SIX SUGGESTIONS FOR WHEN YOU MISS YOUR MAN

“Miles and miles away, My Darling,” her smokey, dreamy voice breathes golden melancholy into my indigo evening. “But in the blue of morning the break of dawn has come / And I’m watching the horizon / Where yesterday has gone.”

My man is away, teaching two weeks in his cherished Antigua, Guatemala. It’s his birthday, he is sick, and I miss him. I miss his scent. Twenty-two years of marriage have brought us many such mini-separations. Necessity called him outward in ministry and me home to nurture our family. It is common, it is right for us, and it is, at times, painful.

Sometimes excruciating.

I vividly remember one specific night when, after tucking our young kids in, I sobbed into my pillow over the fears of how their daddy’s busyness might affect them and the loneliness I felt in the many mundane micro-decisions while he was gone.

“Days and days apart, My Darling
The city that stole your heart, My Darling.”

And I remember that night, passing through the stages from bawling to whimpering, finally washing up on the shore of serene acceptance: “Okay, God, I let go. Like Hannah handed her darling Samuel to You, I leave him in Your hands. But that means You better be the Father to these children. I will hold You to it.”

And He reminded me of the glorious call we both were honored to embrace. Countless times, I’ve given myself over to my Savior afresh, vowing to pay whatever price it would require, just to be in His will, in His Presence. While I envisioned strenuous trips to faraway places, His beautiful plan was that I, for a time, pour my life into the two, wonderful souls in front of me.
Whatever I would have done under different circumstances, others can do. My children only have one mother.

Many years later, I’m drinking the last drops of this season. When our youngest flies the coup next year, my man and I hope to embark on our golden years more hand in hand than life has yet allowed. Savoring these precious months with my daughter, knowing it will never ever be like this again, I am nonetheless aware of the decades-deep yearning to no longer be torn in my affections…

More than quiet ache, tonight’s throbbing is symbolic of the struggle to balance motherhood with marriage to a man with mammoth responsibility. Before I cross over into the next phase, I turn one more time and survey the treasures mined in the territory. I see the faces of younger, braver women moving in my direction, but still thick in the land I’m about to leave.

Whether or not their husbands travel geographically is not the point. This is for those who feel alone in their day-to-day world, raising their children, aware of the privilege of that high calling, embracing the weighty family structure that calls their husbands out, but still mourning the toll it seems to take on their marriage.

Assuming a good-willed, faithful man by their side, this is the experience I pass on:

REKINDLE YOUR ENTHUSIASM FOR YOUR CALLING.
Go back to the place of awe before your vision for this season became reality. Play the songs that inspired you then. Re-live the process that led to this point. Revisit the priorities you weighed then. Refocusing our eyes – from the small world inside our home and the smaller-still world inside our head to the magnificent purpose that called us there – transports us from the temporal to the eternal.

“And when it’s all about you, it’s very easy to get caught up in self-doubt (‘Am I really up to this? Will I be able to do it?’). But when you focus on a subject that’s important to you – … then chances are you’ll find yourself overtaken by enthusiasm. You’ll be energized, your voice will sound stronger, your hands will start gesturing, you’ll find your whole body moving as you warm to your task. You’ll lose your self-consciousness and be lost in the work itself.” (http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/2006/11/24/5-reasons-why-enthusiasm-is-better-than-confidence/)

2. FIRE THE IDEALS.
By far, the greatest threat to my enthusiasm has been external ideals. Appealingly presented
standards crafted by others pose as “the right way” – but they easily become unyielding task masters.

Think through how much of your discontentment may be rooted in what you think “should be” (my husband should help me more, romance me more, appreciate me more…”) and where those “shoulds” origin.

As much as we abhor how pornography can inflate men’s physical and visual expectations, we are prone to unashamedly allow movies and books to infest our souls with unrealistic emotional or practical appetites. It’s unfair to him, and nobody wins.

