like Belle in Dickens Christmas Carol, they’re seeing their men do a slow fade, nobler aspirations falling by the wayside, from who they truly are into what they needn’t be.

In fact, when working with couples, I hear wives complain more often about their husband’s potential then their transgressions, because they knew what their men can be. They married men with qualities they fell in love with, real qualities, not just idealizations. So when they discover some secret sin that so ill suits the man, they remember how they were attracted to their husband’s character, a character they still believe in. So just because that he’s fallen short in that area, they’re not willing to abandon him or their assessment of him as being capable of better things.

There’s the rub, and I’ve come to believe it’s a God-ordained one. When God brings a wife to a man, he brings, among other things, a reminder of all the man can be in Christ. She sees a hero, both in fact and in progress, who she joins herself to saying, in essence, “I’m hitching my star to this guy’s wagon because I’m sold on both him and the direction he’s going.” And woe to the man – especially if it’s her man – who makes her reconsider that commitment, because if there’s any area of life she doesn’t want to regret, it’s her choice of a mate. No wonder, then, wives get so angry over their spouse’s wrongdoing. It’s an ager not just inspired by the guy’s badness, but by the inherent goodness he’s not seeing, protecting, living up to. If he was truly a jerk it would all be easier to take. But he’s not, so she won’t take it.

God forbid she ever does, because her perspective of her man’s potential may be the only accurate, God inspired one in the family. Men do give up on themselves, not necessarily in a suicidal way, but in a compromised one. It’s as though many of us say, “I’m sick of striving for character levels I never seem to reach, so why bother?” That’s when a wife’s insistent urging, often mistaken for nagging, spurs him to reconsider. She’ll be harsh with anyone suggesting her husband’s incapable of being all she knows he can be, even if the suggestion comes from the man himself.

No doubt some wives are simply the nit-picking, nagging, tearing-a-man-down-with-their-tongue types. But often, a woman’s harsh sounding complaint is really a plea – somewhat of a prayer, even – that the vision she had of her beloved not be lost. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall of one by one, she laments. But what’s fallen can be scooped up, replaced, re-valued and re-evaluated as being genuine and worthwhile. This Season may the perspective young women held of their mates so many years ago be re-ignited and embraced by the men whose nobler aspirations have dropped but can, thank God, be salvaged once and for all.