Contemplations of a Young Wife, Second Part

Tears sting.

They hurt a whole lot more now that I know that they hurt someone else; namely, my sweet and adoring husband, who could throw two tons of bricks at me and still not get me to fall out of passionate love with him, much less try to forget him.

I know it comes with the territory, but I hate--hate--the fact that whatever I do and whatever I feel now affects Chris. He hurts with me, even when I suffer from inexplicable and once-personal feelings such as depression and self-deprecation (though, I suppose the latter doesn't count as a feeling). When he sees me crying, I can in turn see his empathy make the strong lines of his jaw and brow go rigid, and his eyes fall into some deep place of uncertainty; uncertainty of the right things to say, the right things to do...

His tears are simultaneously one of the most beautiful and the most unbearable things I know. Ah, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he treasures me, then.

And all I want to do, in between my tears, is tell him that I love him desperately, and just want him to be. I mean, in the end, I just want him to be happy. In my darkest moments, I ask, "Why me? Why would you choose me of any other woman you knew, of anyone you could have loved? Why me?" When I hurt you, my husband, it kills me, and I almost wish you away--away from me.

But, there's something else I know beyond the shadow of a doubt: That he and I were meant for one another, a couple sanctioned by and joined before God, created to be a team, and not islands forever incomplete. I think it would be presumptuous (just a bit, you think?) to tell God he made a mistake in uniting Chris and Jaimie Krycho.

Tears sting, but tears--even shared ones--are part of the grand process called life, and the equally grand one called marriage.