So when I first began talking to my husband about marriage, I wanted to see not what I could get from him, but where I could be of help to him.  There were a lot of people who thought that they knew my husband, but as I got closer to him, I realized that they didn’t know him at all.  One day in the midst of a conversation I said to him, “you have told me two opposing things.  What is true?  Who is the real you?”  He got really silent.  I talked to him longer, asking a series of questions, really listening to what he had to say and I told him, “From this day on, just do you.  Do what you want to do, make the choices that you want to make, and we will build our relationship from here.”  It has not been an easy road for either of us; he has been a real people pleaser, and that sometimes meant that I had to take the brunt of the criticism, dirty looks, catty comments and negativity resulting from his changes.  I would be lying to you if I said that I have not ever been resentful, angry, or slightly depressed.  However, the benefit has been that my husband is overall happier, he feels more confident, and has a brighter outlook on life.

The bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  I have laid down my life for my husband.  I realized my purpose in life is to help him live his life to the fullest.  I married him because he had a need for me in his life.  It was not about what job he held, how much money he had in the bank, if he would make pretty babies, or any other superficial thing.  I grow to love him more each day because each day he grows more and more to be the man that I need.  Through our life together, I grow more and more to be the wife that he needs.  He is quite and outgoing, I am loud and shy; together we have a balance that brings out the best in us.  When we have problems, we get together and talk over what we each are feeling, not what we each perceive that the other has done wrong.  We have not had an argument to date, and I hope that we never do.  We listen to each other, even when what the other person is saying is hard to hear.  Most of all, we compromise.  Compromise does not always mean 50/50, but it means we give and take. 

Most people marry for love, sex or money.  I married for purpose.  Physical love is fleeting and changing.  Sex will only be as good as the attraction and emotion connected to it. Money will come and go.  But purpose will never fully be completed, because purpose comes in levels.  The more I grow with and love my husband, the more I realize how much more I can be to him.  That is why I married my husband, because he gives my life purpose.