3. ENJOY HIM.
Because our time together is so sparse, we thoroughly treasure the moments when he is home. All else yields to that, and it is sweet. For us, retreating to the back yard and just relishing each other’s company is priceless.

I breathe in his scent, I just look at him and admire how time draws new line of wisdom and resilience in his face. Like good wine, he ages well. Learning to savor his essence rather than bringing him a laundry list of details transforms our moment from busy business-like interactions to an enclosed garden where we quietly grow into one entwined tree.

4. ENJOY THE ACTIVITIES YOU PUSH ASIDE FOR HIM.
Dancing wildly around the house to loud ABBA songs is a favorite for us. It’s just more fun and free without my man’s puzzled expression. Lighting every scented candle we can find (to which he is allergic) and watching endless episodes of Gillmore Girls is another pleasure best enjoyed in his absence.

What did you love to do with friends or alone before you met him? Cultivate that again, bring It into your current reality. Friends you normally can’t get to, projects waiting on the sidelines – or maybe just catching up on sleep. Even in the most physically draining years when the kids depended on me for everything, God highlighted little pockets of pleasure, especially for when Robert was gone.

5 ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER.
When even his time not traveling calls him away much more than we would like, begin to treat it like a long-distance relationship. View the distancing demands of this season like you would geographical distance: it’s not personal, and it can be romantic.

“According to a new study published by the Journal of Communication, couples in long distance relationships have more meaningful interactions than those who see each other on a daily basis, leading to higher levels of intimacy.

In an effort to keep the romance alive, couples will engage in more frequent communication and discuss deeper issues, such as love, trust and future plans.

Besides communication frequency, they also adapt their messages, for example, by focusing on more limited but relationally intense topics. The intimacy developed here is a psychological closeness – it doesn’t include physical or sexual intimacy.” (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/20/long-distance-relationships-2013/2568295/)

Send him notes as if he were in China, explore his experiences with him, and know that your holding down the fort at home enables him to venture out.

You are not the woman he fell in love with. You are much, much more now. As prone as I am to forget this in my own marriage, I have heard enough working husbands marvel over their wives to know – she never leaves his mind.

That said, his absence also reveals that he was never enough to satisfy your heart. There is a place only your Creator can touch, a thirst only His water quenches. It’s a gift to regularly rediscover this so that we allow the man we love to be our husband, not our god.

6. DEPEND DEEPER AND DEEPER ON GOD.
Undergirding all this is the trust that God is good and He will fight for you. Family and marriage are His idea. Even though his need to “work in the sweat of his face” and our desires for more from each other than we can deliver are products of the curse (Genesis 3), the eternal reality is that fighting for love in daily life is a visual of Christ and His church.

Into distracted humanity He keeps pleading, “But I love you! Keep the romance alive!”

When your heart is yearning for your man, take the thirst to Jesus. He gets it.
It is the hunger He gave you to remind you of your desperate need for the only Love that can satisfy your soul. “Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.”
(Isaiah 55:2)

Interwoven in His ways are that death brings resurrection. When it seems like your love life is buried under piles of laundry, or his attention under piles of papers, and you feel like you are dying from sheer monotony, know that new life will sprout from this.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John 12:24)

In the process, the Composer of your love song never leaves you. From these darker places, He draws melancholy tones in minor keys, adding a deeper, richer texture to your tone, creating a soundscape in your soul, more mesmerizing and majestic than an easy life could ever muster.

“Miles and miles away, My Darling”

As my heart reaches for my man, my Creator draws me in and sways with me while these rich, earthy tones blend with His voice….

“The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”
(Zephaniah 3:17)

“In Your justice and Your mercy
Heaven walked the broken road
Here to fight this sinner’s battle
Here to make my fall Your own

Turn my eyes to see Your face
As all my fears surrender
Hold my heart within this grace
Where burden turns to wonder

I will fight to follow
I will fight for love
Throw my life forever
Into the triumph of the Son”
(Hillsong United)