Erin Franco

My husband isn’t my girl friend

Humble Handmaid· Interior Life· Marriage

That’s probably a terrifically terrible title for this blog post, but if you read the post I think you’ll see what I mean.

Especially if you’re one of my girl friends. 🙂

I am married to my best friend. But he is a different kind of friend. Michael isn’t one of my girl friends–he’s my husband. I need to remember that more often. 

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” -Ephesians 5:25

“Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13 

The Bible tells husbands that they are supposed to give themselves up for their wives as Christ gave himself up for his Bride, the church. What a challenge and responsibility for husbands! I do know Michael would die for me without a second thought. In this sense, he is truly my best and most faithful friend. 
Also, none of my friends make me laugh as much as he does. 🙂
But Michael will never relate to me, empathize with me, and maybe even understand me in some ways, like my close girl friends do. I can’t expect him to think, act or speak to me like my girl friends. He just doesn’t work that way. In the end, it’s not fair to him for me to become bitter because I think he is supposed to somehow learn how to think, act and speak to me like my girlfriends.

Decades of a few very well-intentioned but terribly harmful tenets of feminism have trained our culture to think that men are the ones who need to figure us out. I wish I could pin all the blame on Michael when I don’t feel a strong connection of understanding and oneness with him on some topic or situation. I wish I could be rightfully upset because he doesn’t say things the way I want (and think I need) to hear them. Not that he and probably every other husband on earth couldn’t probably work on better communication in their marriage. As us wives probably could. 🙂

One thing about my girl friends is that I know they can see my heart and understand my intentions. I am always able to communicate effectively with them. Not so in marriage. Not that I don’t try my heart out to communicate and understand. Not that Michael doesn’t try his heart out to communicate and understand. It’s just that, even four years into our marriage, we are still learning. 

I think that we wives truly desire our husbands see our hearts. To see how hard we are trying to be good to them. 
And how much we just want them to be good to us. 
To see how much we have to give, and how much we do give. 
To see how much we love them and want to build a happy–and maybe a happier–life together. 
We need to look for their hearts, too, though. To see how hard they are truly trying to be good to us. 
And how much they just want us to be good to them. 
To see how much they have to give, and how much they do give to us and the family. 
To see how much they love us and want to build a happy life together. 
We want the same things. I think women just talk about it more. And write long rambling blog posts about it more. And talk to their girl friends about it more. 🙂 
I think that sometimes we forget that our marriage isn’t going to the dogs if we don’t feel a connection with our husbands about everything. I think that deciding what is most important, and working as a couple to agree and  move forward on those things, is where we should put in the most effort.

So there you have a few sweet musings from a still-newlywed of (almost) four years. I’m glad I will have this post to look back on in thirty years to laugh at myself. Little do I know, I’m sure! 

I hope my future self will see that I was really trying, though, to do this marriage thing well. I hope I see that I did the best I possibly could to be a good wife and a woman of God in this moment and in this level of my personal and spiritual maturity. 

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Comments

  1. Claritta says

    Hello 🙂
    I run into your blog accidently, and found this article that I truly enjoyed reading.
    It does explain the main root of problems between couples from our side in this sentence:
    " I wish I could be rightfully upset because he doesn't say things the way I want (and think I need) to hear them. "
    We have our expectations regarding what we want to hear from them, but we forget sometimes that they have a different way of thinking and a different perspective!

    Reply

  4. Sara Fontana says

    Erin, You and Michael are hitting the Bullseye in marriage! Your words are true and we reference and quote the exact video you posted in our book BULLSEYE MARRIAGE:Intentionally Targeting a Great Relationship. What's wonderful to witness is that couples like yourselves, Peter & Kristin and many of your friends are way beyond where Francis & I were when we began our marriage journey 31 years ago. Y'all know things and are working at your relationships at a deeper level far sooner than we did. Y'all will be able to take it so much further as you continue to work at it and enjoy practicing hitting the Bullseye each day! Here's to marriage!!!! And to husbands who are our best friends….not our girlfriends! Yeah God!

    Reply

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