Thoughts on 15 Years of Wedded Bliss
Aaron Sharp | May 20, 2021
The President of the fundamentalist compound* where I graduated college was rather famous (or infamous depending on how you looked at it) on our campus for saying some of the most awkward things. I think he largely had a good heart, but when Dr. Stiles stepped to the podium and opened his mouth you could feel the entire auditorium bracing for impact. I once described his style of speaking to a new student by saying something along these lines, “It isn’t so much that he chases rabbits, it is that he has been dropped off in a field of rabbits and as he begins to chase one another one crosses his path so he follows it, and then it happens again and again until finally time is up and we all go to class.”
Over the course of my four years at the compound school there were a variety of verbal flubs from the University President that are still remembered. One of his most famous foibles was the day that a rather popular couple on campus got engaged. For some unknown reason they announced such things in chapel, and when it was announced a large percentage of the female portion of the student body said, “Ooooh.” Dr. Stiles responded by saying, “I don’t know why all the women are going oooh, it’s the men that get the goodies.” I don’t think it takes a lot of imagination to see how saying that in marriage, “men get the goodies” would take on a life of its own on a college campus.
Here I sit twenty-one years** after college graduation, and I still remember that story, but for the last fifteen years I have seen the evidence that, while it may have been a rather unfortunate turn of phrase, Dr. Stiles was indeed right in his assessment of marriage. I bring some things to the table in our marriage (like carrying heavy things and killing spiders), but were we to weigh contributions on a scale it would be quite obvious that I am the one “getting the goodies” here. Fifteen years ago today we said, “I do,” and for the a decade and a half now I have reaped the benefits of marrying out of my league. Most days I struggle to remember to do the things on the to-do list on my phone that is providing me regular reminders, meanwhile my lovely wife works a job (sometimes two, and occasionally even three!), is the homeschool point guard, stays on top of our finances, cooks, cleans, studies her Bible, prays for all of us, handles the family calendar,*** puts up with countless shenanigans by the quartet of Sharpnadoes and their father, and a thousand other things we probably don’t even realize.
As it turns out I’ve been the one getting the goodies for 15 years.
Love you babe!
Here’s to the next 15.
*Technically it was a university, but it was hard to tell the difference most days.
**Wait, that can’t be right, it can’t have been over two decades since I graduated from college. Hold on a minute. Okay, after consulting the calendar on my phone, and scrolling for an uncomfortable amount of time it has indeed been twenty-one years. No wonder I feel so old, I thought it was just dealing with the kids.
***This is a difficult job since the man she is related to by marriage has a bad habit of forgetting to put things on the family calendar. Love you babe!