Song of Songs 7:9-10
She
May the wine go straight to my beloved,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.[o]
10 I belong to my beloved,
and his desire is for me.
My husband and I have been having the exact same argument for about 5 years. Well actually, it’s not even an argument. It is me getting upset at him because I start keeping score.
You see during the past 5 years I have repeatedly stripped bare – completely naked – in front of my husband. Not physically naked – but emotionally. I have shared parts of my life that I have shared with no one else. The parts that have held me captive and that I sometimes still struggle to be free from. Things that tear me up, or that fill me with remorse and regret. They are the memories that formed me and even though they no longer control me, it still feels vulnerable to share them.
The problem is, I don’t feel like my husband lays himself bare.
I remember trying to move conversation into a more intimate arena, and asking my husband, “What was one of your biggest struggles as a kid?” He immediately responded, “Why in the world would you ask something like that?” as if I was suggesting self inflected torture.
I know men are different. I do. But if intimacy is about getting to “know” each other, isn’t understanding what formed us and sharing childhood memories part of knowing each other?
I have this theory that the hardest thing men do is to fully share their struggles and that the hardest thing women do is to fully share their body during sex.
During my class I ask the mixer question, “When have you felt the closest to your husband?” Over and over I hear from women, “when he shares his struggles.” In many ways it is what wives crave, maybe because we crave to hear from our husbands hearts, rather than from their minds.
I am guessing that if I asked men the same question, many might answer, “when we have great sex.” In other words, when my wife freely shares her body, and expresses herself sexually.
I find it interesting that what our spouse most desires, is what is hardest for us. It is as if God is daring us, “Try to do this on your own, with all your might, or let go and depend on Me and together all things are possible.”
Now some people might think that it is unreasonable for me to expect my husband to share what is so vulnerable – after all he is a man. But just as I am stretching in sharing my body, my desire is that he stretches in sharing his emotions.
So what does all of this have to do with Song of Songs?
Whether or not my husband ever changes, I Belong to Him. I will continue to share myself – my struggles, my emotions, my body, my creativity, my words, and my sexuality. What I do is not in response to what he does. It is not tit for tat. It is not bartering. And even though I sometimes still struggle, it is not keeping score. I Belong to Him and I will continue to pour myself out to him and trust that what ever stretching my husband needs to do, will come in response to God, not me.
This Week –
1. How are you holding your husband hostage? How are you keeping score? Ask God to help you let go of it and repent to your husband.
2. Write your husband a love letter entitled, “I Belong to You”, and tell him all the ways that you desire to share yourself with him.
3. Take a step to stretch yourself in sharing your body during sex.
