Kari Tyree

I’ve tried everything: simple requests, bargaining, debating, reasoning, begging. Nothing will move my husband to dance with me at an event like a wedding. We have been to several in our nearly five years of marriage, so there have been many opportunities to try new strategies. Maybe this time, I’ll think. Maybe this time he’ll realize how much it would mean to me and he’ll give in. Usually this crazy thought is followed by some daydreaming about how fun it will be to get out there on the floor, all dressed up, and enjoy a slow dance or two with my love. Every time I bring it up, however, my hopes are silenced, like pretty music suddenly drowned out by the sound of a loud truck’s roaring engine. He absolutely refuses. He just will not do it. Why, I cannot fully comprehend. But there it is. He is the man I married.

Lest it sound as though my husband is never amenable to my requests, I should explain that most often he is perfectly happy to go along with doing things I enjoy, and to let me even take the lead in planning anniversary trips and such. Most of the time, he is not so immovable as on the dancing question. Dancing is one of two things I can think of on which he will not budge; the other is going to one of those “bring your own snacks and paint along with the instructor” classes.

Dealing with our completely opposite interests in the dancing matter is one thing, and I’m sure many lessons about disappointment, understanding, patience, and the like can be learned from it. But the more interesting point in all of this is the irony found in the fact that I, like many girls, I’m sure, always looked forward during my single days to the days when I would finally have a spouse to take with me to these dancing functions. It was always awkward without a dance partner who wasn’t A) a crush (embarrassing), B) a reluctant date (pathetic), or C) a family member (not quite the same thing). I remember consciously thinking about how nice it would be to have a built-in dance partner who was at once my romantic interest and my best friend.

As it turns out, all of my best chances for dancing and enjoying it, notwithstanding awkwardness, happened when I was single. I danced more then than I have since and than I maybe ever will again. I had the opportunities to attend and participate in English country dances (yes, as in Jane Austen); swing dancing classes, events, and performances; high school banquets and fundraisers; and weddings. Little did I know that in my pining for future married dancing bliss I had fallen prey to a mindset that was false – and the dancing dreams were just one specific instance of that mindset.

The mindset was this: an assumption that married life would be a certain way, and specifically a better way than I perceived my single state to be. What a mistake! Of course, marriage books warn you not to assume marriage will fix all your problems, because you and your spouse will be just as messed up together as you are individually. I knew this truth, but somehow I failed to apply it in all my thinking. I sometimes let myself feel sorry for my single self instead of enjoying and making the most of the time that I had with good friends and fun experiences. Hence my dancing dreams, which frankly were a form of idolatry and jealousy (idolizing marriage and envying those who had what I thought I wanted).

In reality, my spouse is both much less and much more than I assumed he would be when I imagined what dancing with him would be like. True, he won’t dance with me, but he will brush my hair, change the oil in my car, mow the lawn, and do the dishes. He will fight with me, but he will apologize when he is wrong and forgive me when I am wrong. He will raise children with me. God willing, he will grow old with me. He will be my first advocate and best critic. He will be my constant friend. We will laugh, cry (well, I cry, anyway), and converse deeply together. How thankful I am for him!

Marriage is not the answer to all of our problems; neither is singleness. But either is a good gift to be enjoyed in its proper season.